Chapter 10 #3
“The handsomest man I have ever beheld saw me like this.”
Susie’s mouth twitched more visibly. “Also yes.”
Elizabeth turned slowly toward her. “You are enjoying this.”
“I am enjoying that you have noticed at last why I suggested a bath.”
Elizabeth looked back at the mirror, then closed her eyes in mortification. She had risen from the cellar floor and stared directly into Mr. Darcy’s face while looking like a creature dug from the riverbank. He had been grave, handsome, composed, and fascinating. She had been muddy.
“Well,” she said faintly, “that is humbling.”
Susie laughed then, the sound quiet but genuine. “For some gentlemen, it may matter. I do not think Mr. Darcy is one of them.”
Elizabeth opened one eye. “Young Mr. Darcy?”
“That is how my aunt still calls him in letters sometimes,” Susie said with a shrug, “though I suppose he is not so very young now. She has known him since he was a boy.”
“You think he is accustomed to ladies emerging from cellar holes covered in mud?”
“No. But he knows the value of hard work. My aunt says he takes all of his income—what little there is—and puts it back into the estate. He lives as a pauper, repairing cottages and paying debts when another man might have kept up appearances and let everyone else suffer.”
Elizabeth considered this as Susie led her upstairs. “Then perhaps he will merely think me industrious.”
“He may.”
“Or deranged.”
“That also seems possible.”
Elizabeth laughed again, though it trembled slightly at the edges. “It hardly matters. I shall likely never see him again after today, and even if I do, I cannot imagine our acquaintance will begin with any illusion of elegance.”
Susie sent a maid to the kitchen for hot water, then helped Elizabeth remove the worst of the mud from her gloves and gown before declaring both beyond rescue.
As the bath was prepared, Elizabeth asked questions despite herself.
Not too many at once, for she did not wish to seem overly interested.
But one question led naturally to another: how often Susie had seen him, whether he was much at Pemberley, whether his sister resembled him, whether he was truly as respected in Derbyshire as Susie had suggested the previous day.
Susie answered readily enough while moving about the room with towels and soap.
Mr. Darcy had been very young when he inherited.
His father’s excesses had damaged the estate dreadfully.
He had sold luxuries, reduced his own comfort, and given much of what remained to tenants and servants before accepting militia service rather than paying a substitute.
His sister lived mostly with their aunt and uncle, the Earl and Countess of Matlock, though all the servants at Pemberley adored her.
Mr. Darcy was proud, yes, but fair. Reserved, but not cruel.
Exacting, but no more with others than with himself.
By the time Elizabeth was clean enough to recognize her own reflection again, she had formed a picture of him that was almost certainly more pleasing than caution recommended.
A gentleman of ancient family who had chosen duty over ease.
A scholar who recognized Roman gold in a muddy cellar.
A brother who sacrificed for his sister.
A master who sold ornaments to mend cottages.
A man who had looked at her, muddy and ridiculous, not with contempt but with a startled intensity she could still feel if she allowed herself to remember it.
Elizabeth sank lower into the warm water and closed her eyes.
This was absurd.
She had never been a young lady prone to sudden attachments.
At fourteen she had fancied herself half in love with John Lucas for the simple reason that he had once brought her a ribbon from London and told her she climbed trees better than any girl in Hertfordshire.
Then he had gone away to school, and by the time he returned, she had discovered that personality mattered rather a great deal.
He had become condescending, dull, and too fond of explaining things she already understood.
Her tendre had vanished with remarkable speed.
Mr. Darcy, however, did not appear dull.
Nor condescending.
Though perhaps he would prove to be both once removed from the excitement of Roman coins and collapsing cellar floors.
That was a sensible thought, and Elizabeth held to it firmly.
For nearly three seconds.
Then she remembered his eyes when he turned the coin over in his hand—the reverence, the wonder, the boyish excitement breaking through his severe composure—and something warm unfurled in her chest despite every warning of sense.
Susie, wringing out a cloth nearby, gave her a knowing glance. “You are smiling.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
Elizabeth opened her eyes and looked toward the ceiling. “Then I must be thinking of treasure.”
“Of course.”
“Ancient treasure.”
“Certainly.”
“Hidden beneath my uncle’s cellar.”
Susie’s voice was far too innocent. “And not at all of young Mr. Darcy.”
Elizabeth sank lower into the bath until the water nearly touched her chin.
“I have no idea what you mean.”