Chapter 1
Even a full month before Christmas, the fashionable shopping streets of London were alive with the festive spirit. Far from discouraging the cheerful crowd, the bitter cold and the tiny snowflakes that floated down by ones and twos only seemed to urge them on.
Certainly Caroline Bingley felt no reluctance at being out in the early dusk of London in late November.
Though she was hurrying over the pavement, her hands full of parcels and those of her maid, Mary Little, likewise, she felt no dread of the cold and growing darkness.
It was only disinclination to be late and anticipation of the visit to come that had her hurrying towards the corner, some two blocks away, where she was to meet Jane and the carriage.
With private amusement, Caroline thought how very differently she would have felt about the meeting for which they were headed, only a year ago.
Then, she had already begrudgingly accepted Jane, for her new sister-in-law was so gentle and loving that she could disarm even the hardest heart.
It had taken more resolution than Caroline could bring to bear to continue in resenting Jane, upon seeing how happy their marriage made her brother Charles.
But to have become reconciled to Elizabeth Darcy as well, and to the point of looking forward to visiting her, was still a source of amazement to Caroline.
She had always intended to retain the privilege of visiting at Pemberley afforded her by Charles’s friendship with Mr Darcy, and had known that at least a certain degree of politeness would be necessary to do so, but she had never imagined making a friend of his wife.
As Caroline had herself intended to become mistress of Pemberley, the woman who was now Mrs Darcy could be nothing more than the rival who had triumphed over her.
Or so she had thought. But Elizabeth combined a disconcerting ability to see through others with a facility for telling unwelcome truths with such charming openness that they could no longer be ignored.
And when, during the previous year’s Christmas visit, Elizabeth had effortlessly turned back Caroline’s petty needling of her with home truths, she had won much more than the exchange of insults.
She had made Caroline see that her tendency to view life as a kind of competition was giving her much suffering and little joy, and had shown her another way.
With true generosity, she had never spoken of the gift since, but had extended a hand of genuine friendship. Caroline had taken it, feeling not dissimilar to a drowning person grasping at the person dragging them from the water, and had begun to discover another life.
“Oh!” Caroline gasped. In the midst of her reverie, she had run up full against another person.
For a perilous moment, she thought she would fall to the damp and dirty pavement, but her motion was suddenly arrested by the person with whom she had collided.
He held her in his arms as effortlessly as if she weighed nothing.
In the confused moment before thoughts of embarrassment and social necessity could intrude, Caroline looked up at her rescuer.
And caught her breath, for he was far and away the most handsome man she had ever seen.
His hair was a richly waving red-gold of which Caroline would have felt passionate envy, had she seen it on another woman.
(Even yet, despite her best efforts, Caroline had not entirely dropped the habit of viewing others with a competitive eye.) His eyes were astonishing, a deep blue that was almost purple, and his skin rather pale and flawlessly smooth.
His features were astonishing in their perfect symmetry and balance, and yet so entirely masculine that Caroline drew in an involuntary breath.
He might have been a sculpture by Michelangelo or Donatello.
In fact, he put her rather in mind of Cupid from Canova’s sculpture of Cupid and Psyche, and with a sudden thrill, Caroline realised that their present position was not entirely dissimilar from that work.
The man was so handsome, she was rather surprised he was not surrounded by an admiring throng.
In fact, he was accompanied only by another young gentleman. As the stranger placed Caroline back on her feet and, after ascertaining that she was again stable, released her, his friend was exclaiming in surprise. “My word, North! What trouble will you find next?”
The man did not reply to him, but only bowed to Caroline. “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he murmured. “Indeed, I am very sorry. I hope you are not injured?”
It was gentlemanly of him to take on all the blame, Caroline thought, for the responsibility was at least equally her own. “Not in the least,” she replied. “Thanks in no small part to your assistance.”
Surprisingly, he blushed a little at the reminder of their near-embrace. Caroline smiled to herself, enchanted. The evidence of embarrassment was remarkably humanising on him, making him look more a man than an angel.
“I am very glad,” he said after a little pause. “Then — season’s greetings to you, ma’am.”
“Season’s greetings,” Caroline echoed him and, with a brief exchange of bows, he and his friend walked on.
After a long moment, Little cleared her throat. “Perhaps we ought to be walking on, ma’am.”
“Oh, yes,” Caroline agreed, and they hurried on towards the waiting carriage.
So gracefully had he caught her, Caroline thought, that she had not even dropped her packages.
And thank goodness, too, for one contained several delicate pieces of Venetian blown glass, costly imported works intended as Christmas presents.
Though they were securely wrapped, she doubted they could have survived a fall to the pavement — particularly if she had then fallen on top of them.
Strange, she did not even know the man’s name, and likely would never see him again, and yet he continued to occupy her thoughts. Perhaps there was some excuse for it in his uncommon degree of beauty.
It was unfortunate that the man did not have as much wealth as he did beauty.
That, Caroline had seen at a glance, for his clothes were plain, and neither of the first quality nor the present fashion.
His hands were a little stained as well — odd, that, for they were not merely dirty, and he did not seem to be a dirty man.
Likely it was due to his profession, though she could not think what might cause such stains.
He would have made a prodigiously good match for some lucky young woman, if his wealth and consequence were only equal to his personal charms. But as they quite self-evidently were not, she would do the best to put him clean out of her thoughts.
Society being what it was, Caroline fully intended to marry as soon as she could find an amenable man possessed of wealth and consequence that would do justice to her ambitions.
She could only hope that man, when she at last discovered him, was even half so handsome as her mysterious stranger.
When Caroline and Little arrived at the carriage, Jane was already inside, tucked snugly under a warm fur that was one of Charles’s latest gifts to her.
“I hope you have not been waiting long,” Caroline greeted her. “It is quite cold today.”
“Do not spare it another thought,” Jane said earnestly. “I have been quite comfortable here, and it is so pleasant to look out and see all the cheerful bustle. I had no idea I could like spending winter in London so well!”
With private amusement, Caroline noticed Jane had not denied that she had, in fact, been waiting.
But her lack of resentment would be entirely sincere.
Jane probably had been perfectly happy, waiting under her warm fur redolent with thoughts of how much Charles adored her, and she hated to think that anyone might be upset, or so much as imagine that she could be angry with them.
Knowing that Jane would not wish it, Caroline did not press further apologies on her, and instead addressed her last comment.
“I adore spending the winter in London,” she told her sister-in-law.
“The bustle and gaiety of the Season, the chance to see so many of one’s friends, all the concerts and plays… I like it above anything.”
“When I was a girl, my aunt and uncle Gardiner always visited us at Longbourn for Christmas,” Jane mused. “We never visited them here. I had no thought of spending Christmas away from the countryside.”
“I am sure we would not have this year if it were not for Elizabeth’s condition,” Caroline told her.
Mrs Darcy was in confinement and expected to have her child somewhere around the turn of the year.
Though Elizabeth was glowing with health and not a single sign of danger had appeared, her husband was adamant that she must have the finest doctors money could buy when her time came, for he would permit no unnecessary risk to come to his beloved wife.
Thinking of it, Caroline marvelled she had ever thought Mr Darcy cold.
When it came to Elizabeth, he was anything but.
And so the Darcys had come to London for an extended stay, before travel grew too difficult for Mrs Darcy. Their visit served even another purpose, for Georgiana Darcy was to have her formal coming out in another year or so, and ought to become more accustomed to society.
“Poor Lizzy,” Jane said fondly. “I think she would have rather stayed in Derbyshire, where she could have gone for walks even in her present condition without scandalising anyone. Thank goodness Darcy House has a garden, or I think she would go entirely distracted.”