Chapter Six
Darcy struck the door once more with the flat of his hand and called for assistance, though he had little expectation of being heard.
The music from the ballroom reached them as a distant throb through the stone ceiling, and beyond the door the lower passages would be filled with servants noisily carrying trays between the kitchens and the rooms above.
Rosings was normally a quiet house, echoing and empty, but tonight the chaos of the ball was unhelpful to their cause.
He tried the handle again, more to avoid turning around than from any real belief that it might suddenly spring open.
Behind him, Elizabeth gave a long sigh. Darcy rested his forehead briefly against the door.
He had imagined many possible scenarios for the evening.
Most involved Elizabeth refusing to speak to him or giving him the cut direct.
A few fanciful ones included them dancing and her eyes finding his, soft and teasing.
One, which had seen him wake in the middle of the night, heart pounding, had ended with a long, lingering kiss upon the terrace, her hands twisted in his hair.
Not one had involved being trapped in a cold, dark wine cellar.
"You may pull upon it until morning, Mr Darcy," she said. "You will do no good."
He turned slowly. "I must find some solution. You may catch a chill, and then there is the matter of your reputation."
Elizabeth did not answer. She merely gave a small shrug and ran one finger absently along the row of bottles beside her.
The slow movement held Darcy’s attention far longer than it ought to have done.
He imagined that light, idle touch tracing over his chest and tried desperately to push that thought away.
"I should not have spoken as I did," he said. "I knew the words were wrong as soon as I heard them."
"Then we are agreed upon something."
"I did not mean that your sister’s feelings were shallow or that the connection was unimportant. I will visit Bingley and…"
She opened her mouth as though to offer a retort, then shut it again firmly.
"You know, Mr Darcy, I find myself quite tired of disagreeing with you.
Once I leave the vicarage and return to Hertfordshire, it is likely we shall never meet again, or so seldom that it will scarcely matter.
" She swallowed and lowered her gaze to the floor, saying nothing for a long moment before looking up with a bright smile that looked a little forced.
"So perhaps, while we are considering how to escape, we might attempt some pleasant, idle conversation instead.
Let us imagine we are taking tea in a very ordinary drawing room. "
She slipped the shawl from her shoulders, folded it carefully and placed it upon the floor before lowering herself onto it. "Only instead of tea, we shall have wine, and instead of a well-appointed settee or armchair, I suppose we must make do with this, erm, charmingly rustic stone floor."
Darcy stared at her. "You cannot mean that. It would be irresponsible, not to mention theft."
Elizabeth looked up at him and held his gaze, a playful challenge in her expression. Darcy attempted to remain unmoved. He placed his hands firmly behind his back and summoned the sternest look he could manage, but his resistance had already begun to crumble.
"We cannot. We should not. I will not."
She continued to look at him. Darcy held her gaze for several seconds longer, though by then they both knew his resistance had failed.
"A very small quantity," he said at last. "The equivalent of a glass each, and no more. By the time the party begins to disperse, the passage may be quiet enough for a servant to hear us."
"What real harm could come of a little wine between civil acquaintances?" Elizabeth asked innocently.
Darcy would later reflect that he ought to have recognised the danger in the question.
Elizabeth disliked the first bottle very much.
After one cautious mouthful, she pulled a face and informed him that it tasted like furniture polish.
Darcy laughed before he could prevent himself, trying belatedly to turn the sound into a cough.
But when she immediately reached for another bottle, he recovered enough to remind her that they had agreed upon the equivalent of one glass each.
It was bad enough that they had to swig it out of the bottle like sailors.
Elizabeth replied that he was the only one to agree to any such thing. She then took great pleasure in informing him that he possessed no authority over her and that, unless he assisted her in choosing something more drinkable, she would be forced to turn her attention to the French brandy.
Darcy looked from her determined expression to the crates occupying the corner of the room. He had no doubt she was serious. "Very well," he said. "We shall taste one more bottle."
The second bottle proved less offensive. She took a mouthful before passing it back to him, and Darcy became uncomfortably aware that he was drinking from the same place her lips had touched. He tried not to look at the red stain that now marked her full bottom lip and failed entirely.
"So," she said, settling upon her folded shawl, "if we are to pretend this is an ordinary tea, you must provide some ordinary conversation."
Darcy shifted his position on the floor, extending his long legs in front of him and trying to get comfortable. He was painfully aware of her nearness and when she reached out to lay a hand on his arm, he froze.
"Come, there must be some subject you can speak on without being disagreeable."
He looked at her seriously over the neck of the bottle. "You have set me a difficult challenge."
Her smile widened. "Then begin with something simple. Were you always so serious or is that one of the conditions of being master of Pemberley?"
Darcy considered the question before answering. "I was not a solemn child, though rather shy I suppose."
Elizabeth regarded him with open disbelief. "I cannot picture you as anything other than a very small gentleman with a very severe countenance and a tendency to correct the behaviour of others."
"Fitzwilliam and I once stole an entire plate of biscuits intended for one of my aunt’s guests and fled through these passages to escape her. She pursued us through the house with a slipper in hand while Fitzwilliam scattered crumbs behind us, making it difficult to conceal our role in the crime."
Elizabeth threw back her head and laughed, and the sound was so free and unrestrained that Darcy could only stare at her in open delight.
The conversation and the wine flowed from there and, as his thoughts grew increasingly hazy, his world narrowed pleasantly to the sole purpose of hearing that sound repeated.
He laughed more than he could ever remember doing and, as their conversation wandered from childhood escapades to books and nature, he felt as if he were wandering somewhere between reality and a particularly pleasant dream.
The dream deteriorated when Elizabeth lifted the bottle and affected a severe if somewhat hazy glare and announced that he was without any exception the worst proposer in England.
Darcy protested this was surely an exaggeration, which only encouraged her.
She pushed herself to her feet and proceeded to reenact the proposal with a degree of hauteur he felt both wildly inaccurate and offensive, informing an imaginary Elizabeth that his superior breeding, magnificent estate and general excellence had all proved unequal to the unfortunate business of finding her tolerable.
"I said nothing remotely resembling that," he grumbled, although he felt flickers of humour now mingling with the pain that had plagued him over the preceding hours and days.
"It was a general overview. The wording may not have been exact, but I most certainly caught the flavour of your speech and manner."
She then informed him, with the deep seriousness of someone quite far in their cups, that he was in desperate need of feminine wisdom.
Chief among her recommendations was that, when asking a woman to marry him, he ought to avoid insulting her family and make some effort to look as though he actually wished to marry her.
Before Darcy quite understood what she intended, she had pulled him to his feet, taken hold of his shoulders and begun arranging him. His mind went pleasantly blank as she stood very close to him.
"Stand properly. No, not like that. You look as though you are going to inform me that the rent is overdue. Think of the great romantic heroes, Romeo, Tristan, Lancelot. That is the effect we are attempting."
She planted one hand against his chest and nudged him backwards, then immediately caught hold of his waistcoat and pulled him forwards again.
"Too stiff." Her fingers moved to his shoulders, then his collar, making minute adjustments to Darcy’s person that caused every sinew to vibrate.
He stood obediently beneath her hands while she frowned over her work, painfully conscious of every place she touched him.
"Now look like a man in love."
Darcy stared at her.
Elizabeth frowned, then took his face between her hands. "There. That is precisely the problem. You look as though the requirement to marry has been imposed upon you by Parliament. Try to appear as if you actually want the lady to say yes."
Her hands were warm against his face, her thumbs resting just beneath his cheekbones, and she was so close that he could see the hazel flecks in her dark eyes. Wanting her required no acting at all. His gaze dropped to her mouth.