Chapter 10
Ten
T he post coach taking them on part of their journey from London to Derbyshire was stifling and hot. Jessabelle had been unrelentingly furious with her brother throughout their travel but had at last ceased in her harangue to stare sullenly out the window.
For the thousandth time, Wickham began his apology to his sister. “Had I known that the glass was so important, I assure you?—”
“Please stop saying that,” Jessabelle snapped. “We both know you would wager our mother if you thought it would give you credit at the table.”
“Then pray do not foist upon me all your ill-gotten trinkets,” he retorted. “I have sins enough being made a thief!”
Jessabelle only sniffed haughtily at this.
“I believe the chance that Elizabeth Bennet will have discovered our secret with it is slim. Perhaps she and her relations did not even tour Pemberley, and if they did, I would hardly imagine the painting would draw such notice that she would examine it with the opera glass—if indeed she even brought it with her! That is the most likely circumstance of them all—that it rests happily in Hertfordshire while its mistress is away.”
Jessabelle was silent a moment, staring out the window, before she grudgingly conceded. “The chance she had the glass with her is very slim, and the likelihood that she both had it and employed it to see the painting is almost non-existent.”
“Decidedly non-existent!” Wickham warmed to his subject, seeing his sister had relented a bit. “And add to that the fact that the people of the surrounding villages unfailingly spread of the tales of Pemberley’s curse to anyone who will listen. Nothing will induce confession so much as a ban of silence! I am sure Miss Elizabeth Bennet and her party were properly frightened off.”
“You said she was the intrepid sort,” Jessabelle said, one eyebrow raised in a challenge.
“But her aunt and uncle are sensible people and unlikely to risk the life or health of their niece,” Wickham replied with confidence. “I was introduced to them during the Festive Season when they visited Hertfordshire. I assure you, no matter how courageous their niece might be, they would be unlikely to court danger. They have their own children to consider as well!”
Jessabelle smiled. “We shall go ourselves then, just to verify that Darcy remains unhappily ensconced in his pretty prison—and that he is alone, just as he is meant to be.”
“Go on,” Elizabeth urged, “put your weight into it.”
“You should do it to me . I do not want to hurt you.” He was so much larger, weighed so much more than she did…or did he? Did he weigh anything at all? Did she?
“We already know I can hurt your foot, now I want you to try to hurt mine,” she explained. “In the name of scientific investigation. Go on.”
After another brief hesitation, Darcy raised his foot, bringing it down on hers.
“Oh.”
“Did I hurt you?” he asked anxiously.
She shook her head, downcast. “I did not feel anything. Could you feel it?”
He nodded gravely. “Very well, in fact.”
“Try again. Harder this time.”
He shook his head, taking a small step back. “I will not harm you. There is no purpose to it.”
“But I want…” Elizabeth began to protest, but stopped almost as soon as she started. She hung her head, but within moments, she raised it once again, and without any warning, leant towards him and stamped his foot hard. Unable to do anything but react genuinely, Darcy cried out and stumbled backwards.
“You felt that!”
“Clearly.” He resisted the urge to rub his foot which even now throbbed dully.
“What can it mean?”
“I cannot say. Possibly nothing at all. ”
Elizabeth gave a frustrated little huff and reached for him, pinching his arm. “Do you feel that?”
“No. My arm is as lifeless as ever.” After a moment of contemplation, he added, “It could well be that my feet have had sensation all along. I hardly would have occasion to stamp on my own foot, and thus, I did not discover that they were not as benumbed as the rest of me.”
“Save for the fact that my own feet are quite unfeeling. In any case, you surely would have stubbed a toe or something of that sort.” She frowned. “Never mind that. My spirit will not falter. There is a way out of this predicament for both of us. Perhaps your feet are the beginning of it, and perhaps they are not, but nevertheless, we shall prevail. I am sure of it.”
“We shall,” Darcy agreed and determined that he must follow her good example and do what could be done to raise both of their flagging spirits. “I wonder, madam, if you will be so good as to accompany me on a stroll. Are you much in the habit of walking?”
The question caused a smile to break forth across her face. “I am very fond of a good ramble, too much so if my mother is to be believed.”
Darcy offered his arm, and if he could not feel her resting her hand daintily within his elbow, he could certainly see it. It was a charming sight. “Let us not delay. It will be a short walk, but we can repeat it as much as we would like.”
They began to walk down the long corridor of the stifled world which encompassed them. She would have seen it all before as she dashed about trying to escape, but now, he fancied she really saw it all. For whatever that was worth.
“So tell me about you,” Elizabeth said, looking about.
“Me? Um…I am a Darcy on my father’s side, of course, and connected to the Earl of Matlock on my mother’s. She was Lady Anne Fitzwilliam before her marriage.” With that, he began to relate the things most people used to ask him—clues as to his lineage and fortune.
Elizabeth did not permit him to go very far. “No, not all of that. Perhaps someday but now what I wish to know most of is you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you . What did you like to do before…before all this happened?”
How to tell her about himself? Darcy scarcely remembered what it was to talk and laugh with a young lady, much less how he had spent his time in his prior life.
He began by telling her of the usual things young gentleman do, but as they continued speaking, told her of silly things, things he could not have imagined telling another soul—how he sometimes used to look at his dogs and imagine what they would say to him if they could speak, or how he enjoyed sweets too much and if no one was looking, took four heaping spoonfuls of sugar in his tea.
“That is a lot!” she said with a laugh.
“I once ate almost an entire jar of jam. Happily, it was an indulgence which came with its own cure. I was ill for days. My poor mother had the apothecary here nearly incessantly, but of course, there was nothing to do for it. I would not confess what I had done, and the apothecary was entirely bewildered.”
“My mother would have loved it had I confessed to eating a jar of jam. My own misdeeds tended more towards hiding food. I used to despise meat pies, yet my mother gave them to us often. I took to hiding them in my father’s library, until the day he had every dog at Longbourn scratching at the door!”
“Your mother had firm views on what you should eat then?”
“She has always bemoaned my figure, thinking me too thin.” Elizabeth shrugged with a nonchalance that appeared feigned. “She is herself a beauty and always believed I would never marry until I could boast a more womanly shape.”
He was puzzled by that, thinking that he found her figure quite pleasing, but he had little time to consider it before she continued.
“What is your favourite smell?”
“My favourite smell?”
Elizabeth smiled wistfully. “If we are trapped here forever, I believe the smell I shall miss most is my father’s meadow after a summer storm, when everything smells as though it is freshened and renewed.”
“That is a good smell.” Thinking a moment longer, Darcy said, “Although it is not particularly a good smell, I must admit, I sometimes long to smell my horses again.”
“Horses!” She laughed. “That is a surprise. ”
“Saddle leather and the animal itself—it is the smell of complete freedom, of the thrill of a good hard gallop over the fields.”
“Oh yes, I can certainly understand that. I do not like much the smell of tobacco, but it reminds me of my dear father, so I do enjoy it. That and books…it is the smell of his study.”
“I love the smell of books,” Darcy agreed. “And gardenias. My mother smelt of gardenia.”
“My mother smells of smelling salts,” Elizabeth said drily. “I shall not miss that, I assure you.”
“Your mother is alive?”
“She is,” Elizabeth said with a little wince. “I should not speak so. I do love my mother.”
Darcy studied her, but she appeared as placid as he, the guise of contentment created by a painter’s brush. It was impossible to know what she truly felt. There was nothing to do but ask outright.
“Forgive me, but it seems there is some pain when you speak of your mother. Is that true?”
She paused for such a long time that Darcy began to think she would not reply.
At length, she told him all about her life at Longbourn. At the conclusion of her tale, she added, “I love my family very dearly, but at times it is difficult to respect them.”
He was appalled when she told him she was her mother’s least favourite daughter. “I am not so beautiful as Jane, nor as lively as Lydia,” she explained. “Kitty is frail and must be coddled, and Mary is, of us all, most accomplished. I, on the other hand, vex her with my impertinence and my tendency to be out of doors all the time. She does not understand me and tells me often that I am sure to end an old maid.”
“No one should know they are the least-liked of their sisters or brothers,” he exclaimed heatedly. “A mother’s love, at the very least, must be unconditional.”
“I have, at times, been jealous of my sisters or bitter towards my mother, but in the end, I know it has made me who I am. Perhaps I am made stronger for it. I do not know. What I do know is that nothing will ever be given to me on account of my beauty, so I must make up for it with my charm.”
“Elizabeth.” Darcy spoke with intensity, wishing her to believe in the words he would say. “You must know how beautiful you are.”
She looked down, her cheeks turning slightly pink, a blush in watercolours. “I did not tell you all of this to gain your sympathy or flattery.”
“I do not merely flatter you,” he insisted, covering her hand with his own. “I speak in full truth. You are one of the handsomest women I have ever seen, and I think your figure is…perfect.”
Her blush deepened as she shook her head slightly. “You are too…I am blushing!”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened as the realisation of her state came upon her. He could not deny himself the pleasure of reaching over with his fingertips and brushing along her cheek.
She turned a bit, facing him, and her eyes fixed on his face. “What do you feel?”
He stroked her cheek very gently. “The softest skin ever I have felt,” he told her softly. “Like the finest of silks but warm. Very lovely and warm.”
“I can feel you stroking my cheek,” she said in a voice of wonder. “I could not before. I had touched my own face before and felt nothing, but I feel your touch now.”
“Touch my face,” he urged. “I beg you.”
She raised her hand to his face, tentatively trailing her fingers along the contour of his jaw. “A bit rough,” she told him, “but not like canvas. I believe, sir, that you are in need of a shave.”
“A shave!” He was amazed. “I can scarcely recall what it is like to be shaved.”
Her fingers retraced his jaw, going up towards his ears, then grazing his side-whiskers before they wound into his curls. “Soft,” she murmured. “I did not think your hair would be so soft.”
He mimicked her actions, touching the curls at her temples, and then moving around to caress the nape of her neck where similar curls lay. “Yours are, too, but I had every expectation of that.”
Her eyes rose to meet his, and if he did not fool himself, they did not look quite so blank. There was a clear question in her eyes that he could perceive. One hand dropped to rest on his chest while the other continued to caress the side of his head.
Elizabeth had enraptured him in a trice. Having been so long devoid of any human contact, to feel himself in the arms of a beautiful woman made him feel drunk with happiness. He was filled with urges which were distinctly not that of a gentleman, but he could not stop himself, not just yet.
As she watched his face, he allowed his fingers to run over the backs of her arms, using her elbows to pull her one step closer to him. Again, she stepped on his foot, and again he felt the pleasing weight of her foot on his own. She did not remove it, choosing to remain linked to him in that manner, but his proximity caused her to shiver slightly.
“You shivered before,” he observed, his voice low. “I believe it was a fear, something inside of you which made you shiver. What now? Is the chill inside you this time? Or does it come from somewhere else?”
“Both,” she said. “Mr Darcy, I…”
He waited, finally asking, “What is it? What would you like to say?”
“I have never felt this way,” Elizabeth admitted with a small smile. “These feelings, being here with you—it is more than I have ever known. Ironic, is it not?”
Her eyes remained questioning, but there was an innocence therein that arrested him. He spoke without thinking, “Your presence has turned this hell into heaven.”
Their gazes locked, and neither moved until at last she drew a determined breath and said, “I think we should…we should continue walking.”