Chapter Eleven
Elizabeth breathed deeply of the early morning air.
She’d dressed quietly in the room she shared with Jane, then gone down before anyone, save her father, was awake, and slipped from the house.
She required time alone with her thoughts.
Solitude she’d been unable to obtain the previous afternoon upon returning to Longbourn after the incident in Meryton, having never gone to visit Aunt Phillips.
Even the truncated version of events Elizabeth and Charlotte provided had sent Mrs. Bennet into a fit of nerves.
Lady Lucas, still at Longbourn upon Elizabeth and Charlotte’s return, had gathered her daughters after hearing the tale, obviously intent on pursuing more gossip.
She would have found no difficulty there. The whole village was abuzz.
In their retelling, Elizabeth and Charlotte had, by mutual accord, made no mention of Miss Bingley’s statement that Mr. Darcy was under threat of abduction.
Elizabeth did not know if Charlotte would tell her parents.
She and Charlotte had both agreed that a certain amount of discretion was required, and neither Sir William nor Lady Lucas were known for such.
Nor was Mrs. Bennet. Elizabeth might tell her father, to seek his advice on whether the village knowing the threat to Mr. Darcy would be wise, but she had not yet decided.
Before acting she must contemplate the matter fully, and neither the afternoon before nor the long night had provided the opportunity.
Her afternoon had been full of clamor, and bedtime, normally quiet, of Jane’s questions about Charlotte walking with Mr. Bingley.
These had continued, relentless, despite Elizabeth passing along Charlotte’s reassurance.
And Elizabeth’s night…her sleep overflowed with half-dreamed images of the tall colonel who had appeared among them.
Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam. A man who, at a glance, embodied everything an officer should.
Tall, handsome, and reserved, with intelligent, shadowed eyes.
In her dreams, he whispered of the source of those shadows, and she murmured reassurances to banish them, but upon waking, she could not recall what her dream-colonel had said.
Now, in the early morning light, her feet took her along familiar trails, her thoughts tumbling and her breath in cottony puffs before her.
How odd Mr. Darcy had seemed in the midst of the crisis.
He had not faltered or squawked about his importance.
Nor had he balked from going into an alleyway to seek the source of that cry.
He’d seemed almost eager to enter the darkness alongside the inn.
And the way he’d overseen the march of his would-be abductors to the magistrate’s office…
He’d seemed like a different man from the supercilious one who’d walked the assembly hall belittling all of Meryton.
Then came the conundrum of Colonel Fitzwilliam, arriving in Mr. Darcy’s carriage and with his sister.
Why was the colonel, a cousin, caring for Mr. Darcy’s sister?
Because of the threat to Mr. Darcy? And how old was the girl, to be asleep in a carriage?
Should she not have a mother, or at the least some sort of nursemaid or companion? Why a grown male cousin?
And why had the newly arrived colonel been so shocked to see both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley? For Elizabeth had read surprise on his face.
Or was the surprise at finding Mr. Darcy with Mr. Bingley?
She sought back, trying to pinpoint who had seen what, and when.
Everything had taken place rather quickly, and in rapid succession, and all she had observed jumbled together in her mind: Would be abductors.
Mr. Bingley’s face white with strain. Miss Bingley’s whispered confession.
Mr. Darcy’s suddenly commanding demeanor.
The arrival of a tall, serious colonel who had a strong jaw, dark hair, and even darker, tormented eyes.
Elizabeth let out a sigh, the air before her clouding. The wind gusted, scattering the puff of her breath and bringing a hand up to check that the ribbons on her bonnet were tightly tied.
Movement caught her attention and she turned to take in a rider on the other side of the field that spread out beside her, the soil dark and turned under so late in autumn.
She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the still low sun and realized she stood on Netherfield Park’s land.
While her thoughts were occupied by the afternoon before, her legs had taken her down the oft-trodden trails.
If she carried on, she would soon be atop the low hill that offered a fine view of Netherfield’s manor house.
Something she’d never considered a transgression when the house stood empty, but which now seemed like spying.
The figure on the horse raised an arm in greeting, angling to meet her.
Even from a distance, and even though she had met him but once, and briefly at that, she knew Colonel Fitzwilliam rode the large bay that crossed the field, drawing ever nearer.
There existed something about how well he sat his horse, the exacting correctness of his posture, his broad shoulders clad in somber black, that she could not mistake.
Anticipation swirled in her gut.
He drew up a few yards away, rather than charging up to her as Charlotte’s brothers or young Mr. Goulding would have.
Instead, Colonel Fitzwilliam halted at a safe, responsible distance and swung effortlessly from the saddle.
He adjusted the reins, then walked his mount over at a careful pace, with an eye for the plowed under earth.
Apparently, the tall colonel was not one to endanger woman or beast.
Reaching her, he bowed. “Miss Bennet.”
The man had no right to be so devastatingly handsome and an officer. A flutter went through Elizabeth and it was all she could do not to look up at him through her lashes as she dipped, as Lydia or Kitty surely would. “Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
His left eye twitched.
Elizabeth tipped her head, studying the seriousness of his expression. “You do not care to be reminded of your rank, sir?”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “I did not realize I wear my feelings so openly.” Behind him, a stray gust carried a whirl of leaves across the field, red, orange, brown, and yellow dancing gaily on the breeze.
“Perhaps I am simply a student of such things.” Or perhaps she was a rapidly learning student of this man. “And I apologize. My question was overly bold. We are hardly acquainted.”
He raised his gaze from her face, looking past her, his eyes lacking focus as lines of thought creased his brow.
Elizabeth waited, pleased with the opportunity to study his visage.
Finally, he said, “I would prefer if you address me as Fitzwilliam. At least in such informal circumstances as this.”
“Then you do find some flaw in your rank, Mr. Fitzwilliam?” How odd. Most would be proud of the title of colonel. Did his rank speak merely of money, not accomplishment, and so embarrass him?
“Not Mr. Fitzwilliam.” Those lines re-formed on his brow. “Simply, Fitzwilliam.”
Elizabeth considered that. From another man, such informality, the sort usually reserved for use between well-acquainted gentlemen, would seem far too familiar and flirtatious, but from this tall, upright-seeming, serious colonel, it felt more in the nature of a gift.
And it was not as if he’d asked her to address him as Richard, his given name.
Even from the man before her, that would have constituted an overture.
His mouth twitched into a half smile. “Now it is I who am too bold.”
“No,” she hastened to assure him. “I merely seek to understand the impetus behind your wish.”
“It is no great secret. Merely that Fitzwilliam is how I would prefer you to address me, Miss Bennet.”
“Then you must at least call me Miss Elizabeth. Miss Bennet is my older sister.” Whom he had yet to meet, and who men preferred over Elizabeth. Something that had never mattered to her before.
With ease, she pictured Jane, tall and fair, on Colonel Fitzwilliam’s arm. They made a very pretty picture. Elizabeth’s throat constricted.
“Do you often walk here, Miss Elizabeth?”
Blinking away visions of Jane with the man before her, Elizabeth nodded. “I am in the habit, which is what drew me here now. Had I given the matter thought, I would not have come this way.”
He frowned. Behind him, the bay snorted, shaking his mane. “You would not have come this way?”
“While I know the tenants of Netherfield Park well, no one has resided in the manor house for years. It has always seemed harmless to walk these lands.” Her sweeping gesture took in the surrounding countryside of ploughed fields, low walls of piled stone, and sparse copses, thinned by autumn.
“Now, Mr. Bingley has taken up residence and I realize that I trespass.”
“Bingley would not begrudge you your morning walk,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said with quiet certainty.
“You know Mr. Bingley well, then?”
“Quite well, yes.”
Yet, he had obviously not known he would find his cousin, Mr. Darcy, in Mr. Bingley’s company.
Was that the source of the awkwardness and consternation she’d witnessed yesterday?
That Mr. Darcy had imposed upon Mr. Bingley, via his friendship with the tall colonel?
Someone who was as careful with his mount as Colonel Fitzwilliam would not approve of Mr. Darcy putting the Bingleys and Hursts in any sort of danger.
But even she was not so bold as to broach that. Still, his gaze slid away from her face, once more scanning the countryside about them. If she did not think of something more to say soon he would leave, and do so thinking her relentlessly dull. That, Elizabeth could not bear.
“I could not help but overhear that Mr. Darcy’s sister travels with you.” Elizabeth tried not to wince at the speed with which those words left her mouth.