Chapter Seven #6
“She has alluded to there being many tragedies in your family—I admire her resilience. And I forgive you, if it is any consolation. When I spoke of the cormorant, before… I believe there is enough weighing on your conscience without fretting over an offense that only ever amused me in the first place. You were gone from the neighborhood before it could fester into any real resentment. Let us begin again as friends, if you can pardon me for allowing your sister to become so intoxicated.”
Darcy could see little more than her silhouette in the darkness; perhaps this made it easier for him to speak so candidly. “The blame is all my own; I have not always been the best guardian to her these last seven years.”
She let out a soft sigh. “So long? You must have both been so young when….”
His fingers twitched at his sides, his hands tingling with the inexplicable urge to reach out and cling to the first person who had ever expressed a modicum of compassion for his situation.
The emotion that had trembled in her words made Darcy wish to weep, to confess the loneliness of it, the countless sleepless nights that had tormented him since taking on the responsibility of raising his sister, and failing her on more than one occasion.
“I could see your frustration at certain unguarded comments, and though I know it is not my place to say so, I am certain she worries for you just as much as you must for her,” Miss Bennet murmured. “Her good opinion of you speaks volumes.”
Darcy sucked in a sharp breath, grateful for the darkness as a tear slid down his cheek. “Thank you, Miss Bennet.”
After a moment of silence, she turned the latch and opened the door to her bedchamber once more. Moonlight from the window spilled into the corridor, illuminating her glistening eyes as she dipped her head and whispered, “Good night, Mr. Darcy.”
Darcy retreated back the way he had come, finding Richard peering out at the moonlit coastline from one of the windows in the drawing room. “We ought to go, before Sir Edward returns and gets entirely the wrong idea.”
“Why, Darcy, whatever can you mean?” Richard chuckled as he followed Darcy back down the stairs.
When they reached the dark antechamber, he could hear voices and laughter in the ballroom and let out a sigh of relief that Sir Edward had not discovered them.
There had been no impropriety, he reminded himself—perhaps it was only the darkness that made him feel so guilty somehow.
Darcy would have gone back into the ballroom, but Richard was examining the other doors, which Darcy had not noticed on their way up.
“This must be the entrance from the courtyard—this door must connect to the hotel—I wonder where this one leads.” He opened it and stepped out into a small garden overlooking the distant shoreline, gesturing for Darcy to follow.
They oriented themselves easily enough in the moonlight, and soon found a narrow gravel walking path that led in the direction of Sandpiper Cottage.
As he was prone to do, Richard spoke as if resuming a conversation, despite several minutes of intervening silence. “Would the idea be so wrong, Darcy?”
“What?” Darcy stumbled on the rocky ground and was relieved that his sister had not been obliged to traverse the uneven terrain in her present state.
“You and Miss Bennet.”
“What?!”
Richard guffawed. “Such innocent indignation indeed! Come Darcy, you must have noticed what a diamond she is. Clever, charming, compassionate, and beautiful besides. I would be on bended knee at her feet in a trice if fortune were no consideration for me—and Georgiana would celebrate the connection.”
“She is all that you say,” Darcy admitted.
“Perhaps in another life, had things gone differently.” Perhaps if he had not been in such ill humor at the night of the assembly, if he had danced with her instead of dismissing her outright, if he had remained in Hertfordshire a while longer.
But events had transpired differently, and he could not so easily forget the love that had blossomed from his correspondence with Anne.
“Just as well, I suppose. When Georgie teased her about Sir Anthony, Miss Bennet replied that she has no desire for admirers. It is a pity, though, for when I think of how envious Anne looked….” Richard guffawed and turned to wait as Darcy caught up with him on the path to the cottage.
“Did she?”
“Did you not notice? No, I suppose you ceased your longing glances in her direction when you were in Miss Bennet’s company.
Interesting. I first noticed that look of avarice in her beady little eyes when you were speaking to Miss Denham—she has cast you off in favor of another, but Heaven forbid you look at another woman!
And then when we sat with Miss Bennet, I spied Anne glancing over at you very often.
When Miss Bennet leaned over to whisper to you, I thought our cousin would fall out of her chair—I rather wish she had. ”
Darcy’s mind reeled as he considered his cousin’s words.
He did not bother protesting the many aspersions, which were true enough, and well-deserved.
What shocked him the most was how differently he had felt at the end of the evening, compared to when he had first arrived.
It was certainly something that merited further ponderance when he was not scrambling across a sandy hillside, tripping over the tall grass.
Richard moved with surer steps and continued his expostulation. “I suppose it must have nettled Anne all the more because Georgie clearly adores Miss Bennet. Already she is saying they are like sisters—albeit after consuming half the wine in the county—but she has never been so warm with Anne.”
“There is a considerable difference in their ages.”
Richard snorted loudly. “Georgie despises her, Darcy. She is not privy to the tremendous sentiments of romance in these letters, and has based her opinion on how Anne has actually treated you on the few occasions you have been in company together—and the many occasions Anne has avoided your company.”
“Georgiana may harbor some resentment….”
“She loathes her,” Richard said bluntly.
“If there was a competition for loathing, Georgiana would receive the grand prize. She could compose sonnets, write essays, fill entire volumes with what you call resentment. It is plain to see in the way she looks at Anne, and tonight she could not contain it, for I heard her barbs. In vino veritas, and all that.”
Darcy’s mind drifted back to the dark corridor above the ballroom, to Miss Bennet’s gentle words of mollification. Georgiana worried for him. He had made such a mess of his betrothal that he had given his sister cause for alarm.
Richard clapped Darcy on the back. “What you ought to do is let Anne be content with less, if an inferior man makes her happy—you are worthy of far better. Miss Bennet, for instance. But since I know you will only bore me with your protests, I will not advise you to do what you ought. Instead, allow me to suggest a more devious alternative—that you give Anne a taste of her own medicine. I posit that you might inspire the same covetous pursuit in her, as she has aroused in you. If this evening was enough to spark a little jealousy in her without intending to, just imagine what you might accomplish when you really set your mind to it!”
“You cannot be serious!”
“As I told you, my serious advice is to abandon your engagement as Anne has done, and make love to Miss Bennet in earnest. My unserious suggestion is that you pretend to do so. Miss Bennet would probably agree to it as a lark, and it appears there is an overzealous suitor she wishes to avoid, so you might be of mutual benefit to one another.”
Darcy opened his mouth to protest, but he could not think of a single rational argument against the scheme.
He had clearly taken leave of his senses; this could be the only explanation for how easily he had begun to consider what it might be like to carry out such a scheme.
He could well imagine what Miss Bennet might say to the wild idea, how her eyes would glitter with wicked mirth, how her shoulders would bob ever so slightly from the force of her unrestrained laughter.
This image gave way to another, of him taking her hand in that dark corridor, and Darcy’s mind spiraled into confusion.