Chapter 20
Elizabeth stared, doubted, coloured, and was silent, her astonishment rendering her quite beyond expression.
What on earth is he about? He stood before her, looking in such a way as she had never before seen him.
Uneasy. Lacking certainty. Perhaps even a little…
fearful? It was nonsensical in every way.
She had Mr Darcy’s kiss yet lingering on her lips, and now Mr Hartham’s proposal ringing in her ears.
“P-pray step inside, sir,” she managed to utter and stepped back, allowing him entry. A gust of sea air blew in with him, cooling her cheeks but doing nothing to restore her composure.
He turned to face her. “Elizabeth, I would like to ask you to be my wife.”
“Yes, you said, but um, well, it is all just very surprising,” she said.
“Is it? I should have thought my regard for you was plain.”
Truly, it was anything but. He certainly seemed earnest, but it was still too fantastical to credit any truth to it. “We have been good friends, it is true, but you said straightaway you had no interest in courting me.”
He smiled, with warmth. “And yet found myself doing just that. You must know how positively enchanting you are to me.”
No, in fact, she had not imagined any such thing.
She had thought quite the opposite. Is this another situation in which my vivacity has misled a man?
I must refuse him gently; I hope, above all things, that we might remain friends.
Let it not be said that she had learnt nothing from her travails with Mr Darcy.
“Sir…” She reached her hand towards him, thinking she might take his hat; he instead clasped her outstretched hand in his own.
“My aunt means to make me a gift of her estate,” he said earnestly. “A veritable paradise with an excellent income. You will like it exceedingly well. And of course we will always have the houses in Brighton—”
It was at this moment that Miss Hawkridge reappeared, fussily tying her bonnet beneath her chin. “This is precisely why a woman’s touch is needed in a place, for without it, the servants— Oh! How do you do… Mr Hartham, is it?”
Her gaze fell to where Elizabeth’s hand was still enclosed within his.
Elizabeth started, then pulled her hand free. “Miss Hawkridge. Um. Mr Hartham and I were just—”
“Talking of the future,” supplied Mr Hartham. He was easier now, cocking one hip and smiling broadly. “To the advantage of us both.”
Miss Hawkridge’s brow wrinkled, but she said nothing, darting quick looks between Elizabeth and Mr Hartham.
Elizabeth’s thoughts darted about just as madly as the other lady’s gaze.
What should she say? Surely it would be impolitic to refuse him in front of another woman?
What if the conversation grew heated, or things were said that humiliated him?
She liked him; she had no wish to cause him pain or even discomfort, and her memory of Mr Darcy’s mortification in the face of her rejection of his suit made her excessively cautious.
“Perhaps you might call again later, at Mrs Millhouse’s residence,” she suggested. “Then we may talk more on this subject.”
“Of course,” he said warmly. “In any case, I am late for a small gathering of fellows who wish to have their purses lightened.”
“Would not want to miss that,” said Miss Hawkridge. It was difficult to tell what she was thinking. Elizabeth did not think she could have heard Mr Hartham’s proposal, but it was impossible to be certain she had not heard something. Her countenance was as inscrutable as her gaze was penetrating.
Mr Hartham bowed to her and then bowed again, very low, over Elizabeth’s hand. He mouthed the word ‘later’ after he rose, then was gone as quickly as he had arrived.
Happily for Elizabeth, who was distracted to the point of incivility, Miss Hawkridge was the sort of person who could gaily rattle away even in the presence of decidedly less voluble company.
Elizabeth’s sensibilities were in too much of a tumult to contribute more than an occasional ‘Indeed?’ or a ‘How extraordinary’.
So it went right up until the moment that their conveyance drew near to Mrs Millhouse’s street.
“…and no one knows who they are, these ladies, for they always scamper away the minute anyone has a whiff of comprehension that they are not, in fact, gentlemen.” Miss Hawkridge waggled her eyebrows. “Scandalous, is it not?”
Embarrassed that she had been such a poor companion, Elizabeth frantically searched her mind to recollect what Miss Hawkridge had lately said.
There was something of card parties and ladies dressing as men to sneak into them and play as men do.
“Oh, exceedingly scandalous. This is happening here in town, you say?”
Miss Hawkridge shook her head. “Even worse—the officers’ quarters! Is it any wonder people are mad to discover who it is? Only imagine what secrets and gossip they must hear! I should think they imagine themselves akin to Agent 355.”
Elizabeth laughed along with her at that. “Let us hope not! That was the female spy believed to have lost the war with America, yes?”
“Just so,” said Miss Hawkridge. “Although from what I have seen of the dunderheads in Brighton, I cannot think there is much to be told that would be of any consequence to anyone save the publicans.”
“I imagine they are merely the officers themselves trying to create a bit of intrigue,” Elizabeth said. “No decent lady would undertake such things. Who would even wish it?”
“Not ladies, to be sure,” Miss Hawkridge agreed. “But they are assuredly women, for the men would not be in such uproar otherwise. I should imagine they are light-skirts and the reason they disappear so quickly is that they go off into the barracks.”
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth agreed. They had arrived at Mrs Millhouse’s doorstep by then, and Miss Hawkridge lingered in her phaeton nearby, prepared to hie off to her lodgings as soon as Elizabeth was safely inside.
With a smile and thanks for an enjoyable journey, Elizabeth bid her adieu and closed the front door on one of the most eventful afternoons of her life.
The remembrance of Elizabeth’s lips united with his own within the intimacy of the dark cupboard rendered Darcy singularly incapable of playing cards.
The smoke from Sir Frederick’s pipe might have ordinarily vexed him or caused a headache, but he hardly noticed it.
More than once did Saye comment on his stupidity, but he did not care a whit about that either.
He had kissed her, felt the soft contours of her body pressed to his, and in truth the only thing he much cared about was how soon they could do it again.
Ought he to declare himself tomorrow? Today?
He had hated leaving her before they had the chance to speak—before he could assure her of the honourability of his intentions—though surely she knew his heart by now.
His heart, which was presently soaring some four hundred feet above the earth, prevented from going higher by impatience alone.
How soon might he truly call her his own?
The conversation around the table had turned to the usual topics—horses, hunting, the quality of the wine—when Mr Hartham arrived, out of breath and carrying the scent of the sea air with him.
“Pray forgive me, men,” he cried out as he handed his coat and hat to the servant who approached. He asked the lad for a drink and then seated himself at the table.
“We will deal you in next game,” Saye informed him. “Fred here has an unforeseen and uncommon lead and cannot give it up.” A cursory introduction was performed between Sir Frederick and Hartham, though neither seemed much interested.
“I am afraid I shall be little challenge for any of you today,” Hartham proclaimed with a wide smile. “My mind is on other matters.”
“Must be a woman,” Sir Frederick grunted from around his pipe. “Only thing that makes a man insensible to a good card game.”
“Not all men,” Saye said under his breath, raising an eyebrow in Hartham’s direction and drawing a snort from his friend.
“You are not incorrect, sir,” Hartham said. “In fact, I have just got myself engaged—”
Darcy’s eyes had been on his cards, but they immediately jerked upwards to stare at Hartham. He had not seen the man with any woman except…
“—to Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
Darcy’s fingers tightened involuntarily, bending several of the cards in his hand. Engaged to Elizabeth? His Elizabeth? The room seemed to tilt slightly, and he was grateful for the steadying weight of the chair beneath him.
Fitzwilliam, across the table, fixed him with a worried look. Darcy held his gaze for a moment, no idea what his own expression showed, before dropping his eyes back on his cards. His blood roared in his ears, but he heard his cousin remark, mildly, “That is a bit of a surprise, is it not?”
“More than a bit,” Saye said, not under his breath this time.
“Is it?” Hartham tilted his head. “I have spent a great deal of time with her these past weeks. I imagined that others might have noticed, but perhaps your mind was on your own concerns.”
Fitzwilliam placidly agreed with that assessment, his voice sounding unnaturally measured. Darcy could feel his eyes on him still but was not equal to looking up.
“Your play, Darcy,” said Sir Frederick.
He forced himself to play a card, unknowing and uncaring what that card was, his hand trembling as he laid it.
Around the table, the conversation continued, but the words seemed to come from a great distance.
Hartham prattled on about his ‘intended’s’ many virtues and his plans for their future.
A wedding trip to Belgium with Hartham’s friends seemed to be chief among them.
It made no sense. None of it made any sense. Darcy still had the taste of her on his lips, the feel of her beneath his hands. He had not imagined it—it had been no accidental brushing of fingers but a full-bodied, virtue-quashing embrace. She had moaned when he pressed against her.
“Darcy? You do understand how these games work, eh?”
He realised he had been staring blindly at his cards for several minutes. “Forgive me,” he said, rising abruptly from his chair and laying his cards face down on the table. “I find I am not well. Perhaps another time, gentlemen.”
He left the table amid murmurs of concern and confusion, but he knew he simply could not remain another moment in that room, stifled by Hartham’s gloating and his own dismay.
He did not stop even when Fitzwilliam called his name.
When he arrived outside, the air was cooling but not nearly cool enough to calm the tempest within him.
Elizabeth. Lost to him forever, and to such a man!
The cruellest cut of all was that Darcy knew exactly why Hartham had so precipitously proposed: his aunt’s inheritance.
He would have staked everything he owned on that.
Damn it, no such wager was necessary, for Lady Preston had told him the facts with her own lips!
Yes, Elizabeth was comely and sweet, and yes, he wanted to marry her above all things.
But Hartham wanted none of her feminine charm, he was certain of that.
He wanted his inheritance and nothing more.
Was there anything to be done for it? He turned himself in the direction of her lodgings and took a few hesitant steps, then came to a halt. What he wanted to do was to go to her and demand answers, demand actions, but perhaps he had no just cause to do so.
For, no matter that he understood why Hartham had proposed, what he could not comprehend was why she had accepted.
Was it because he left her? He had been certain she had sanctioned that when she bade him farewell with her warm smile and understanding eyes.
Did she think herself ruined—that he was no better than Wickham?
Did she despise him so much she wanted to remove herself from his touch forever?
Had he—God forbid!—had he forced himself on her?
He had believed her willing, but what if she had not been anything of the sort?
Had she laid her hand against his chest, or had she attempted to push him away?
Dear God! Had he just chased her into Hartham’s arms with his brutishness?
Or was it something worse—was she in love with Hartham?
‘Perhaps it is love after all.’
The vision of the pair of them laughing together comfortably on the sofa rose in his mind’s eye. It sickened him to think it, for she could not know Hartham’s true nature in that case, but…perhaps, in spite of everything, Elizabeth was in love.
And not with him.