Chapter 5
Darcy studied his latest attempt. Better. Much better, though it was not yet perfect. For her, it needed to be perfect.
Gratefully, his mother believed that her son needed to know more than estate management. Before she died, she brought in masters to teach him at least the rudiments of music and art.
He had not appreciated it at the time.
After crumpling six sheets of paper, he considered hiring an artist.
No. This was too important. Too personal. He wanted her to have a token created by his own hands.
He had a measure of skill. He had the time. And he was motivated.
Placing another sheet of paper on the desk, he closed his eyes, summoning the image.
Time passed unnoticed. His concentration was absolute.
The next day, Elizabeth was summoned to her father’s study. When she entered, he handed her a small, wrapped package. She turned it over. There was no note.
“Papa? What is this?”
He shrugged. “Jimmy Simmons found work at Netherfield Park. The lad left it with me moments ago.”
“Is it for Jane?”
“I do not believe so. If Mr. Bingley’s sisters were responsible, they would have included a name on the address. If Mr. Bingley sent it… Well, he would not have sent it via courier since he would have brought it himself.”
“I see.” Elizabeth bounced it in her palm, weighing it and trying to guess its contents. Too light for a book. Too flat for jewelry. “You think this is for me?”
“I suspect it is, though we have no way of knowing until it is opened.”
Curious, she pulled the string holding the packet together. Turning back the outer paper, she exposed what was inside.
Her breath caught. Her free hand went immediately to her throat.
“What is it, Lizzy?”
“I do not know for sure, except…” Elizabeth studied the heavy paper carefully, barely the size of her palm, before handing it to him. “Papa, this is not the work of a casual artist. Look at the precision. The detail. The shading. The fine ink lines within a subtle watercolor.”
“Hmm.” Her father studied it, then handed it back to her. “Interesting. Whoever drew this took their time. Although it is smaller in scale, the chessboard has the same border embellishment as the one we took to the field.”
“That is my sleeve. The exact shade of blue. The trim captured perfectly. My wrist. From the duel.”
“So it would seem. Either Mr. Darcy or Colonel Fitzwilliam paid very close attention, indeed.”
“Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth breathed. “Why would he…?” She stared at the drawing. Why would he notice? Why would he remember? Why would he care enough to recreate it?
“I think the better question is: Why go to such effort?” Her father’s eyes twinkled. “I suspect we shall discover the answer in time since this appears to be one small piece out of a larger picture.”
Clutching it to her chest, she asked, “May I keep this, Papa? At least until we see if more pieces arrive. It might get lost in all your books and papers.”
Chuckling, her father granted his permission.
Elizabeth hurried to her room.
The artist noticed her, her every detail. He remembered, recreating it with precision.
This was personal, deliberate. Intimate.
She could not stop looking at the drawing. With this, he changed the rules of the game to something she did not understand. He was no longer playing with pieces on a board but with her mind. Possibly even her heart. Her curiosity ignited despite her determination to remain merely civil.
What was he trying to say? And why did part of her want so desperately to know?
Infuriating man!
She set the drawing carefully on her dressing table, propping it against the mirror. Soon, a gathering was scheduled at Lucas Lodge. Charlotte mentioned earlier that Mr. Bingley and his party were invited. Mr. Darcy would likely attend. She found, despite everything, that she rather hoped he would.
She needed answers. Nothing more.
The game of cat and mouse began as soon as Darcy entered the drawing room at Lucas Lodge. Ignoring the raucous laughter of Elizabeth’s younger sisters and her mother pointing to Bingley, he sought the woman who held his attention for two days.
Mr. Bennet was not present. Darcy would have liked to have a word with him, to get his response to the artwork delivered to him. That would have to wait for another time.
His attention turned solely to the second Bennet daughter. Had she deciphered the meaning behind the first piece? He sincerely hoped so, since the second piece of his puzzle was sitting on his desk, completed. He could not give it to her in company.
When she moved to a corner to speak privately with Miss Lucas, he followed.
“What does he mean, eavesdropping upon our conversation, Charlotte?” she teased. At least, he hoped she was teasing.
Wary, he took a step closer.
Mr. Darcy approached with the quiet intensity he carried everywhere. His expression was unreadable.
“Ladies.” He bowed. “Miss Elizabeth, might I have a word?”
Charlotte’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. She excused herself with barely concealed curiosity.
Elizabeth braced herself. “Mr. Darcy.” She glanced around the room. “The colonel did not accompany you?”
“He returned to his regiment.”
“I see.”
He moved closer. Not precisely improper since they were still in full view of the room.
Close enough that she could see the weave of his coat.
Close enough to catch the clean, masculine scent of sandalwood and citrus.
Close enough that if she shifted slightly, their sleeves would brush.
Close enough that when he spoke, his voice was meant for her ears alone.
She fought the urge to step back, to restore the proper distance. However, that would show weakness, and she refused to appear unnerved by his proximity.
Even though she was. Unnerved, that is.
“You seem well.” His eyes studied her with a single-mindedness that made her want to look away. She did not.
“I am quite well, thank you.” Her voice was steady. Good. “And you, sir?”
“Well enough.” He paused. “I trust you have found the company at Lucas Lodge agreeable this evening?”
Small talk.
“Very agreeable,” she managed, unsettled with the banality of his words and the intimacy of his tone.
Another pause. She could hear her own heartbeat in the silence between them. His presence filled the space they occupied, making the crowded room feel suddenly far too small. Be civil, Lizzy. Just be civil.
Then he asked, his head tipping towards hers, “Have you received any interesting correspondence lately, Miss Elizabeth?”
Her pulse leapt. Somehow, in that moment, with him standing so close that she could see the exact shade of his eyes—dark, intense, watching her—she knew he was asking about the drawing. Of her wrist.
Taking a shallow breath, her throat tight, she said, “I have received a drawing, sir. Of a chessboard.” She forced herself to meet his gaze directly. Her heart was hammering. “And a wrist wearing a very particular gown.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Not quite a smile, but close. Satisfaction, perhaps. Or pleasure that she had noticed.
“Is that so?” Although his voice was carefully neutral, she caught the slight tension in his jaw. “How curious.”
The air between them was charged, like the minutes before a storm.
This close, she noticed the way a lock of dark hair fell across his forehead. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes. The breadth of his shoulders blocked her view of the room.
And his hands. Strong hands. Was that—yes, just there, a shadow of ink beneath his thumbnail.
Her stomach fluttered inexplicably.
“The artist captured the trim with remarkable accuracy.”
His eyes never left hers. “Perhaps the artist had an excellent model to work from. And considerable motivation to render it faithfully.”
She should step back. Should move away from this dangerous proximity, from the way his nearness made her too warm, made her thoughts scatter.
She should not be wondering what those ink-stained hands looked like as they held a brush, creating the image of her person with such painstaking care. Should not. But was.
“Lizzy!” Her youngest sister’s voice cut through the tension like a knife. “Come here at once. We must have dancing, and you must play.”
The spell—if it had been a spell—was broken.
Mr. Darcy stepped back immediately, taking his warmth with him.
“Miss Elizabeth.” He bowed. “I hope you continue to find your correspondence…intriguing.”
Then he was gone, moving back into the crowd, leaving her standing there with her heart still racing and her mind full of questions she could not answer.
She endeavored to regain her composure.
Charlotte appeared at her elbow. “What on earth was that about?”
“Nothing.” The lie came automatically. “He was merely…making conversation.”
“Lizzy.” Charlotte’s expression was knowing. “He was standing close enough to propose marriage, and you were looking at him as if—”
“I was not looking at him in a particular way.”
“If you say so.” Her friend’s smile suggested she did not believe Elizabeth for a moment.
Neither, Elizabeth suspected, did she. “Pardon me, good friend. I need to temper Lydia’s enthusiasm for dancing.”
Charlotte grimaced, “You can try.”
Darcy needed Bingley’s company to settle his racing thoughts. The way she looked at him when he mentioned the drawing, curiosity and hesitancy warring in her fine eyes, well…
“Darcy!” Bingley grinned. “I see you are present in form, but I have been speaking to you for a full minute, and you have yet to acknowledge me.”
“I beg your pardon.” Chagrined at having been caught out, he inclined his ear to his friend.
Before Bingley replied, his sister interrupted without ceremony.
When Miss Bingley tried to brush Darcy’s arm with her fan, he stepped back.
“How unusual, Mr. Darcy, for you to allow Miss Eliza to monopolize your attention for so long. I am quite astonished.”
Darcy’s jaw tightened at the diminutive name, the faint sneer in her tone, and her predatory interest.
“I cannot imagine why this astonishes you, Miss Bingley. You have seen me speak with others before.”
Her smile was brittle. “Though I cannot imagine what you found to discuss with such a provincial for a full quarter hour. Come, I can guess what you are thinking. Shall I tell you?”
“If you must,” he replied.
“Without doubt, you were considering how desperately you wish to be away from this tedious company and return to town where the individuals are more refined.”
“You are mistaken, Miss Bingley.” The words came out more forcefully than intended. “I have been meditating on the pleasure a pair of very fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”
Her face lit as if a thousand candles surrounded her. “Indeed? You are quite the poet. Whose eyes inspired you, good sir?” She fluttered her lashes. “Never Miss Eliza Bennet, surely, no matter how she puts herself forward. Did you not find her barely tolerable?”
Darcy’s voice dropped to a lethal tone that made Miss Bingley freeze.
“I will thank you to speak of Miss Elizabeth Bennet with respect. I inadvertently wounded her with a thoughtless remark at the assembly. I would do nothing, nor allow anyone in my presence to do anything that might continue to pain her.”
“Oh,” Miss Bingley gaped, uncertainty replacing her smugness. “I see. How gallant of you, Mr. Darcy, to concern yourself so deeply with the feelings of someone so far beneath us in consequence.”
“Is she beneath us?” He allowed a bit of steel into his question. “She is a gentleman’s daughter. I am a gentleman. In this, we are equal. Thus, who is below whom?”
Snapping her fan closed, Miss Bingley sniffed, her eyes anywhere but on him. “I am sure I do not know what you mean.”
Darcy said, “I am certain you do not.”
She moved away from him, her rigid posture broadcasting her offense. Darcy had no remorse. If his defense of Miss Elizabeth cost him Caroline Bingley’s good opinion, it was a price he would gladly pay.
Darcy turned towards a window. Across the room, Elizabeth stood in lively conversation with Miss Lucas, animated in a genuine way Miss Bingley could never be.
He had spent years in London ballrooms with women like Caroline Bingley, who smiled with calculation, who spoke with artificial sweetness, and who valued connections and consequence above all else.
Women who would never challenge his opinions, never surprise him, never make him examine himself. He had been bored and never realized it until that moment.
Miss Elizabeth had done nothing but challenge him from the moment she overheard his foolish insult. She looked past his name and fortune to judge his character.
There was no comparison between her and Miss Bingley’s sort. Bingley’s sister and her ilk represented everything hollow in his world. Miss Elizabeth was truth in a world of carefully constructed illusions.
He had made the correct choice. The only choice. Now came the challenge of convincing her.