Chapter 44
A fter a light knock, I peeked into Georgiana’s room. “Is it safe to visit?” I asked.
I knew that since their arrival, she and Elizabeth spent time before breakfast cloistered together in my sister’s bedroom, presumably indulging in those conversations between close friends they could not enjoy when there was a houseful of guests upon whom they were required to divide their attention.
“Elizabeth has gone to help her mother already,” she said. “It will be time for breakfast soon. Did you need to speak to me?”
“Need to? No, but I have missed our morning talks. May I sit?” When I had taken my customary chair and angled it slightly so I could see the light on her face, I said, “What do you have planned today?”
“The Gardiners are coming to dinner. Did you forget? I sent a note to Fitzwilliam to remind him to come. I am surprised he has not yet been here,” Georgiana said with a light wrinkle on her brow.
“You should not be. Miss Bennet is here.”
“Oh?” And then she sat up and exclaimed, “Oh!”
“Before you begin to hatch any schemes, I think it best you wait to see if he comes or stays away. Has she mentioned him?”
“No, but Mrs Bennet has brought his name into conversation with great regularity. Perhaps you should visit him today?”
“To what purpose? Am I to call him out of his hole?”
She chuckled. “I wish you would. Miss Bennet seems to find his company most agreeable. Does he not like her?”
“He likes her too well, I think.”
“What?” she cried. “I thought he was avoiding us to spare her feelings!” She fell into thought for a moment. “I suppose if he acts upon his inclination—which I hope he does—Lady Matlock will be furious.”
“That will be her choice, Georgie. We cannot take on anyone’s expectations and live a full life of our own.”
I had not gone to Georgiana’s room to speak of Fitzwilliam’s feelings, but with the vague intent of hinting at my own.
She was, however, quite caught up in her own thoughts, and sensing the time was not yet ideal, I stood and said, “Dearest, I have letters to attend to this morning. Might you excuse me from breakfast?”
Upon receiving this reprieve, I asked Carsten to have a tray brought up to my room, and at the table by the window, I sat over a piece of half-eaten toast and a stack of unopened correspondence.
I did not indulge in self-castigation for cowardice, for I was truly unequal to seeing Elizabeth that morning with even a particle of indifference.
And it was upon this complication that I sat in contemplation for the better part of an hour.
By some miracle of fate, my intentions had somehow escaped Mrs Bennet’s notice.
She may have been flighty, but she was also quite single-minded in her determination to marry off her daughters.
After it became clear I would not oblige her by marrying one of them last year, she did not trouble to hide her dislike of me.
By the time we met again, I had sunk in her estimation to the position of Georgiana’s brother and Colonel Fitzwilliam’s cousin.
Both of my relations were delightful to her —my sister for her elegance and consequence and my cousin for his eligibility for her eldest after Bingley’s defection.
I was merely there as a sort of accessory.
Even Georgiana could not see past my role as her brother.
It had not yet occurred to her to think of me as Elizabeth’s husband, and to a degree I had managed to find cover behind her absorption in her first true friend.
Fitzwilliam, who knew me better than anyone, had seen what should have been clear to anyone with two eyes—like Mr Bennet, for instance—but I did not fear exposure from either of them.
Still, my anonymity could not last forever, and I coveted what time I could yet steal to be Elizabeth’s secret lover.
If I had gone down to breakfast that morning still reeling as I was from the ardency of our midnight tryst, I would have betrayed my position by such looks of adoration and raw desire that now possessed me.
Before I could change my mind, I pulled forwards the ink pot and scribbled out a short note.
My love, I cannot face you this morning without betraying my feelings. Forgive me for my weakness, but I fear I might show my hand before you are ready. My lips are still burning for you.
“Carsten,” I said, holding out the note I had carefully folded. “I am afraid I must entangle you in my affairs.”
To his credit, he did not smirk at me. “Certainly, Mr Darcy,” he said, taking the note and tucking it in his pocket.
By this gesture, I knew he was aware to whom I had written, and not only was I assured of his discretion, I was grateful for it beyond measure.
With my letters unopened on the table behind me, I took the back stairs and went to the mews where I asked for my sturdiest mount and waited for him to be saddled.
I then rode directly to where my cousin was billeted—some fifteen miles from Wellington’s Barracks at Buckingham Palace.
Fitzwilliam’s choice to lodge there had been easy when the main headquarters had become cramped with an influx of fledgling officers and aides.
Youngsters, he claimed, were a nuisance which he now had the luxury of both rank and tenure to avoid.
The other advantage to him was that of distance, which was not great, but was too far for those who could not trouble themselves to seek him out.
In other words, he was beyond the easy grasp of his parents and elder brother, and being entirely caught up in her own society, it did not occur to his mother that he had not given up the convenience of being able to come to London whenever he liked—which was often.
In truth, his failure to visit us was unlike him, and confirmed my belief he was avoiding my house.
My cousin received me with some surprise, looking up from a table of maps where he had been standing with two other men. They instantly left the room, and I stripped off my gloves and said, “I hope you know what you are doing, Fitzwilliam.”
He met me with an appraising look, and gesturing ironically at the table, he drawled, “I should hope by now I can read a map, Darcy.”
“You may deflect all you like, but you know why I am here.”
We regarded one another as men sometimes do—bristling with forceful intent to be understood without words. Because my moral position was stronger in this instance, however, he was the first to stand down.
His shoulders fell ever so slightly, and after looking away for a second, he addressed me with a touch more courtesy.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
I could hardly glare at him much longer, and I told him that no, I had not eaten.
A young aide cleared the table and Donaldson came into the room with a cold collation. We washed this soldierly repast down with tall glasses of porter and began to speak more congenially.
“Georgiana is hosting a dinner party,” I said.
“I heard. I assume you are here to convince me to go?”
“I do not rightly know. Georgiana would like you to come, but it does not seem to be my place to interfere.”
“It is not. Have you been to see my parents?”
“With Mrs Bennet and her daughters? My word, you think a great deal of my courage.”
“No, I do not. I do, however, think very highly of your stupidity.”
“I wonder if you know just how stupidly you are behaving right now.”
“I assure you I do.”
We spoke in this oddly inconclusive and desultory style for another few moments, and then I stood to go. As he walked me to the stables, I said, “You know you cannot avoid her forever. I mean to marry her sister.”
“I know,” he said clasping my hand.
“What should I tell Georgiana?”
“Tell her I shall be there if I can.”
“Which means precisely what?”
“That I have not yet made up my mind.”
“If you are waiting to become less susceptible to the lady’s grace and tenderness, you should leave the continent and expect to spend ten years forgetting her. It is not just her face that has caught you.”
“You are now an expert, I take it?”
“I am.”
“Idiot,” he said with a rueful smile, before waving me off.
“Arse,” I replied with undisguised affection, and with that, I gently nudged my horse into a canter and headed back to town.