Chapter Eleven
Darcy walked aimlessly through the grove along the southernmost boundary of Bingley’s rented estate.
His mind was weary, with his friend’s troubles now added to his own; they had been up half the night speaking of Bingley’s dilemma.
Darcy tried to soothe himself by taking notice of the way the sunlight shone down through the layers of branches high above him, how the leaves trembled in the breeze.
He blinked a few times when a particularly over-trimmed bonnet blew past him.
Darcy was exhausted, and it seemed so strange an occurrence that it was far likelier that he had imagined it.
He closed his eyes for a moment. The dappled sunlight on his face was warm, though the wind was refreshingly cool.
All would be well, he told himself. He opened his eyes, and the bonnet was tangled in the branches above him. “Hmm.”
He bristled at the idea that someone else was walking nearby; after the events of last evening, he was fit for nothing but absolute solitude.
And then, as curious as the rather ugly bonnet, two sheets of paper blew toward him.
The first blew into his face, and the other he caught against his hand.
He gripped them both roughly, annoyed at the interruption of his sulking, and then he examined them with curiosity.
Darcy balked when he saw that both missives were addressed to Jane Fairfax.
He could not like that she was near, and could only hope these missives had been blown a considerable distance before reaching him.
He knew it would be ungentlemanly in the extreme to even glimpse at the letters – to read a lady’s private correspondence could only disgust his sensibilities.
And yet….
Darcy could not deny a sense of curiosity – no, it was caution.
There was something about her he could not trust, and therefore could not like, despite her wit and charm, her captivating candor, and her undeniable beauty.
He could not pinpoint why he distrusted her, but Darcy had every faith in his own instincts and intuition.
They had ever served him well… with the excruciating exception of the events following his sister’s ill-fated sojourn to Ramsgate a year ago.
A swell of self-doubt and despair made him grit his teeth as he trembled. “Damn it,” he grumbled, lost amidst a great confusion where the line between prudence and cruelty seemed to blur. He glanced down at the pages in his hands and then looked away.
“There is something amiss with that vixen,” he muttered, a pair of sparkling blue eyes drifting through his mind with a look of beguiling torment. “It is fortunate she did not entrap my poor friend.”
He had spent the small hours assuring his friend Bingley that a marriage with Miss Emma Woodhouse would be a fine thing.
To jilt her would be the defeat of all of Bingley’s aspirations.
A gentleman of Darcy’s importance might survive the ordeal relatively unscathed, but Bingley was not so fortunate.
He was only a generation removed from trade; every door to high society which Darcy might open for his friend would most certainly be slammed in Bingley’s face if he ruined a gentleman’s daughter.
It was some consolation, Darcy believed, that Miss Woodhouse was acceptable in every way that society demanded. Her lack of connections was lamentable, but she was handsome, clever, and rich – and according to her faithful assistant Miss Fairfax, quite accomplished .
Darcy suppressed a strange sensation in his chest at the thought of Miss Fairfax’s pert opinions, so freely and cheerfully expressed. His friend was fortunate to now be in no danger of succumbing to that enigmatic siren’s effortless charms, but Darcy was not so sure of his own safety.
Perhaps it would be better to discover what he might; there was an air of mystery about her that begged to be unraveled.
Perhaps there was some clue in her correspondence, something that might explain why the people who had known her all her life seemed to somehow not know her, to marvel at her as if she were entirely new to them.
It would be foolish not to take this chance to sate his curiosity, his need to know Jane Fairfax, to make sense of her.
Darcy let out a sigh that was nearly a groan, and began to scan one of the rumpled letters.
Written in a decidedly masculine hand were paragraphs of adoration, words of intense passion, and even a poem worshipping Miss Fairfax’s many virtues – Darcy could not bear it and crumbled the letter in his hand.
He looked at the other one, and paused when he saw the name Bingley, a sense of alarm now coursing through him.
He raised his gaze to the opening of the letter, which utterly bewildered him.
My dear sister, I have arrived safely at our father’s magnificent home.
He, and the manor, are as charming as I imagined, but… .
“Sir, I believe you have something of mine.” Her voice was firm, but somehow still musically mirthful; Darcy’s head snapped up, and he nearly gasped at the resplendent sight of Jane Fairfax, her golden hair blowing loose about her, the sunlight causing her to fairly glow.
She looked absolutely furious, and he nearly fell at her feet as if she were a cruel and vengeful goddess.
His gaze dropped back down to the page in his hand, but he was too flustered to make any sense of the words, which now seemed to swirl before his eyes as his face heated with shame.
“Well, do not keep reading it!” Miss Fairfax boldly approached him and snatched her letters back; he made no effort to prevent her from reclaiming them.
She glanced down at the pages, smoothed out the crumpled love letter, and then swiftly folded them up and tucked the pages into her pocket more forcefully than necessary.
Every impulse told him to apologize at once, but what first came out of his mouth was entirely incomprehensible. Miss Fairfax looked at him as if he were a madman. “Are you… unwell, Mr. Darcy?”
“ Who are you? ”
Her face displayed a rapid succession of emotions – confusion, amusement, and panic all looked exceedingly charming on her visage. “I am Jane Fairfax,” she said slowly and succinctly, as if speaking to a simpleton. “We have met twice before, sir.”
Darcy shook his head to rouse himself from this mortifying stupor.
“Yes, I know that we have been introduced, but I confess I am bewildered. I understood you to be an orphan – I was told that like me, you had lost both your parents. Are your friends here in Highbury unaware that you have a living father – and a sister?”
Her eyes widened with alarm, and then her jaw and brow set with anger. “That can be none of your concern, Mr. Darcy.”
“I think it is the concern of all your neighbors, if you are working some deception upon them.”
Miss Fairfax scoffed and shook her head. “What a preposterous suggestion!”
“Is it? I suppose you would have no objection to my informing our mutual acquaintance that you have heard from your sister, who is visiting your father? Or that you are also corresponding with a lover?”
Miss Fairfax’s face crumpled with despair, the smoldering rage in her eyes dying out completely as a few tears began to slide down her cheeks.
She hugged at herself as the wind blew through her thin pink muslin gown.
“Mr. Darcy, that would ruin everything. For what purpose would you destroy the most important thing in my life?”
Darcy took a staggering step backward at the ache in her delicate query. Her soft voice rang in his ears, but before him she was transformed into Georgiana, the same golden hair and wide-eyed desperation. He let out a low groan.
“I am not in the habit of ruining lives,” he said gravely. “It is the last thing I would ever desire.” He shook his head as if to dispel the regrets that haunted him, and he peered down at Jane Fairfax with warring contempt and compassion.
She said nothing but stared back at him with an intensity that troubled him and…
tempted him. He wanted to know her story, whatever it was – it was certainly not what he had been told.
He no longer needed to worry that his friend might be ensnared by a beautiful woman who was not what she seemed; but he still desired to satisfy his own curiosity.
As he held her gaze, he began to worry he might wish to utterly devour her.
“I separated a pair of lovers once before, and I fear I shall never be forgiven,” he breathed.
He had never admitted this to anyone not directly involved in the debacle; even Bingley knew only half the story.
He felt his burden ease a little at confessing, and dared to hope that Miss Fairfax might also be forthcoming.
Her lips parted and she furrowed her brow for a moment. “Oh – oh, no – that is not what it seems – he is not my lover – at present I rather think ill of him….”
Darcy reflexively raised one hand to lightly brace her arm; she flinched but did not move away. “Miss Fairfax, if you are in danger, or some sort of predicament….”
Her lips twitched up into a fleeting smile. “It may be called a predicament, or at the very least a precarious situation, but then it is one of my own making. You may think me wanting in accomplishments, sir, but I believe I am clever enough to manage it. It must come out well; it has to.”
She seemed to be reassuring herself more than him, and Darcy’s pique increased. What sort of peril had she brought upon herself, this beautiful slip of a girl who was widely described as timid, but who seemed internally ablaze with whatever she was holding back?
There was a twinkle of wickedness in her blue eyes, and she bit her lip for a moment before she spoke again. “It is generous of you to offer assistance to an impertinent adventuress , sir.”
Darcy gaped at her. “On my honor as a gentleman, Miss Fairfax, whatever this matter of great importance may be, if your intentions are not malicious….”