Chapter Eight #2
Elizabeth allowed the footman to hand her into the carriage.
She was pleased to be out of the house at last. Her aunt, who was feeling better this morning, had nearly pushed her out, claiming she was underfoot.
Elizabeth had sent out her post, including the business of opening the Kensington house for residence a month earlier than planned.
Most of the servants had been pleased at the prospect of earning additional wages, and her housekeeper had started the cleaning with the family rooms. She would tell John that she was leaving, but she would do so when he had no opportunity to stop her.
With her removal from St. James’s Square discreetly underway, she had sent a note to Amanda and had the pleasure of a nearly immediate response: “Yes, you must come in the morning!”
Elizabeth glanced out the window to the corner and saw a young man holding a newspaper, every so often glancing across the street.
Was he waiting for someone? He caught her watching him just as another man walked past; he turned to follow.
Was that the man he had intended to meet?
Or was he running away? She closed her eyes to try to memorize his looks.
Dark hair, probably dark eyes, straight nose—it was difficult to see more from such a distance.
Shorter than Mr. Darcy, about Mr. Fitzwilliam’s height, dressed respectably but not richly.
The carriage began to move, headed in the opposite direction, and she allowed herself to set aside her curiosity to enjoy the pleasant anticipation of meeting a friend.
Amanda engulfed Elizabeth in a fierce embrace. “Elizabeth!” she cried, “It is so good to see you!”
Miss Amanda Cooke was a young woman who stood barely five-feet tall.
Her slender waist and fine bone structure often left Elizabeth feeling not unlike a lumbering giantess.
But it took no time at all for one to dismiss her friend’s diminutive size, for in her fragile frame resided a martial spirit inherited from her family.
“I have missed you, Amanda,” Elizabeth replied, holding her friend tightly.
“Is not your Aunt Russell with you today?” her friend asked when they released one another. “I have missed her as well.”
“Am I to be thrown over so quickly?” Elizabeth teased, then grew more serious. “Aunt Olivia wished to speak to my cousin and was pleased to have me gone, I think.”
There was a definite sparkle in Amanda’s brown eyes as she asked, “Is His Grace in trouble? Or are you?”
Elizabeth smiled a little but did not answer.
“My goodness,” Amanda said good-naturedly, shaking her head in disbelief. “You have only been in town a few days! What have you done to put your aunt into high dudgeon so quickly?”
“Me?” Elizabeth cried, feigning offense. “Why do you immediately assume I am the one in trouble?”
Amanda winked at her. “Have you again stolen His Grace’s letters to draw upon?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I was ten, and I thought they were in a stack to be burnt!” She laughed. “I am sorry I ever told you that story. I am still not convinced John has forgiven me.”
“Well, he did have to appear with them in the House of Lords,” Amanda pointed out.
“He did,” Elizabeth recounted. “And he was told that whoever had drawn on his speech had improved it tenfold.”
Amanda laughed and clapped her hands together. “Oh, I am so happy you have come. We shall have such a good time this season, all of us together.”
“I did have something serious to discuss with you first,” Elizabeth said, coming to the point. “I mentioned it in my letter…”
“Oh, the rumors about your uncle?” Amanda waved a small hand in the air.
“I brought it up at dinner last night and Penny’s grandfather remembered when the news was all over the ton.
He was tickled to have the entire company’s attention for once.
I believe his words were, ‘There is no new thing under the sun.’” She gave Elizabeth a wicked smile.
“I daresay there is a letter on its way to Sophia even now—and you know her influence among the gossips is vast. It shall take time, my dear, but we will set things to rights.”
Elizabeth squeezed her friend’s hand. “My uncle was a good man. It is painful to see his name attacked, and you know these stories never disappear entirely.”
“I know,” Amanda said, all sympathy, “but we will do our best for him.”
They sat in companionable silence for a moment before Amanda seemed to shake herself. “Let us speak of happier things, yes? I have someone I wish for you to meet.”
“Not for me, surely,” Elizabeth said warily.
Amanda laughed gaily. “No, you distrustful thing, for me.”
“Truly?” Elizabeth asked, pleased. Amanda had been pursued by several different suitors in the years she had been out, but she had never shown a marked preference for one. “Does this someone have a name?”
“Captain Farrington of the Royal Horse Artillery.” She glanced away, and her cheeks pinked.
“I see you favor the man,” Elizabeth replied, elated to see her friend so affected. “You have had time enough in society to know your mind.” She gave Amanda a grin. “And you have always preferred military men.” She narrowed her eyes. “Though I did expect you to be loyal to the Navy.”
Amanda grabbed a pillow from the chair next her and slapped Elizabeth’s arm with it. Then she held it against her stomach and toyed with the fringe. “I do like him, Elizabeth, very much indeed. But he has not indicated whether he shall offer for me. I must not lose my head.”
“Or your heart,” Elizabeth warned. She leaned over to nudge Amanda’s shoulder with her own. “I suspect that he will reveal his intentions in short order. No man who desired your hand would wish to spend the season watching other men compete for your attentions.”
“I should hope not,” Amanda said stoutly. “I am not one to loll about, waiting for a man to make up his mind.”
Elizabeth smiled. “And he would not be the man for you were he to behave in such a way.”
Amanda peered into Elizabeth’s face. “You sound as though you have had some experience with a suitor of your own since I spoke with you last,” she said with a sort of friendly suspicion. “You know that you must tell me all.”
Elizabeth glanced around the room. It was just the two of them. There were no servants here, for they had wanted a long visit to catch up, and Amanda had decidedly banished them all.
“Very well,” she said. “But while my father and aunt have consented, it has not been announced. It must remain between us for now.”
“And Penny and Sophia,” Amanda added gaily.
Of course. What one knows… Elizabeth shook her head, but she was pleased. “Yes. My sisters, my parents, Aunt Olivia, John and Francis, you, me, Penny, and Sophia. And of course, Mr. Darcy and his cousin. Oh, and Jane’s Mr. Bingley.” She grinned. “But no one else!”
Amanda giggled. “You have my word.” She gazed at Elizabeth with an expectant expression.
Elizabeth gathered her thoughts. “Do you recall that I mentioned Georgiana’s brother had come to stay at an estate near my father’s?”
“You never did tell us where that was, precisely,” Amanda reminded her.
“My aunt asked me not to—but regardless, do you recall?”
“Of course.” Amanda’s eyes grew large. “No… not Mr. Darcy!”
Elizabeth nodded silently.
Amanda’s mouth opened, then closed. “Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, of Pemberley in Derbyshire and heaven knows what else?”
Elizabeth nodded again.
“You sly thing—you never breathed a word but to say he was nearby!” Amanda’s expression was almost comical, a cross between disbelief and glee.
“I did not wish to speak out of turn.”
Amanda ignored the demurral. “Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy,” she repeated, “the man who has been relentlessly pursued by countless women of the ton for years, even if they are already married? Who has been fawned over by practically every mother with an eligible daughter? The same man who has tried his level best to hide in every ballroom I have ever had the luck to see him in? That Mr. Darcy?”
“That Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth confirmed.
Amanda grasped Elizabeth’s wrist. “How many times have you drawn your Mr. Darcy?”
Elizabeth blushed. “Do you mean all together or just this week?”
Amanda’s dark eyes widened and she slapped a hand over her mouth before she was overtaken by gales of laughter.
“Are you ready, Aunt?” Elizabeth asked, offering her arm. Aunt Olivia took it and nodded.
“I have long wished to return to Kensington, my dear,” she said. “It was Phillip’s last gift to us.”
Elizabeth felt her heart contract a bit at the sentiment. “Fortunately, the day is not too cold for December, and it is not so very far.”
“I believe I can sit in a carriage to Kensington,” her aunt said with a soft smile. “It is a shorter distance than your walk to Netherfield.”
A footman gave them a worried, dubious look as he handed each woman up into the carriage. They settled on the seat and Elizabeth bent to adjust her aunt’s wrap. Aunt Olivia stilled Elizabeth’s hand. “I am not a child, Lizzy.” She drew her cloak around herself.
Elizabeth suppressed a smile. She glanced idly out of her window and spied the same man standing at the corner of the park.
She had seen him once before—she felt it odd that he was here again, but after all, the square was a busy place.
He might have regular business in the area.
He was reading a folded newspaper, like before, but when he looked up, Elizabeth was ready to trace his features.
She noted the light and the shadow, a small mark near his eye, the tightness of his jaw, as though he was angry.
The lines around his eyes that denoted laughter were somehow at variance with the calculating smile that disappeared the moment he turned his head to greet a lady walking past. Elizabeth drew it all in her mind before the Russell carriage pulled away, rattling over the stony street. She settled back in her seat.