Chapter 4
NOT SO VERY WRETCHED
Dancing with a viscount, Elizabeth thought to herself. That was something one did not do at the assemblies in Meryton.
“You might expect all the other ladies to stare daggers at you,” he informed her as he escorted her into the forming set. “I do not do this often.”
“You do not often dance?”
“Oh no, I always dance. But I generally ask people to dance in order of rank. Dukes’ daughters first—get that out of the way, for they are uniformly unattractive—then the marquesses’, then the earls’.
The night has generally ended before I arrive at the gentlemen’s daughters.
” He paused a moment. “You are a gentleman’s daughter, yes? ”
Elizabeth hid a smile as she said, “No indeed. My father is the town drunk, my lord, and we are presently encamped in a stable.”
Lord Saye barked a loud laugh.
“But I wonder that you have revised your scheme for me, your lordship? After all, we scarcely know one another.”
“That is woefully true,” he acknowledged. “But Darcy has never done this before, so naturally I am keen to know more.”
“Mr Darcy has never held a ball before?”
The dance was fast, and they were required to skip down the line before Lord Saye replied, “Not to my remembrance he has not. Darcy scarcely wants to attend balls, much less host one. My mother thought she had not heard him aright when he asked her to play hostess.”
“Perhaps he wishes to be more prominent in the forthcoming Season.”
“That is decidedly not the case,” Lord Saye replied. “But the vagaries of Darcy will never be comprehended, I assure you of that. Just when you think he should zig, he zags.”
Elizabeth laughed, thinking that was surely true.
“Now, I know he considers you the handsomest woman of his acquaintance, but—”
Elizabeth again laughed, this time more loudly. “My lord, that is decidedly untrue.”
“It is absolutely true. He just said it to me.”
“I cannot believe that. Perhaps he spoke in jest,” she said.
“I do not think so. He seemed more vexed than teasing. In any case, why would he open the ball with a woman he thought unhandsome?”
“Well…by your own admission you just told me you did. The dukes’ daughters?” She tilted her head at him.
“You got me at that! Too right!” Lord Saye laughed. “But Darcy would do no such thing, I assure you. He is accustomed to acting in a way to suit himself, and if he danced the first with you it is for one reason only—because he wished to. I think…”
He paused for a moment, and by his demeanour, Elizabeth knew it was purely for theatrical effect.
“I think he loves you.”
Elizabeth wanted to laugh but found she could not. To imagine herself the romantic object of such a man as Mr Darcy!
They went on to more mundane subjects after that, and in the midst of those, Mr Darcy returned to his ballroom, seeming harried. He behaved very strangely, watching her and yet jerking his gaze away at any time their eyes met. She found herself peculiarly provoked by it.
Do not be run away by this undeniably flattering notion, she counselled herself. Yes, he said he thought you clever and evidently told his cousin he thought you pretty. Do not forget what you really know of him.
And yet all her evidence of black-heartedness seemed to have been answered for.
Despised her family? No, not all of them.
Scorned some of them? The ones who deserved it, yes, he did.
Argued all the time? Evidently not. A testament to how he thought her clever.
His insult? Apparently he had since reconsidered his opinion.
Cruel to Wickham, she reminded herself. Judged Jane unfairly and in so doing ruined all possibility of happiness for her. For those two things she could not acquit him.
Would those two things prohibit her forming any attachment to him? Yes, she decided. Yes they would.
Lord Saye was escorting her back to her relatives when Mr Darcy arrived beside them. “Miss Elizabeth, I wonder whether I might speak to you?”
“Absolutely,” said Lord Saye. “Speak! We are all ears, are we not, Miss Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth found herself almost enchanted by the look in Mr Darcy’s eyes. He had never before seemed so fervent, and she was speechless in the face of it.
“Alone,” he said softly. “As in, go away, Saye.”
“Alone? Unchaperoned? I could not countenance it,” Lord Saye replied, but a look from Mr Darcy and he quit his torment. “Very well, but do not say I did not warn you.” With that he surrendered her to Mr Darcy’s care.
“There is a little antechamber over there,” he said, gesturing towards it. “We shall remain in view of the party but have some privacy.”
Elizabeth took the arm he offered her and laughed, a little uneasily. “Do we require privacy?”
He only gave her a look then, a look that sent flutters into her belly. She swallowed hard and said nothing else as she allowed him to lead her thither. It was a vast relief when a footman passed bearing glasses of wine; she would at least have something to do with her hands.
They arrived in the antechamber and he stopped, then turned to face her. She glanced back over her shoulder into the room they had only just left; it did not seem anyone was paying them any mind.
When she turned back to him, he began to speak, the words veritably spilling out of him. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you and wish, above all things, for you to be my wife.”
“Your wife,” she echoed faintly.
He nodded, very earnestly. “I cannot deny I have struggled against it, but such struggles have been in vain. My feelings for you cannot be repressed. Nor do I wish to repress them.”
Another time, she might have taken great offence to the notion that he had struggled against liking her.
But here, in his home, in his world, she understood it better.
Another glance over her shoulder showed it: the elevated personages who might have daughters that wished for his addresses.
The ladies of large fortune who sought to tempt him.
His own father had married the daughter of an earl, and no doubt he was expected to do the same.
“Mr Darcy…sir. I, um… Clearly I have understood our acquaintance…differently…from you. I believed you argued with me to-to put me in my place, so to speak.”
“Not at all.”
“But those arguments, in addition to your initial insult of me at the assembly in October—”
He winced. “I was prodigiously rude to you, and for that I can only offer my deepest regrets. I think you are beautiful, Elizabeth, by far the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
“Oh, well. Yes, thank you. But I did not mean to mention it save to say that for most of our initial acquaintance in the autumn I had thought you…rather…well, black-hearted, and then when I heard of your very shocking treatment of Mr Wickham, it, well, um, it formed a belief within me of what sort of man you are.”
“I see.” He took a small, measured sip of his wine. “I cannot deny that my treatment of Mr Wickham has indeed been exceedingly shocking. I beg you would tell me, though, which part of it do you find the most surprising?”
“Excuse me?”
“I only wonder which part of the tale surprises you the most? Is it the part where I gave him three thousand pounds in lieu of the living my father promised him? I did that on his request, you see, shortly after he declared he had no intention to take orders.”
“Oh?” Elizabeth said in confusion. “But he said—”
“Or was it the part where I refrained from running him through when he—” Mr Darcy cast a quick look into the ballroom behind her and lowered his voice considerably, “—attempted to persuade my fifteen-year-old sister to an elopement? That was indeed shocking, even to me. To this day I wonder at my own forbearance.”
She gasped. “Your sister?”
“She was not the first heiress he had made such an attempt on.”
“Nor was she the last,” Elizabeth said faintly, thinking of Miss Mary King, a recent heiress in Hertfordshire and the present object of Mr Wickham’s affection.
Mr Darcy nodded soberly and quickly told Elizabeth what had happened to his young sister.
It disgusted her, both her understanding of Mr Wickham’s true character and her own unreserved belief in him.
Not for a moment could she doubt Mr Darcy; whatever else might be said, his honesty she acknowledged as unimpeachable, particularly in a matter so important as his own sister’s reputation.
“Should you have any doubt as to the veracity of—”
She interrupted him immediately. “No, no, of course not. How could I doubt you in this? I am only thinking what a fool I have been!”
Scenes of Mr Wickham ran through her mind: how he said he would not impugn Mr Darcy then proceeded to do just that; how he transferred his affections so quickly to Miss King once she had inherited money; how whispers of debts of honour were circling about Meryton.
“Sir, I beg you would forgive me, for it seems I have judged you most unfairly, and I would not like to let it stand when I have done such a thing. But you, sir, have done likewise, have you not?”
“How do you mean?” He looked truly surprised.
“I refer to your judgment of Jane and her sentiments,” she said heatedly.
“Truly, sir, no matter what my own feelings towards you have been, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?”