Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
elizabeth
I faked a headache and tears and stayed home.
He arrived just as he had the day that he had proposed to me.
I received him in a sitting room in the parsonage, and he was wearing a waistcoat and a cravat, which I noticed and could not help but comment upon.
“I am beginning to think that my lack of decorum might have put us in some danger,” he muttered.
“Danger?” I said.
“Well, you are…” He looked me over. “We should not get in the habit of doing things that are improper near each other is all. I should not like to do anything to you that would be untoward, and—” He cleared his throat. “Never mind this. It is neither here nor there.”
“We are meeting alone, which is improper,” I said. It was really rather improper that we walked together, I supposed, for we were unchaperoned whenever he appeared, but it was ludicrous, really, to think of anyone trying to compromise me, especially not Mr. Darcy.
I was not wealthy, so no one would be doing it for financial gain.
And Mr. Darcy did not even find me pretty. I was barely tolerable.
“Yes, I suppose.” He folded his arms over his chest. “And I was going to attempt to make you like me, but perhaps I oughtn’t. Maybe that will keep us safe, if you dislike me.”
“Safe from what?” I said.
“I don’t wish to talk of this with you,” he said, annoyed. “This is not why I came.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Why are you here?”
“We should, erm, try to get ourselves unstuck in time, I suppose, don’t you think?”
“Well, yes, I agree,” I said. “We must. And I have a theory about that, in fact. I think you are being punished for your arrogance and your lack of consideration for others. I think I am being punished for being too hard on people. So, we must both correct these things, and then I think we shall be free to live out our lives again.”
“Wait,” he said, furrowing his brow, “let me get this straight. You think we’re being punished and we’re meant to learn a moral lesson?”
“Well, yes,” I said.
“Punished by whom?” he said.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“If you think God,” he said, “you’ll wish to know that I spoke to three different clergymen about this and they all said it was impossible and that I was out of my head and should be taken to an institution.”
“Well, it must likely be God,” I said, “but maybe he is using—
“If you think witchcraft,” he said, “you should know that I sought out no less than five women who live in the nearby woods and villages and who dry herbs and keep black cats and the like? And they all thought I was out of my head and quite mad and should be taken to an institution. None of them had any magical ability whatsoever.”
I nodded. “Perhaps you should tell me all the things you have done to try to fix it, sir.”
He shifted on his feet. “All right, well. I tried to outrun it. I tried to talk to people who would have some idea how to help me. I tried shooting myself—”
“You did not .” I was horrified.
“It was a very bad day,” he said quietly. “I was rather drunk when I did it, in fact. I woke up, and it was Thursday again, and I… regretted it. I don’t think I shall try that again.”
“Definitely not,” I said.
“I tried staying awake,” he said. “Because it seems to happen after one goes to sleep—”
“Yes, all right, I had thought of that,” I said. “So, that didn’t work?”
“Well, I only managed it until about four in the morning, truthfully,” he said. “I ran out of tea, and all the servants were asleep. And then I fell asleep, and then—Thursday.”
“Yes, well, if we could get more tea,” I said.
“I think… even if we get more tea, eventually, we’ll have to sleep.”
“Yes, but think of it,” I said. “If we could make it until Friday morning, we could at least see it!”
He nodded carefully. “No, that’s true.”
“And maybe that is all that it would take. If we make it to the dawn of Friday, maybe that’s all we need.”
“Well, we could try it, I suppose.”
“I think we cannot, however, rely on servants. Brewing tea cannot be that difficult. One only needs boiling water, after all. We can brew the tea ourselves.”
“Yes, but for us to do that, you and I shall need to be alone somewhere, all night, drinking tea,” he said. “No one is going to allow us to do that.”
“We could go somewhere,” I said. “An inn. We can check in, bring the tea, and stay up until the morning light.”
“You and I in a room in an inn together,” he said, looking me over.
“We shall say we’re married,” I said.
He rubbed a hand over the back of his head. “There, you see, this is what I mean, however. It veers into these improper areas rather quickly.”
“What?” I blinked at him. “How is that improper? If we’re married, we can share a room. We should, perhaps, not wear very fancy clothes, like yours, of course, because someone of your means would likely get two rooms, one for himself and one for his—”
“Miss Bennet, do you know what people do in closed rooms with beds in them when they are married?”
I flushed, because… well, I sort of knew. I had an idea, anyway, but obviously I’d never done it, had I? “Obviously, I know,” I said in a very tight voice.
“Obviously,” he agreed, and his voice was tight, too. “So, then, there you are.”
I glared at him. “There I am, what?”
He glared back. “It’s very obvious.”
“Is it?” I lifted my chin. “It’s not as if we’d do… that.”
“Well, we would say that we wouldn’t,” he said. “And I think we’d mean it, but then we’d be there, all alone, and drinking quite a lot of tea and very wide awake in the midst of the night, in an inn, with nothing at all to do but evaluate the kissability of each other’s lips, and… and things would happen.” He squared his shoulders, nodding at me, his expression grim.
I touched my lips, feeling a little bit embarrassed and sort of shy and maybe a little pleased, except— “Mr. Darcy, you don’t even find me tolerable enough to dance with, let alone kissable.”
He drew back, eyes wide. “Oh, God in heaven. You overheard me at that ball.”
I sighed. “All right, yes, I did, and I would never have brought it up, but—”
“ That’s why you don’t like me.” He laughed. “I see. Of course. It’s all about your own pride, madam.”
I sputtered. “No, it is not. It’s about your arrogance, sir, your, well, prejudice, truly. You have these ideas about the way things should be, and you aren’t even willing to consider—”
“I didn’t even mean it,” he said, with a shrug, giving me a little grin, a sort of mischievous grin.
This unsettled me badly for no reason that made any sense. “You did indeed mean it.”
“Well, sort of,” he said with a shrug. “But really, it was better to say you were only tolerable than it was to say that I was tired of dancing with his stupid sister, Caroline Bingley, was it not? I don’t know, however, if you’ve noticed how difficult it is to be polite to that girl, though? She is…” He shook his his head, letting out an assessing breath. “Annoying.”
“Sir, you find me beneath you in every fathomable way—”
“Yes,” he said easily, shrugging. “Yes, you’re not the sort of girl I should dance with, Miss Bennet, but you’re really quite fetching. I was just thinking so this morning when you were walking. Richard and I came upon you there, and I thought about the way you were looking up into the sun like that, and I thought you were beautiful.”
I could not breathe. No one, no man, had ever called me beautiful. Not… maybe my father, but it wasn’t the same thing, not in the end, and this… he should not say things of that nature to me. I said nothing, unable to speak, shaking my head at him.
“Trust me, anyway, if we are stuck together in a room in an inn, I am going to find it tempting,” he said. “This is why I am wearing a cravat again.”
“What?” I said. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Yes, it does. Don’t you see? If I don’t follow propriety, I shall break it. If I break it, I shall… with you.”
“No, you won’t,” I said.
“I shall,” he said. “You’re pretty. I’m a man. There’s no one else. And there are no consequences to such a thing, so why not? If it’s Thursday every day, what could happen? You certainly can’t be gotten with child.”
I was shocked again.
“Anyway, no inns,” he said, clearing his throat. “Perhaps… we could attempt this tea experiment somewhere uncomfortable, like outside, around a fire, on the grounds of Rosings. While both wrapped in layers and layers—barriers—of blankets. Yes?”
I was still speechless.
“Oh, heavens, Miss Bennet, I would not do such a thing to you. Don’t be frightened.” He ran his hand through his hair. He was not looking at me. “I’m not that sort of man.”
“I suppose it would be easier on the grounds of Rosings,” I said in a quiet voice. “But you don’t actually want me in that way. You don’t find me—you are not drawn to me.”
“You really just don’t know anything about men, Miss Bennet,” he muttered. “Why do you think there’s so much care taken for propriety, anyway? Men are not to be trusted, not in that way.”
“That’s preposterous,” I said.
“Well, we shall take care,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “And I am not that sort of man.”
He was rather harping on that, wasn’t he?
fitzwilliam
Lord above, why had I said those things to her?
This was all I was thinking as I raided the kitchens at Rosings for tea and the kind of container that could go over a fire and boil water. It was easier for me to get these things than her, because I had the run of Rosings and because there were better resources here.
We were going to meet that night, after everyone had gone to sleep, in a spot on the grounds that we both remembered from the times we had walked together.
Richard was correct. I had been meeting up with her accidentally, but on purpose, and walking with her.
The truth was, before she turned down my marriage proposal, I thought she told me that she walked that way every morning because she wanted me to meet up with her. I thought she liked me. I told myself that she didn’t mind my presence, that she even welcomed it.
All along, however, it had been the other way around.
I was the one who had wished to be in her company. I was the one who was drawn to her. I was the one who thought she was beautiful.
I really wasn’t that sort of man.
But I don’t know what I had thought, truly, when I concocted that plan to ask her to marry me. I said it was on a lark. It was. But I had asked Anne to marry me only four times before it progressed to kissing.
Had I thought Miss Bennet would say yes?
Had I thought she’d let me kiss her?
How many times of kissing her would it have been before I convinced myself to take further liberties?
I was not that sort of man.
But this situation I had found myself in, I could not say it was bringing out the best in me. I barely recognized myself, truly. I had lost all sense of anything meaning anything at all, and that had happened quicker than I might have thought. One month, well, forty days, perhaps, now? Forty days of repeating the same day over and over, one suicide attempt, and I had gotten lost.
I supposed I’d said the things to warn her.
Maybe if she would simply be on guard, it would take some of the pressure off me. Because, here was the truth of it. This business of staying up all night was not going to work. I knew it wasn’t.
So, as long as she could recognize that my worser nature, the part of me that was not so noble, was out to take advantage of her, then she and I could both make a stand against it.
Yes, that must be why I had said it to her.
It couldn’t be because I was so lost that I had lost sight of the fact that one did not say those sorts of things to young, unmarried, and very pretty maidens with whom one was planning on spending the entire night with.
Damnation.
But nothing was going to happen.
We were simply going to drink tea.