Chapter 3
Fitzwilliam Darcy was seated in his drawing room, staring absently out of the window while his cousin regaled him and his young sister with the tales of scandal and success from the prior evening at Almack’s.
Georgiana listened raptly, asking a prodigious number of questions, but Darcy listened with only half an ear.
The truth was that Colonel Fitzwilliam’s on dit filled him with ennui.
None of it mattered to him, not with Elizabeth Bennet’s brutal rejection of his offer of marriage still ringing in his ears.
Over a month now, he mused. Will the pain of it never lessen?
He saw now that it was all his fault—that his behaviour the previous autumn had been abhorrently proud and haughty, and that his interference in the romance between Bingley and Elizabeth’s eldest sister was officious.
Alas, that understanding did him no good; he had no real expectation of ever seeing her again, and if he did?
Likely she would run from him screaming before he uttered a syllable.
At least in the matter of Bingley, I may rest easily. He had gone to his friend to explain his mistake. Bingley had been rightfully angry for nearly a quarter of an hour before his generous nature afforded Darcy forgiveness he felt unworthy to receive.
“Darcy, I do not think you have heard a word I have said since I arrived,” Fitzwilliam accused.
Darcy started, pulling himself to attention. “Of course. Lady Susan Stanhope, getting married. No? Divorced? Arrested?”
Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes and exchanged a look with Georgiana, who smiled but appeared concerned. She leant forwards. “Brother, I have wondered…”
“What, Sweetling?”
“Whether all is well? That is, you seem awfully preoccupied of late.” An anxious tone had crept into her voice.
“Everything is perfectly well,” he assured her, shifting his position a little to evade Fitzwilliam’s sharp gaze upon him. “Wonderful, in fact.”
“Is it?” his cousin enquired mildly. “I wonder, then, that you have been refusing so many invitations. I should not think the lure of your drawing room so irresistible.”
“You accuse me of refusing invitations; have you considered, perhaps, that no one is inviting me anywhere?” Darcy replied with studied lightness.
Fitzwilliam and Georgiana both scoffed at that, even though Georgiana still managed to seem concerned.
“We all know that wherever a bachelor lives and breathes, the party forms around him,” said Fitzwilliam with a laugh.
“But you have not been seen anywhere for nearly a month complete! Since returning from Rosings. Keep this up and everyone will think you are spending your time in preparation for your wedding to Anne.”
“Good lord!” Darcy exclaimed. “If that be the case, I will surely accept each and every invitation issued to me for at least a fortnight, just to be safe!” He was relieved to see Georgiana laugh at this, hopeful that it would persuade her against asking any more questions as to his state of mind.
It was into this relative merriment that the door opened and Viscount Saye, Fitzwilliam’s elder brother, intruded. “Excellent news,” he told them. “We are all for Brighton this summer!”
Everyone’s laughter died down as they regarded him.
He took a seat beside Georgiana, tapped one finger upon the tip of her nose, and said, “If you are a very good girl, I daresay we might take you too!”
“Really?” Georgiana turned to Darcy, her countenance aglow. “Brother, might we—”
“I am not going to Brighton,” Darcy said flatly. “And neither is Georgiana.”
His sister was immediately downcast. Darcy winced and added, “We must go to Pemberley once the Season is ended.”
“No,” said Saye. “You must not. I forbid it. Everyone who is anyone is going to Brighton this year—I have just had it from Georgette.”
“Miss Hawkridge?” Georgiana enquired. “I just adore her; she is so very elegant.”
Miss Georgette Hawkridge was Saye and Fitzwilliam’s cousin on their mother’s side and, though five years older than Georgiana, had always been exceedingly warm towards her whenever their paths crossed.
That did not sway Darcy’s resolve in the least. He had no desire to surround himself with yet more society, be it in town or by the sea.
He wished to return to Pemberley, where he might recover his spirits in peace and tranquillity.
He would have gone already were it not for the few engagements to which he had committed before he went into Kent.
“She has always professed her fondness for you as well,” Saye informed Georgiana. “And I do not doubt the greater intimacy that Brighton might afford between you would be beneficial to your coming out.”
Happily, Fitzwilliam intruded with reason.
“It does not bear consideration, Saye. There is no possibility that we would be able to get a house. There are thousands of men down there from the various regiments. Why, I have heard houses are so scarce that even some of the senior officers are in tents!”
“Leave that to me,” Saye ordered him. “I shall find something, I am sure. With a sea view, of course! No sense going if I am to stare at soldiers’ arses all day.”
“Language,” Darcy scolded him with a look at Georgiana.
“You will not find a house,” Fitzwilliam repeated patiently. “If there was a house to be had, someone’s colonel would be housed within it.”
“Challenge accepted,” Saye replied blithely. “And once I do find my house with the view of the sea, you shall all give me twenty pounds.”
Darcy laughed. “Not I, for I will not go. I shall be at Pemberley.”
Georgiana cleared her throat and spoke in a softer voice. “But Brother, did you not say you meant to accept all invitations in the next fortnight?”
“Ha!” Fitzwilliam crowed. “Yes, you did, only minutes ago. You gave your word, Darcy, and now you must go!”
“Since when are you in favour of the scheme?” Darcy demanded of Fitzwilliam. “You were only just voicing your own objections!”
“My only objection is the sure knowledge that there will not be a house to be had by now,” Fitzwilliam said.
“What I am hearing is that you are all willing to go, presuming that I am able to find suitable accommodations,” said Saye.
“This is a nonsensical debate. I am sure Fitzwilliam is correct,” Darcy protested. “There cannot be a house to be had!”
“But if I can find one,” Saye said with an alarming gleam in his eye, “then you will go. All of us will go.” He made a circling gesture with his finger.
Darcy sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, mostly to avoid seeing the excitement that had appeared on Georgiana’s countenance.
She was clearly desperate to partake in the scheme, and he was equally desperate not to.
“Difficulties with accommodations aside,” he said, “I fear I really must be at Pemberley.”
“You are certain?” Saye quirked an eyebrow at him as he leant back and crossed his legs. “Brighton, you know, is an excellent place to rid oneself of a bit of extra stuffing in the mattress. I am not sure Pemberley can boast equal efficacy.”
“Stuffing in the mattress?” Darcy had the sudden discomfiting realisation that everyone was looking at him and, upon their perceiving his notice, equally quickly made a study of something else. “I am sure I have no idea what you mean.”
Saye gave him a kind smile. “I am speaking of all of your visits to Benjamin and Gerald’s of late.”
“What is Benjamin and Gerald’s?” Fitzwilliam enquired.
“A new cream ice shop,” Saye informed him. “Down on Waterbury Road.”
“All the way down there?” Fitzwilliam wrinkled his brow. “Their business will be finished before it starts! People will never go all the way down there for a cream ice!”
“Save for the fact that they do,” Saye informed him. “Their wares are sublime. Gunter’s is nothing to them…eh, Darcy? How often have you been there?”
“Once or twice,” said Darcy stiffly.
“Once or twice!” Saye scoffed. “Your waistcoat tells me otherwise.”
Darcy sat straighter in his seat, intending to deliver a blistering reply.
It was true, he had gone more than once or twice.
In fact, he had been there daily, enjoying its distance from Mayfair and the strange way the delicacy seemed to assuage his wounded soul.
On one particularly low day, he had gone twice, making an excuse to the shopkeeper about needing to bring some to his sister.
Alas, his reply could not be made, for as he inhaled in preparation for it, one of the buttons on his waistcoat gave up on him. He felt it—a brief tightening and then a release—and looked down to see it hanging valiantly by a thread.
Saye saw it too, unfortunately, and laughed. “My point exactly,” he declared. “Too many cream ices, Darcy. You have grown stout.”
“I am not grown stout,” he said indignantly. “This is a very old waistcoat.”
Although in fact, it was not so old, and it had fitted him perfectly at Rosings Park in April—before that fateful night in Mr Collins’s parlour. Some men took to drink. Evidently, he took to sweets.
“Avoiding company and consoling yourself with food, eh?” Fitzwilliam raised a mocking eyebrow. “If I did not know better, I might begin to think you had suffered some manner of disappointment.”
Darcy concentrated diligently on trying to unpick the thread from his loose button and did not answer.
Fitzwilliam knew perfectly well what manner of disappointment he had suffered, since he had been at Rosings to witness the aftermath of his disastrous proposal.
He trusted him not to reveal anything, but he did not trust Saye not to sniff out the truth if he caught a glimpse of his present discomfort.
“You have two choices,” Saye announced. “New suits to replace the ones you grow out of, or a summer at Brighton. You might swim in the sea, fence, walk along the Promenade. Very healthful. Your waistcoats will be buttoning again in no time.”
“It would be terribly diverting to go to Brighton, for at least a little while,” Georgiana said pleadingly. “Pemberley is just so…rural sometimes.”
That was precisely why Darcy wished to go, but he knew exactly what she meant.
The want of society and diversion must be keenly felt by a girl of her age, even if she was not yet out.
And a small part of him knew it would not do for him to continue to shy away from people, licking his wounds.
At some point, he would need to forget Elizabeth.
He would need to put this behind him and begin to recover himself.
It seemed an impossibility at present, but it had to happen eventually.
“Perhaps a short stay,” he conceded. “Assuming that our cousin is able to find something suitable. I am of no mind for discomfort.”
“A month, or perhaps two,” Saye replied. “And did you suppose I would be willing to sleep in a tent? I assure you, my charming seaside abode will be nothing less than should be expected for men of our station. A view of the sea and everything charming!”
Georgiana clapped her hands like a child and giggled happily. “Oh, I simply cannot wait!”
Darcy sincerely hoped he would not come to regret his decision.