Chapter 1 #3
Sleep eluded him that night. His mind reeled.
He cursed himself for meddling in this hornet’s nest; the sting of curiosity had pierced him through.
What was it about Elizabeth that made banishing her impossible, these feelings supposed to have died years ago?
What did she possess that ruined him for any other woman?
Her vivaciousness, the quickness of her mind, her wit, her loyalty and care, the way she was true to herself and her values, her fearless determination, or was it all of it? The joy she brought wherever she went?
By the time dawn crept through the cracks of his luxurious window treatments, it was clear Darcy lacked the restraint to deny himself the one thing he wanted most: to speak with Elizabeth.
* * *
The day was glorious. Elizabeth let out another sigh.
How dearly she would love to go for a nice long walk; but it could not be helped, her ingredients would not weigh themselves.
She hummed a melody that came to her lips by itself—the Irish song her Tommy used to sing.
She smiled to herself, these afternoons here in the stock room making up little packets and singing together, used to be her favourite moments.
She looked around and could not help feeling proud.
These were the memories she wanted to cherish.
Their exhilarating courtship, the love and passion they shared…
At least in the beginning. She used to think the two of them were exactly what poetry was written about.
That sort of fire could not last; she knew that now.
She forgave herself for not loving him as much in the end as she had in the beginning.
The bell above the front door rang. Elizabeth heard steps and then Jonathan welcoming a customer.
She smiled because she could hear the depth of his bow in his voice.
The poor lad was perpetually in awe of their more affluent clients.
She kept listening in, just to make sure the lad wouldn’t be out of his depth, since most clients sent servants and only came in person for the needs they wished to keep secret.
She was fairly surprised to hear a male voice, since over the past years she became somewhat popular with the fairer members of the ton and it was usually ladies who came in person.
Elizabeth could not quite make out what was said in the front room so she moved to the doorway and peered through a gap in the curtain.
She had to blink several times; her hand covering her lips to stop her cry.
There stood Mr Darcy - as tall and as proud as she remembered him - right there in her little apothecary.
He spoke in a low voice as he looked around quizzically.
In truth, Mr Darcy was the first man to ever turn her head, the first to make her heart beat faster and her knees weaken.
She could never love him, but, good heavens, he set her aflame!
He had become the source of her wanton fantasies; and while it had shocked her when Darcy first appeared behind her closed eyes as Thomas moved upon her in their marital bed, the memory of Darcy’s voice, the feel of her hands in his, and the piercing intensity of his gaze melting her skin carried her over the edge.
Over time she began to summon his image deliberately.
It was a private lapse of virtue, but she kept her infidelity to her thoughts—unlike her husband.
As their marital intimacy dwindled into mere duty, the Darcy of her imagination transformed into a spectacular lover, a figment who was entirely of her making.
In those moments of solitude he never disappointed her.
Snapping herself back into the moment, Elizabeth could not believe her eyes. She shuffled to the chair and sat down in a state of complete shock. It had been so many years since she last saw him, but that last time she would never forget.
“Jonathan, I am going upstairs, I will finish the packaging early in the morning.” Elizabeth’s head peeked from behind the curtain into the shop.
“Are you feeling well, Mrs Morley? You look very pale…” Jonathan trailed off.
Elizabeth forced a smile. “I am feeling a bit fatigued, it was a busy week. Tell Mr Brook I have retired for the day and we will speak in the morning.”
“Yes Ma’am!”
As she was ascending the stairs to her living quarters, she began to smile a little.
What brought Mr Darcy here? Why would he be buying laudanum?
He could surely send his staff for it - and it is highly improbable his housekeeper would not keep some at hand…
Was he addicted? She shook her head. Mr Darcy was many things but she could not imagine him overindulging in anything, let alone opiates.
He might be hiding a persistent pain of some kind, or his wife might suffer from hysteria - that thought made her laugh aloud.
How ironic it would be if the man who inspires her so much could not make his wife content.
* * *
Darcy did not want to return to an empty house.
He needed a drink and as he was loath to admit, he needed to unburden himself.
He ordered his coachman to take him to Fitzwilliam’s residence.
Inside his carriage, he amused himself with self-reprimanding thoughts.
In his eagerness to see Elizabeth and speak to her, he had failed to anticipate the need to invent a fictitious complaint as his pretense for being there.
When he saw the young lad, he panicked. He kept looking around the shelves and cabinets stocked with draughts and herbal remedies, hoping something, anything, would supply him with an idea for a falsehood.
“I suffer from insomnia.” He told the boy. It was not exactly a lie; he hadn’t slept properly since the day he beheld Elizabeth at the graveyard.
“Would you like a herbal remedy?” The boy offered.“I am afraid Mr Brook is out to see a patient, but I am sure he will be able to help you tomorrow…”
“Do you have laudanum?”
“Ah. Of course!” he said, and went to the shelf full of blue bottles reaching for the largest one out of habit.
“No no! The small one will do!” Darcy protested. After all he did not want to look like a habitual user of the tincture. He gave the boy two silver coins and hastily left the premises.
Fitzwilliam guffawed heartily as Darcy told him the story.
“I am glad I am the source of such mirth, cousin.” he said indignantly once he finished his tale, sitting opposite Fitzwilliam in his study. The brigadier put on a solemn air and rose to fill two glasses with brandy. He handed one to Darcy.
“You are correct, this is no laughing matter. You are acting like a green lad of sixteen. What is worse, you do it for a woman who might not exist as you remember her anymore. Indeed, I am worried about you.”
“Do you have anything helpful to say, Richard?”
“You never did heed my advice in this respect.”
“If you mean to say I need to tup a woman from time to time to get my thoughts straight, then no, I am not going to heed such advice.” He drank the content of his glass in one gulp.
“You should stop this nonsense, you are chasing a dream.”
“I only want to see her, talk to her. I want to know if she is well.”
“You said theirs was a respectable establishment; you described their house as elegant - she is by no means struggling.”
“She is the daughter of a gentleman who married a physician. How did that come about?”
“Her chances of a good match were always slim. She hardly had any dowry.”
“She was good enough for me!”
“Oh, Darcy, you can’t be serious! You yourself elaborated on all the ways she was lacking while you proposed to her!” Fitzwilliam was laughing in earnest.
“I have been sorry for that ever since. To this day I cannot comprehend what possessed me to speak to her like that!”
“Fifteen years from now, you will be sitting in the same chair asking me what possessed you to look for her now.”
“What if you were not discovered in that stable with Rita back then? What if you left Portugal and returned to England without her. Would you not have regrets?”
“I took my pleasure with her, cousin. I would probably have forgotten about it as soon as I returned to the barracks. I fell for her long after our wedding vows. As much as I am ashamed of that fact, I am truly sorry for the way I took liberties with her in Portugal.”
“Thank you Richard, I will take my leave now.”
Stepping outside on the street, he looked at his pocket watch and contemplated going to Lady Wistham’s musical soiree. It had been a long time since he indulged in her hospitality. Some company would certainly do him good. If he stayed at home he would only think of Elizabeth.
* * *
“Can you prepare a bath for me, Molly?” Elizabeth was fatigued and aching.
She needed to calm her nerves and ruminate on her thoughts.
An indulgent soak next to a fire was exactly what her late husband would have prescribed.As she sat on a sofa with her legs curled under her and her hair loose, she leafed through Pereira’s ‘The Materia Medica’ searching for clues to help a patient with a persistent ailment.
She wrestled with her mind trying not to think of Darcy with little success.
She lowered herself into the warmth of water, resting her head on the high back of the tub and feeling the tension drain from her muscles.
Elizabeth closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feeling of relaxation.
Perhaps it was inevitable the tall broad-shouldered figment of her imagination should visit in this rare moment of calm.
She chuckled softly, pushing aside her mental intruder.
“Not today, Darcy. It would feel very wrong somehow,” Still her mind refused to settle, she was ashamed of everything her mind produced.
Her Darcy was forever the man who proposed to her once. She chose to remember him as he was in that particular moment - angry and desperate for her. But the man she saw today was different. Older, certainly. Still strikingly handsome. But more than that, he was real. Almost human.
For the first time in years, she speculated on the life he must have lived.
A wife. Children. Perhaps a mistress. He had not stood frozen in time, pining for her.
Why should he? She certainly had not. She had built a life, a purpose, a future of her own making.
While that life took her on a very different path than she imagined herself walking in her youth, she would not change it, not for ten thousand pounds a year. She laughed out loud.
She sank deeper into the bath, allowing the warmth to further ease the tension.
She stretched one of her legs up in the air and watched the droplets of water slip down her skin, then suddenly, she saw Tommy in her mind’s eye.
His strong hands massaging her foot, his touch slow, teasing, traveling lower until his fingers disappeared beneath the water.
She moaned softly. She was left to her own devices in all things, but this hunger she could not quite satisfy on her own, only subdue.
“Wanton, wanton Elizabeth!” She could almost hear Tommy’s voice, his warm breath against her ear, laughing at her predicament.