Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
It had begun to snow. Tiny flakes that were delicate, intermittent, and sparse.
Elizabeth tilted her face to the sky, attempting to catch them on her tongue.
She had not ventured very far from the dower house, but she knew that her sisters would worry if she did not soon return.
Her mother, bless her, would barely think of her at all.
She lived within her own little world, where she preferred silence to conversation, but she loved music.
Mary played for her daily, as did Elizabeth, but her mother seemed to appreciate her middle daughter’s reserved demeanour far more than she did her second eldest’s attempts to cheer her with silly anecdotes and bits of news from their Yorkshire neighbourhood, none of which she comprehended.
Elizabeth was climbing the hill to the house when she noticed a gentleman walking towards her. He was at a great enough distance that she could not yet discern his face, but she recognised his tall, well-built form and long, confident strides.
Mr Darcy.
From the moment he had taken his leave of her in the drawing room, she had thought of little else.
The easy, familiar manner in which he had engaged her in conversation; the way his eyes had followed her throughout the evening; the exquisite sensations that had spread like wildfire from her hand, along her arm and outward, all the way to her toes, when he had touched her so unexpectedly, so gently, after she had finished playing.
Even now, Elizabeth felt the ghost of his touch—a tingle in her fingertips, a spark of anticipation in her belly, and a yearning that made her wish and want and hope.
She took a moment to compose herself.
Despite the cold, her cheeks became flushed and warm as she watched him approach.
He had likely called first at the manor house, been directed to the dower house, and then to the large expanse of lawn that sloped all the way to the dale below.
It was fitting that he should meet her here, where she was most content, with grass beneath her feet, and the sky above her head, and snowflakes swirling about her like tiny, lacey bobbles.
The distance between them melted away to almost nothing and soon he was standing before her, his countenance as serious as ever.
Elizabeth knew he admired her; that he possibly even loved her, but his expression…
Would she ever be able to understand this man, who had been an enigma to her from the start?
“Mr Darcy,” she said, smiling as she willed her racing heart to calm. “You have found me all alone this morning.”
“So I have,” he replied with a small, intimate smile of his own. “I had called at the manor house first, but your aunt directed me to the dower house, where the maid informed me that I would likely find you here.”
That he had asked for her specifically, instead of her aunt, brought Elizabeth an inordinate amount of pleasure. “I was just returning from a walk. A regrettably short walk. My sisters often worry about me if I am too long away, especially when the weather is cold or wet or both.”
“If you are not yet ready to return, and if my presence would not be an imposition, it would be my pleasure to accompany you.”
How many times had he come upon her in Kent as she walked in Lady Catherine’s lovely park, or the gardens, or the grove?
And how many times had she wished he had not?
Far too many to count. Then, his presence had been intrusive and vexing and entirely unwelcome.
Now, Elizabeth felt very differently. Now she could not imagine turning him away.
Her smile softened as she told him, “I should like that very much.”
He offered her his arm, she accepted it, and they began to walk.
After passing several minutes in companionable silence, Mr Darcy cleared his throat. “I had not expected to find you in Yorkshire.”
“I would imagine not,” Elizabeth replied. “If someone had told me that I would someday reside here, I would have laughed at such a premonition.”
“And do you like it?”
“I do. I like it very much indeed. The landscape here, although different from Hertfordshire’s, is no less beautiful.
The heather, when it blooms, is one of my favourite things in the world.
It is breathtaking to see what appears to be a continuous, plush carpet of pink and purple flowers rolling across miles and miles of hills. ”
“I have seen it myself,” Mr Darcy told her, “many times, and have always been impressed by the sheer magnitude of its beauty. Emerson, however, does not share my opinion. He will not even visit Sallow Hall during those months, as the heather makes him sneeze uncontrollably.”
“Oh dear. That must be an inconvenience, especially if he enjoys hunting grouse and partridge.”
Mr Darcy shook his head. “Emerson is remarkably unconcerned with hunting. Like my uncle, he prefers to spend his time in London. That he is here now is unlike him, but I understand that Lady Emerson wished for a ball and enlisted my aunt’s assistance in securing his attendance.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Poor Lady Emerson. Should she desire another ball in future, she will likely go to great lengths to ensure that his lordship is not within fifty miles of Sallow Hall.”
Mr Darcy laughed. “Just so.”
They walked on, with Elizabeth pointing out various views that she admired, and Mr Darcy pointing out a pair of whooper swans and a short-eared owl. Eventually, the topic turned to Derbyshire, and the rugged beauty of the peaks.
“I was very sorry to leave,” Elizabeth confessed, her voice soft, almost wistful as she recalled walking with him at Pemberley, much in the same manner as they were now.
“And I was exceedingly sorry that you did,” he said as softly.
In the distance, a flock of waxwings was feasting on berries, their cries filling the air as they vied for the largest, ripest ones.
A smile tugged at Elizabeth’s lips as she watched them, but her mind was not on the waxwings; it was on Mr Darcy’s confession.
She tightened her hold on his arm, just a little, and they walked on, pressing ever closer, their shoulders touching as they stole furtive glances at each other.
“Amidst the chaos that likely preceded your departure,” he said, “your uncle was so good as to write to me. However, when I received his note, it was in poor condition, the result of the stable boy from the inn having run all the way to Pemberley, tripping on a rut, and finding himself—along with your uncle’s missive—propelled face first into a puddle. ”
“Oh!” she cried. “My uncle will not be best pleased to hear that. Was the poor boy injured? And my uncle’s note. Was there any part of it that was legible?”
“The boy was soaked through, but he was quickly put to rights by my housekeeper, who offered him a change of clothing and fed him more biscuits than were likely good for him.” He stopped walking, unfastened his greatcoat, reached into his breast pocket, and produced a worn, blotted paper, so deeply creased that it looked as though it might fall apart at any moment.
Elizabeth recognised the seal as her uncle’s, but little else.
Mr Darcy handed it to her without ceremony.
“Unfortunately, your uncle’s note resembles one of Bingley’s letters.
It is full of smudges and blots, except whatever Bingley thinks to communicate usually references inconsequential subjects, whereas this missive likely contains information that is of far more import than the purchase of a new hat.
The only thing that I gleaned from it was that an urgent matter of business required your departure. Not even your uncle’s name was spared.”
“Gardiner,” Elizabeth murmured, examining the missive with care. “My uncle’s name is Edward Gardiner.”
“He lives in the City?”
“Yes. On Gracechurch Street.”
“Would that I had been able to recall his name…” Mr Darcy muttered.
Confused, she looked to him and said, “And you have carried this with you? All this time?”
A flush of colour appeared high upon his cheeks as he reclaimed her uncle’s note and returned it to his coat pocket. “I have carried it with me since it was first put into my hands at my breakfast table the morning you left Derbyshire.”
A sudden gust of wind sent a flurry of snowflakes swirling through the air. Glancing at the sky, Mr Darcy attended to buttoning his greatcoat. “I looked for you, Elizabeth. I looked for you and would still be searching had you not materialised in my aunt’s parlour three days ago.”
That he had addressed her by her Christian name did not surprise her nearly as much as hearing him say he had looked for her. “You did?” she said in astonishment. “Truly?”
His brows furrowed. “Of course, I looked for you. Had I any notion of your suffering, I would have followed you to Hertfordshire the day you departed. Unfortunately, due to circumstances that were beyond my control, I was not at liberty to leave Pemberley for several months, and so I was forced to wait far longer than I would have liked. The moment everything was resolved to my steward’s satisfaction, I travelled directly to Hertfordshire for the sole purpose of calling on you.
Instead,” he said, frowning distastefully, “I found Mr Collins.”
Elizabeth could well imagine the spectacle her cousin had made of himself upon finding Lady Catherine’s favourite nephew on Longbourn’s doorstep. She only hoped that Mr Darcy had borne Mr Collins’s attentions with equanimity. “That must have been quite a shock.”
“I was shown into your father’s book-room by a woman I did not recognise but who I surmised was the housekeeper. When I entered the room and saw Collins seated at your father’s desk…there were no words to describe my horror. It was shocking. And anger-inducing. And sobering.”
“Sobering?” she asked curiously.
“In the extreme. He holds every word my aunt utters as truth. My affections and wishes, you see, had not changed.”
A small, intimate smile played upon Elizabeth’s mouth as she understood that he had wanted to marry her that summer at Pemberley. Shaking her head, she said, “And mine were so very different. Exceedingly different.”
Mr Darcy’s exhalation was audible. “Had I only called on you at the inn before you left Derbyshire, I could have learnt of your sister’s elopement from you. I could have offered your uncle—Mr Gardiner—my assistance.”
“No,” she told him gently. “You could not have. It was very early when Jane’s letter came by express.
We packed as quickly as we could so that we could be on our way at first light.
There was nothing that you, nor anyone else could have done.
Lydia was gone. Although we were unaware of it at the time, my father had died in pursuit of her on the road.
We had no pertinent information, and no means to work on the scoundrel when and if he and Lydia were ever found.
Colonel and Mrs Forster, with whom Lydia was staying in Brighton, knew very little, only that they had not gone to Scotland and were therefore unlikely to be married. ”
Without warning, Elizabeth found her hands wrapped in Mr Darcy’s.
Last night, their hands had been bare; this time, they were both wearing gloves.
The sensation of his touch, however, was no less pleasurable because of it; if anything, it was far more so as he brought her hands to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to each one with a tenderness that nearly stole her breath.
“Who is he, if I may ask?”
Elizabeth briefly shut her eyes. She did not want him to know.
That Mr Collins had likely informed him of every single aspect of Lydia’s disgrace was mortifying enough; but to have Mr Darcy discover that the man who had seduced her sister was the same unconscionable libertine who had seduced Miss Darcy was simply out of the question.
She could not bear to hurt him in such a manner, nor could she risk his placing the blame for Lydia’s disgrace upon his own shoulders.
Not when the blame belonged to Elizabeth alone.
The letter he had written to her in Kent had made her aware of Mr Wickham’s dissolute habits, his debts of honour, every disreputable act of which he was capable.
Through Mr Darcy, Elizabeth had known precisely what he was, yet she did not tell her father all she had learnt; she had only argued that Lydia, who was known to be careless, flirtatious, and foolish, should never be allowed to go on a seaside holiday with the equally silly Mrs Forster.
Her father had given his permission anyway.
With her heart in her throat, Elizabeth withdrew her hands.
“Pray, do not ask his name, for I shall not reveal it. Everything that could be done has already been done tenfold. My uncle Gardiner searched for them until he could search no more, and my aunt Cahill has been making discreet enquiries through her solicitor since we arrived in Yorkshire. There has been no news. There has been no sign of Lydia anywhere.”
Elizabeth’s mouth felt dry, her throat felt thick, and she found it difficult to swallow. She turned her head aside and willed herself not to give way to tears.
Silently, unobtrusively, Mr Darcy pressed his handkerchief into her hand.
It was as white as the snow on his coat, and crisp, and made from an exceptionally fine-quality linen.
She pressed it to her eyes, inhaled a slow, measured breath, and expelled a tremulous laugh.
His handkerchief smelled like he did—of soap and musk and a touch of something else she could not quite name. Something utterly divine.
“Forgive me,” he told her at once. “It was not my intention to upset you. The last thing I would ever wish to do is cause you distress. I had hoped to help somehow. Your family was very good to me in Hertfordshire, despite my poor behaviour. I would like to repay their kindness, but not if my doing so will add to your pain.”
Elizabeth endeavoured to speak, but all she could manage at the moment was a single quivering exhalation.
“Come,” he said gently, extending his hand to her. “Allow me to return you to your sisters. You are not well, and they must be nearly frantic by now.”
She grasped his hand tightly, gratefully, and they walked the rest of the way to the dower house in silence.