Chapter Twenty-Seven
Darcy left Gracechurch Street with a peculiar sensation of having mislaid something of consequence.
It was not, he assured himself, his hat, which was upon his head. It was not his gloves, which were, as required, covering his hands. It was not even his composure, though that had taken a severe knock and had not yet returned to its usual solidity.
It was, most unreasonably, his peace.
Georgiana had listened with shining eyes to Elizabeth’s account of danger and deliverance and had looked at Darcy with awe.
Elizabeth herself had contrived to amuse them with the story of her trials.
She had softened what might have frightened his sister; she had managed to praise him, though she had rather made a show of that; she had smiled, and the smile had done something to him that he had no name for and no defence against.
Now, after returning Georgiana to Matlock House, he sat upright in his carriage and tried to arrange his thoughts.
He had rescued a princess. Well, he had helped her rescue herself.
Darcy arrived home, handed his coat, gloves, and hat to the butler, and then stood before the fire in his study for some minutes without moving.
At last he lit the Argand lamp, sat at his desk, took up a pen, and stared at a blank sheet of paper.
If he were a sensible man, he would write to his steward. He would write to his solicitor. He would write to his uncle and thank him for his concern and inform him, with gratitude and firmness, that the world contained baronies enough without Mr. Darcy of Pemberley being obliged to accept one.
Instead, his mind supplied him with an entirely different sort of correspondence: an image of a small table in a parlour on Gracechurch Street, a saucer with its cup set aside, and upon it a single dried pea.
He had not, when he had sat in that chair and rolled the dried pea between his thumb and forefinger, listening to Elizabeth speak, meant to deliberately leave a token of sentiment as if he were a schoolboy. He had risen, bowed, and departed as any gentleman might do.
If a pea had been left upon the table, it had been by accident.
He dipped his pen. Ink gathered at the point. The page remained empty.
After a quarter of an hour of this, he pushed the paper away, rose, and began to pace.
A gentleman could not propose to a princess.
He could not. It would be presumption, it would be folly, it would be cruel. To offer her his name and his home was to keep her from a part of her family she wished to know. To ask her to give up a crown for Derbyshire was absurd.
His duty was clear. Pemberley needed him.
Georgiana needed him. His tenants depended upon his stewardship, not his romantic fancies.
A sensible man would acknowledge that some things were simply impossible, no matter how desperately one might wish them otherwise.
A sensible man would not ask a princess to tie herself to an English gentleman with nothing more to offer than an estate in the north and a heart that had already proven itself capable of the grossest misjudgement.
But when had love ever been sensible?
He ran one hand through his hair, recalling the moments on the landing at Eaton Socon, when he had nearly kissed her. She had not uttered the slightest protest.
Darcy stopped pacing.
He found himself standing beside the window. The glass reflected his own face: grave, controlled, respectable. He looked like a man prepared to do his duty.
He did not look like a man who had fallen in love with a woman he ought never to have met.
He turned away from his own reflection with irritation when a knock sounded upon the door. Darcy did not answer at once. It was late, and he was not prepared for visitors. He was not prepared for anyone.
The knock came again.
“Enter,” he said, and hoped his voice carried authority rather than exasperation.
It was his butler, who was followed by a footman who held something in both hands with the careful solemnity of a priest carrying a relic. It was a saucer. There was no cup upon it. And upon the saucer lay two dried peas.
Darcy stared.
The footman advanced as if he were approaching a temperamental animal. “From Gracechurch Street, sir,” he said.
Darcy took the saucer. It was a ridiculous object to send to a gentleman. It was more ridiculous to find one’s pulse altering because of it.
“There is a note,” his butler added, and held out a folded paper.
Darcy’s fingers were, for the briefest instant, unsteady. He took the note and dismissed them.
When the door closed, silence returned. It felt charged, as if the room itself were aware of being an accomplice.
Darcy set the saucer upon the desk with great care, as if the peas might roll away. He unfolded the note. The handwriting was neat and firm.
Mr. Darcy,
I return to you the pea you left behind, though it did not remain alone; I have added one of my own.
If you should wish to return mine, you would be most welcome to do so in person tomorrow morning.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet
Darcy looked down at the note. Elizabeth had sent him a pea as an invitation. It was, he thought, either the most imaginative flirtation in England or the strangest. Perhaps both.
Darcy’s mouth, without his permission, curved. His gaze returned to the note.
If you wish to return mine, you would be most welcome . . .
It was not a command. It was not an entreaty. It was an invitation.
Darcy stared at the paper until the words blurred slightly.
A gentleman ought to refuse. A gentleman ought to thank Princess Elizabeth for her kindness, send back the saucer, and keep his distance. A gentleman ought to remember that Elizabeth was a princess, and that to encourage her attention was to invite disaster.
Darcy folded the note with care. He placed it beside the saucer.
Then he rang the bell.
When his man appeared, Darcy said, “Have the carriage made ready at nine tomorrow.”
“Very good, sir.” His man withdrew.
Darcy stood alone again with the pea and the note. “I did not mean you as a declaration,” he muttered, and immediately felt foolish for speaking to a vegetable.
He went to bed early. He slept poorly. He rose before the sun and was cross with himself for it.
By the time his carriage was ready, Taylor had knotted Darcy’s cravat twice. Darcy considered whether one might appear too eager by arriving before ten. In the end, he arrived at five minutes before the hour and was shown into the parlour.
Mrs. Gardiner rose at once. Her expression was composed; her eyes missed nothing. “Mr. Darcy,” she said. “How good of you to call.”
“Mrs. Gardiner.” Darcy bowed. He felt, absurdly, as though he were presenting himself for judgement. “May I inquire after Miss Bennet?”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled. “She will be down soon.”
As if summoned by their voices, Elizabeth appeared in the doorway.
She was wrapped in the same soft shawl as the day before.
Her hair was up in a pretty chignon, and her complexion was rosy with health.
She looked at him with those fine, lively eyes, and Darcy felt the room narrow until there was nothing in it but her.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said.
He bowed. “Miss Bennet.”
Mrs. Gardiner made a small sound that might have been approval or amusement. “I shall return in a moment,” she said, not bothering to give them a reason for her departure.
Darcy was alone with Elizabeth. He remained standing because he had forgotten how to move.
Elizabeth gestured towards the chairs. “Will you not sit? You look rather grave.”
Darcy took the chair he had occupied the day before, and Elizabeth sat opposite him. She sat with her spine straight, the ends of the shawl gathered in her hands, eyes bright as she waited for him to say something.
His gaze flickered, against his will, to the small table beside him.
There was no saucer upon it now. He had brought it back, under his arm like contraband, and had left it in his carriage because he could not decide whether walking into the house with a saucer under his arm would make him appear mad.
But he reached into his pocket and removed the peas, dropping them back on the table.
Elizabeth’s eyes followed his glance, and her mouth twitched.
“You received my message,” she said.
“I did,” Darcy replied. He heard how stiff it sounded and disliked himself for it.
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened upon the edge of her shawl. “Did you think it a jest?”
Darcy hesitated. “I did not know what to think,” he said.
Elizabeth’s smile softened. “That is fair.”
She was quiet for a moment, as if searching for words. Darcy waited because he truly did not know how to proceed.
Finally she said, “I did not wish to send your sister a proper note. Proper notes invite proper responses, and proper responses are often . . . unsatisfactory.”
Darcy looked down at his hands. They lay upon his knees, long fingered, controlled. Hands that had held a pistol in a hollow, hands that had grasped her arm when she stumbled, hands that wanted, just now, to pull her nearer.
He closed his fingers to prevent them from betraying him.
“What is right, Princess,” he said, “is that you should be restored to your own people, and that I should trouble you no further.”
Elizabeth’s laugh was very soft and not at all merry. “That is very noble of you, Mr. Darcy.”
He looked up. “It is not nobility. It is sense.”
“Sense,” Elizabeth repeated, as if tasting the word. She leaned forward. The movement drew his attention, helplessly, to the shadow beneath her collarbone, to the pulse in her throat.
He forced his gaze back to her face.
“I do not wish,” she said, carefully, “to be treated like a matter to be arranged.”
Darcy felt heat rise behind his ears. “I have not meant—”
“I know what you mean,” Elizabeth said, and there was gentleness in it that made the frustration worse. “You mean to be honourable. You mean to be wise. But I cannot desire that.”