Chapter Thirteen #2
“My last words to him were angry,” said Mr. Darcy. “I have held nothing but irritation and scorn towards him since he left. I feel… I cannot even say what I feel about that now. I don’t know if I can even feel it. I approach the feeling and I recoil. It’s too deep and too painful.”
“He would have understood,” said Elizabeth faintly.
“No, no, we quarreled, he and I—
“Over me,” she said pointedly. “Is it your fault, then, or my own?”
“You didn’t ask us to quarrel over you,” said Mr. Darcy, turning down the corner of his lips.
A servant swept through with a tray of drinks. She halted, smiling at the two of them, offering the tray.
Mr. Darcy took a glass and downed it before taking another.
“Oh, good idea,” whispered Elizabeth and did the same.
The servant flitted off, and Elizabeth sipped at her drink, watching her go off. Drinking the first drink quickly had blunted things rather pleasantly. She took a bigger drink of this one. Perhaps she was not in the mood to sip.
“At least Georgiana is with the duke,” said Mr. Darcy.
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “Oh, dear, I was supposed to find the dowager duchess to speak to her.”
“Oh?”
“I feel… if I am not to interfere at all with Neithern as the duke—and I do not wish to—that I should still have whatever settlement she hinted at giving me. I am her blood grandchild, after all, and the only legitimate child of her son, and, well, anyway, it wouldn’t be important, exactly, except—” She cut off, a sob welling up in her. She could hardly breathe.
“Except what?” said Mr. Darcy softly.
She turned on him with wide eyes. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”
“I’m not following,” said Mr. Darcy.
“I only meant that I thought that Richard and I must have something to live on and something for our children, if we ever had any children, but we won’t now, of course, so… none of it matters. I don’t actually need the money at all. I suppose I shall let it all go, then.”
“No, no, Lizzy, you are entitled—are you certain you and Richard won’t have children?”
She nodded. “Yes. He did not manage to get me with child before he left, and now he is gone, and now—” Her lower lip trembled.
Mr. Darcy’s nostrils flared. He tipped his glass back, finishing his drink.
She followed suit, and the strong, sweet mixture of the wine punch seemed to settle into her in such a way that made it all easier to bear.
“Perhaps…” Mr. Darcy looked her over. “Perhaps I should get us more drinks.”
“Please,” she said.
He returned with two each for them, and they made short work of them.
After that, she felt a bit like she was floating. She reached out to touch his arm to steady herself. “No more for me, I don’t think. I’m quite at my limit.”
“Oh, I apologize,” he said, shaking his head. “I should not have—”
“No, no, strong drink is just what I have needed,” she said. “Thank you.”
They surveyed each other.
“Well,” he said, “it will not be long until I take Georgiana back, for we were only to stay a short time. You may come in our carriage, if you wish.”
“I would appreciate that,” she breathed.
“I’ll make a show of having gotten the letter at breakfast,” he said. “You can react by running out of the room, and then I shall take care of it all. We’ll return to London—would you like to come with us to the Matlock household?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I would.”
He considered. “I shall take you to Weythorn, and I shall convince them to invite you. There will be a service in memory of him, and you must be there. You are his wife.”
“Do I need to be his wife?” she breathed. “If no one really knows, mightn’t I simply not be?”
He looked her over. “Is that what you wish?”
She wanted to cry again. “Oh, I should like another drink, perhaps.”
“No, you said you’d had enough,” he said.
She shook her head at him and went off, fighting her way as if the very air was heavy, looking for anything to drink at all.
He stopped her. “Let us go now,” he said to her. “We shall think of it all tomorrow.”
She turned to look at him. “Now, you and I, we could be togeth—”
“No.” He practically snarled the word. “Do not say such a thing, not while he is barely dead, Elizabeth, it’s unconscionable.”
She shrank from him, tears springing to her eyes at the force of his rebuke. She turned away and tried to flee.
He caught her arm, and he was apologizing, frantically apologizing, his words tripping over each other in his haste and vigor, so that she could barely even make out what he was saying. “It is my error, Lizzy. It has always been my error.”
She yanked her arm out of his grasp and spat at him, “Oh, Fitz, it cannot always be your error. Not everything is your fault.”
And then she did run.
She went off into the dark, and she staggered around the lake and found herself at the foot of the steps leading up to Neith Abbey.
She looked up at the tall and ancient place and thought that she could have been raised here, a duke’s daughter, and she wondered that this produced no emotional reaction in her anymore.
Richard is dead, she thought.
She should not have come to this ball.
How could Richard be dead? How could that have happened? And why was she sort of glad about it?
No, I can’t be glad, that’s awful and horrible, and I refuse to even think such an awful thought, and I won’t be glad.
“Elizabeth,” came the voice of Mr. Darcy.
She turned to look at him. “You shouldn’t have followed me.”
“I didn’t,” he said. He was staggering, too. “I went off and found myself some gin, and I drank that straight from the bottle, too much, and I…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I should not have come to this ball.”
She let out a laugh. “Yes, we are of the same mind in that respect.”
“I…” He gestured back at the dance floor. “I’ve lost Georgiana.”
“What?” said Elizabeth.
“I was told that she and Neithern and Houseman and Miss Bingley and several others all went inside the house.” Mr. Darcy gestured at the house now. “So, I am going to seek her. I cannot understand why they might be here, however.”
“Well, with Miss Bingley in the mix of it, she likely pestered her way inside and brought the others along for the journey,” said Elizabeth. “We’ll likely find them touring the most impressive parts of the place. Do we have any idea what those might be?”
Mr. Darcy shook his head, looking helpless. “No, not entirely.”
“Oh,” she said.
“I must go and seek her, though,” said Mr. Darcy, moving forward, starting up the stairs. “I really need to leave. I simply cannot remain here.”
She followed him up the stairs. “I shall assist you.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I suppose not, but I haven’t anything else to do.”
He glanced down at her, shrugged, and then seemed to accept this.
Together, they went to the front door. Usually, it would have been polite to knock, but Mr. Darcy simply opened it and then they walked inside.
The front room of the place was a vast room with high ceilings and a fountain in the midst of the room. The floor was marble. The fountain was marble. There were marble statues in the corners. A set of curving stairs climbed up to another level.
They looked up at the stairs and then to the left and to the right.
Then Mr. Darcy started to climb the stairs.
Elizabeth followed him.
On the second level, they were met by a servant, who inquired what they were doing.
Mr. Darcy asked after Neithern, Mr. Houseman, and the servant said that yes, she had seen them in the company of two ladies and also Bishop Sulles, which Elizabeth registered with a dull sense of alarm—dulled by too much drink, no doubt, or because of her grief, perhaps?
I am feeling grief, she assured herself.
She was not, in fact, glad.
The servant said they were in the study in the east wing and gave them instructions for how to get there. It involved a number of lefts and rights and stairs and Elizabeth could not remember any of it, but Mr. Darcy nodded, grave, as if he did, and they set off.
He led them with confidence through the mazelike corridors of the place, and she thought he must be used to large estates like this for he lived in one some of the time, and she followed him until he brought them into a room that was entirely empty.
It also wasn’t a study, but rather a sitting room of some kind, small, with a couch and a chair and a window that overlooked the grounds.
Behind them, the door swung shut.
“This is wrong,” said Mr. Darcy.
“Yes, it is,” she said, turning around to open the door.
The door was locked.
She rattled it, annoyed.
“Here, let me,” said Mr. Darcy, trying the knob himself. It wouldn’t turn for him either. “Damnation,” he said.
“Mr. Darcy, are we locked in?” she said.
“Damnation,” he said again.