Chapter 25
“Mr Darcy? Might I trouble you for a few moments of your time, sir?”
Darcy looked up from the book he had only been pretending to read in order to stave off Fitzwilliam’s well-meant but painful ruminations about Elizabeth.
It was almost ten o’clock, and Saye was still not dressed for the ball they were supposed to be attending.
It was the sort of ball that one did not arrive early for, so his sartorial vacillations were of little matter, but it had left more time than Darcy liked for Fitzwilliam to interrogate him. “You may.”
The footman fidgeted uneasily and glanced over his shoulder into the vestibule. He swallowed visibly. Then, with a quick glance at Fitzwilliam, he said, “In private?”
“There is nothing you can have to say that we cannot both hear,” Darcy said in consternation.
The footman shuffled about a bit more until Fitzwilliam laughed. “You had better go before the poor fellow has an aneurysm.”
Vaguely displeased by the footman’s impertinence, but conceding that he did look excessively uneasy, Darcy came to his feet and followed him out of the drawing room, closing the door behind them. “What is this about?”
“There is somebody here to see you, sir…” He pointed to the open front door, and Darcy froze in astonishment to see Elizabeth standing just beyond it on the top step. “…and she did not want her presence to be generally known.”
Darcy was at the door in two strides, gesturing for her to step inside. “Miss Bennet! Come in.”
She shook her head and retreated backwards onto the next step down. Away from him. “Oh, no, it is well, thank you. It is untoward enough that I have called at all. I only… This may seem a strange question, but…is your sister at home?”
He frowned. Of all the things he thought she might say, that had not been one of them. “My sister? Yes. She is.”
“Are you sure?”
He huffed a small laugh, half confusion, half frustration, and it drew a garbled rush of words from Elizabeth.
“What I mean is, can you… Is she…” She bit her lips together, looking pained.
She was alone, he belatedly realised. He peered out onto the street and saw no carriage, meaning she had walked here in the dark without company.
And now that he forced himself to think beyond his surprise and look properly, he noticed the pinched, worried turn to her countenance and the way she wrung her hands together.
He stepped out of the house and pulled the door to behind him, occluding whatever she would say from the footman’s ears.
“What is the matter?”
“Is she with you? Presently? Downstairs?”
“What do you mean?”
“She has not retired to bed already?”
“She has, as it happens. She had a headache. Might I ask why you are—”
“Could you make sure? Please? Could you look to see whether she is in her room?”
He frowned harder still. “What is this about?”
She grimaced slightly but held his gaze. “I would rather not tell you, unless I have to. And I shall only have to if Miss Darcy is not at home.”
“Why would Georgiana not be at home at such an hour as this?”
“Please just look. I shall wait here.”
Darcy stared at her for a moment, trying in vain to fathom what she was about, but she looked so distressed that he thought it easiest to do as she asked. He turned to go, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm that sent a wave of heat shooting up to his shoulder.
“Do not tell anyone what you are doing. It is for the best.”
He nodded once and left her, taking the stairs to Georgiana’s room two at a time. His knocking was unanswered, both the first, quiet knock and the second, more decisive one. Gently he pushed the door open. “Georgiana?”
He heard no reply and so stepped all the way into the room, experiencing a wave of sickening alarm upon finding her bed empty and unslept in.
His first instinct was to bang on Mrs Annesley’s door and demand to know where her charge was, but he was conscious of Elizabeth’s plea to tell nobody and instead hastened back downstairs to speak to her.
Georgiana’s absence must have been obvious from his expression, for Elizabeth’s shoulders slumped and her eyes closed before he even spoke.
“Will you come in now?” he asked in a low voice.
She shook her head. “Unless there is somewhere we can speak privately?”
He nodded and, when she stepped into the house, he led her up the stairs and into the library, where it was unlikely that anybody would venture to interrupt them.
He eschewed taking her out onto the balcony as he had done before and instead lit a few candles, sighing impatiently when they all fizzed and burnt green, the joke having long since ceased to be amusing.
He turned to face her. “Please tell me you know where my sister is.”
Elizabeth said nothing but held out a note, which he took and read with rapidly escalating emotion.
He had heard the rumours of these girls—everyone had.
Saye was downright aggrieved that they had never shown up at any party he had been at.
Now we know why not! Fear, fury, and everything in between swirled behind his eyes.
He swallowed a string of curses. So much for the past year of sorrowful contrition; clearly, Georgiana had learnt nothing from her misadventure with Wickham.
Other than new heights of recklessness! To sneak anywhere unchaperoned and dressed as a man was outside of ruinous, but to go to one of Sullivan’s parties? That was downright perilous.
To make it all a hundred times worse, she had dragged Elizabeth’s sister into it.
The sister he had roundly vilified as an indecorous and immodest liability!
But it had not been Lydia Bennet who almost eloped with Wickham, had it?
No, Miss Lydia had been staying with the Forsters all summer without incident, only venturing into disgraceful intrigues after being introduced to his sister!
He passed the note back to Elizabeth and ran a hand over his face. “What was she thinking?”
“I do not believe there was much thought involved,” Elizabeth replied quietly.
He looked up, dismayed to comprehend that he had spoken aloud. “No. You are probably correct.”
She let out a shaky breath. “I am sorry to come to you like this. I would have called my uncle back from his dinner engagement, but while there was even a chance that Lieutenant Denny was talking about Miss Darcy, I did not want to risk alerting anyone for fear of exposing her.”
“That was generous of you. If foolhardy. I wish you had sent a servant for me instead of walking here on your own. One niece out unchaperoned about town is bad enough.” He was going to wring Georgiana’s neck for involving Elizabeth’s sister in this.
Put a lock on her door. Delay her coming out until she was fifty!
Elizabeth pressed her lips together and regarded him for a few seconds before replying, stiffly, “I was upset and not thinking clearly. If I had been, I might have gone somewhere that would have caused me considerably less mortification.”
He tried not to flinch, but it was difficult. “You are mortified to be here?”
“I do not know how that can be surprising to you.”
Dismay flooded his veins. With the greatest trepidation, he said, “Elizabeth, please forgive me if I hurt you.”
She did not reply, and he could not read her expression, so he pressed, “Did I? Hurt you?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, breathy and incredulous.
The word hit Darcy hard enough to wind him. “Then I cannot express how sorry I am.”
“Really?” she said in an unexpectedly sardonic tone. “I thought you expressed how very un-sorry you were remarkably well!”
“How un… What?”
“If you thought—” The soft clinking of a piece of falling plaster distracted her. She cast it a resentful look and tried again. “If you thought running into another woman’s arms hours after what passed between us would not pain me, then you are far less clever than I believed.”
Darcy could only stare at her, bewildered. “What other woman?”
“Pray do not insult me by pretending not to know what I am talking about. I saw you with Miss Larkin on the Steyne. Just as I have seen you with her everywhere else, draped over you in a way that would make Miss Bingley blush. I ought to have known—”
“Are you referring to the moment that she kissed my cheek in thanks for saving her from a stray cricket ball to the back of the skull?”
Elizabeth hesitated, faltering over her reply. “She…you…maybe?”
Darcy let out a gust of laughter that was made brittle by exasperation and relief.
“I have been going out of my senses with worry that I had misunderstood your feelings again—that you did not want what happened between us—that I forced you in some way. When all the while it was Miss Larkin’s overdeveloped sense of gratitude that threw everything under a carriage! ”
Elizabeth’s brow knitted together in consternation. “If you did not regret kissing me, why did you not call? You said you would!”
“I did! Only to be told that you were visiting your betrothed.” He saw the guilt that instantly suffused her face, and it gutted him, for it was confirmation, where he had so desperately been hoping for a denial.
He sucked the back of his teeth, tasting the bitterness there, trying not to let it soak into his words as he interrupted whatever excuses she was about to give him to ask, “Did he talk to you? Tell you the truth about his proposal?”
She snapped her mouth closed and frowned in puzzlement. “What truth? What do you mean?”
More pieces of plaster detached themselves from the ceiling and landed with a chorus of dull thuds on the rug, the parody of a drum roll. “Lady Preston has stipulated that he will not inherit unless he marries.”
She absorbed this for a moment or two, blinking, then shook her head. “It does not matter, because I am not—”
“It does matter. It matters very much.”
She sighed impatiently. “It does not matter, because—”
“He is using you, Elizabeth.” Why would she not listen to him? “He did not propose because he loves you. He can never love you.”
Her mouth fell open. “Thank you for your faith in me! At least he does not despise my family!”
“That is not what I meant! And I do not despise your family.”
“I have a letter written in your hand which says that you very much do.”
“How could I when my sister has taken it into her head to don a pair of breeches and drag your sister to Colonel Sullivan’s hazard tables!”
Elizabeth’s affront dissipated as all the self-reproach and alarm she had worn when she first arrived returned in force. “Oh lord, Lydia! How could I stand about arguing when she needs me?”
Darcy reached towards her, guilty for having been similarly absorbed by their quarrel and intending to assure her that the girls would be well, when there came a strange noise which made them both turn and look.
It did not last long; an ominous creak, another shower of plaster, and then abruptly, where once there was a wall, there was nothing but air, dust, and a pile of splintered timber stud work, crumbled plaster, and books splayed across the floor.
But for the occasional plink and thud of more falling debris, there was silence.
Until Florizel scurried forth to stand on the top of the rubble and began barking.
As the plumes of dust cleared, the room beyond it came into view.
In it, Saye stood in front of his mirror, calmly adjusting his cravat.
At his side, his man stood with one pair of trousers and one pair of breeches dangling forgotten from his hands as he stared back at Elizabeth and Darcy in open-mouthed shock.
Evidently, he had been waiting for Saye to choose between the garments, because other than his shirt, cravat, and stockings, Darcy’s cousin was completely naked, his shirt tails all that shielded his modesty.
He caught Darcy’s eye in the mirror. “Most people use the door. And knock first.”
“Upon my word, would you put something on?” Darcy snapped, turning to Elizabeth, but she was not paying any attention to Saye. Her eyes were fixed on the rubble. She was mouthing something that looked a lot like “My house,” and her eyes were glassy. She looked devastated.
“That was clearly not a supporting wall,” Darcy tried to assure her. “I am sure it is not as bad as it seems.”
His attempt to mollify her would have worked much better if Fitzwilliam had not, at that moment, thrown the library door wide open and shouted, “What in blazes was—bloody hell!”
Mrs Annesley appeared behind him in her night gown and cap, and behind her, Darcy’s own man. Georgiana was conspicuously absent, reminding him of the pressing urgency of retrieving her.
“Would you send someone to Tucker’s house to ask him to come and deal with this?
” he said to Fields. Ignoring the fact that Fitzwilliam had by then noticed Elizabeth’s presence and was peering between them with narrowed eyes, Darcy turned to quieten Mrs Annesley’s fretting.
“Yes, the house is perfectly safe. It was not a structurally significant wall. No, there is no need to wake Georgiana. She was unwell; let her sleep. I beg you would return to bed, madam.”
She did, and when she was gone, Elizabeth let out a small, somewhat hysterical laugh. “Just when I thought things could not get any worse.”
Darcy’s heart went out to her. He knew what the house meant to her and how personally she had taken every obstacle to its restoration. This was another regrettable blow.
“It does seem that you are having a particularly bad day, Miss Bennet,” Saye said before turning his nose up at both of the options held out by Denvers. “No, neither. The buckskin, I think.”
“Saye, will you please just put some clothes on!” Darcy said again.
His cousin shrugged, bringing his shirt tails alarmingly high up his thighs. “I must look the part if I am to break into Sullivan’s party and rescue my wayward cousin, would you not agree?”
“Sullivan? I thought it was Lord Lansley’s ball?” Fitzwilliam asked, at the same time as Darcy said, resignedly, “You heard us, then.”
Saye turned around to face them. “You were arguing loudly enough to pulverise my bedroom wall, Darcy. It is little wonder that I heard you.”
“Will someone tell me what is going on?” Fitzwilliam asked.
“In a minute,” Darcy replied. Elizabeth had averted her eyes.
He still came to block her view of…well, everything.
His half-naked cousin, her crumbling house, the unrelenting wretchedness of the last few days.
He would protect her from every hurt in the world if he could.
As it was, the only comfort he could offer was the promise that he would bring her sister home safely.