Chapter Eight #4
Mr. Darcy drew in a sharp breath and stared at her with inscrutable severity, while the colonel turned to Georgiana with raised brows.
Elizabeth feared she had overstepped, but she wished Mr. Darcy to know that his sister had confided in her, and that she could be trusted with such a secret.
Anxiety churned in her stomach. “Forgive me, I… I only meant to suggest that Miss de Bourgh’s perception of you rather makes me wonder if she has only ever seen you out of humor. ”
Elizabeth inwardly cringed, not sure she had undone the damage of her indiscreet remarks with more of the same, but Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and clapped his cousin on the back, shattering the tension.
“Anne really does bring out the worst in you, cousin—I daresay even you do not like yourself after you have been around her.”
“And perhaps she really is jealous, as you say, Richard.” Georgiana made a subtle gesture with her head, calling their attention up to the terrace.
Miss de Bourgh appeared to be neglecting the attentions of Sir Sidney and the admonishments of her mother, in favor of staring down at the beach, where her cousins spoke with Elizabeth.
Again Georgiana laughed loudly to further nettle Miss de Bourgh.
The colonel glanced between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, and then whispered something to Georgiana, who let out a cry of shock and delight before taking her cousin’s arm and allowing him to lead her back down the path toward the cottage.
Left alone with Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth began to fidget uncomfortably. “I apologize for speaking so bluntly. Georgiana has been open and encouraging in her friendship, but I have no right to pronounce such assumptions….”
“You were absolutely right.” Mr. Darcy impulsively caught her hand in his and pressed it tightly for a moment before releasing her and taking a step backward.
He cleared his throat before speaking with greater circumspection.
“With anybody else, I might be astonished that my sister chose to share… the reason for my churlishness on the night of that assembly years ago.”
“You may be assured of my discretion—I ought not to have referenced it so casually.”
Mr. Darcy looked as if he would again reach out for her, but instead offered Elizabeth his arm.
They began to walk at a sedate pace some distance behind Colonel Fitzwilliam and Georgiana, who were speaking hurriedly and with great animation, and often looking back over their shoulders at Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.
“Please, do not apologize. In my present state of disappointed hopes, your honesty is refreshing and the effect your open manners have had on my sister is more than I dared hope for in the past two years. At least there is some good in the midst of my anguish. Your opinion of me might reasonably be much worse, a lovelorn lunatic chasing his indifferent lady about the country while she flaunts her feckless paramour….”
Elizabeth gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.
“I do not think so meanly of you—we have called a truce, have we not? I suppose Miss de Bourgh’s haughty attitude this morning did bother me more than I wished to admit, but I cannot really blame you for that.
Indeed, I cannot at all account for why I should not simply laugh at her pomposity, as I have done before. ”
Mr. Darcy looked down at Elizabeth, studying her, as if seeing her for the first time. “Perhaps you see that her behavior is not simply the sort of absurd folly that one might take as a joke.”
“Indeed. She is hurting people.” Elizabeth murmured.
He gave a rueful chuckle. “Perhaps Richard is right—he thinks I ought to pay her back in kind. I daresay you might take it for a lark, Miss Bennet, but it is not in my nature. Then again, I have not been behaving much like my usual self of late.”
Elizabeth arched an eyebrow. “Your usual self? Dancing until dawn, I suppose? Dressed to the nines and in a constant state of japery?”
“Anne might prefer such a version of me, but no. I suppose what I mean is that I am not generally so governed by emotion.”
“Your sister has sung your praises to me all morning, and in such a way as to paint you as a gentleman of feeling and compassion.”
Mr. Darcy gave a grateful bow of his head. “I hope that I am. But there was a great deal of truth in your observation—as Richard so succinctly put it, Anne brings out the worst in me.”
Elizabeth bit back a laugh. “I wonder, then, that you should pursue her across the country.”
“It is true that she has sometimes made the assumption that I share all her views, particularly when I saw her last, at Christmas. It is also true that I have often been in such a state of anxiety around her that I have perhaps not shown myself to advantage in her presence. I had hoped to remedy that, but I have this far had little success. Richard thinks I ought to….” Mr. Darcy fell silent, laughing and shaking his head.
As much as she wished to know what Colonel Fitzwilliam had advised, Elizabeth did not wish to embarrass Mr. Darcy by inquiring. Instead, she simply asked, “What will you do?”
He gave her a wry smile, but his eyes glistened with something pleasant that she had not observed in him before. “Perhaps I shall reconsider dancing—even if my partner is only tolerable.”