Chapter Thirteen Hope Restored #3
"An express from London, sir," he announced, his face impassive, though his eyes gleamed with curiosity. "The rider said his horse is nearly dead from the pace."
Darcy snatched the letter from the tray. He recognised the handwriting instantly, though it was far more erratic than he remembered.
It was from Charles Bingley.
Darcy broke the seal with a brutal twist of his thumb, unfolding the letter.
Darcy! You are an absolute blockhead! I am an absolute blockhead!
We are both monumental idiots! I received your letter.
I did not even finish reading the third page before I was calling for my horse.
I rode to Gracechurch Street. I did not care if I was uninvited.
I did not care if she was in her dressing gown.
I had to see her. Darcy, she smiled at me.
She smiled! She did not look at me with the polite indifference you claimed she possessed.
She looked at me as though I had returned from the dead!
We spoke. I stammered like a schoolboy. She was an angel.
We walked in her uncle's small garden, and...
good God, Darcy, I asked her! I asked her to marry me!
She said yes! Jane Bennet is to be my wife!
I am the happiest man in the British Empire!
I forgive you for your interference, because without your confession, I would still be sitting in Grosvenor Square drowning in misery.
Come back to town immediately so I can shout at you properly, and then buy you a drink.
Yours in ecstasy,
Charles Bingley
Darcy lowered the letter, his hands shaking.
He closed his eyes in relief. He had done it. He had fixed it. Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley would be happy.
And Elizabeth would know that he had kept his word. The path to his own future, a future he had dared to hope for only hours ago, was now wide open.
"Good news, I presume, sir?" Pimms asked from the doorway.
"The best, Pimms." Darcy exhaled deeply. "Bingley is engaged to Miss Jane Bennet."
Before Pimms could offer his congratulations, the door was shoved open.
Richard stood on the threshold. He had removed his coat and was wearing only his waistcoat and shirtsleeves. He looked exhausted, slightly wild-eyed, and sober.
He walked into the room and threw himself onto the sofa near the fireplace, groaning loudly.
"Darcy," Richard said, staring at the ceiling. "Do you have any brandy left? Or did I drink it all when I was pretending to be a poet?"
Pimms exited the room, closing the door behind him to allow the cousins their privacy.
Darcy walked over to the sideboard, poured a generous measure of brandy into two crystal glasses, and carried them over. He handed one to Richard and took a seat in the armchair opposite him.
"You look," Darcy observed, "as though you have just survived a skirmish."
"I have survived something far scarier," Richard replied, taking a large gulp of the brandy. He lowered the glass. "Darcy, I am going to marry Anne."
Darcy took a sip of his own drink, savouring the burn. "I know."
Richard blinked. "You know? How do you know? I only just realised it myself two days ago!"
"Pimms told me," Darcy explained. "Apparently, your subtle, secretive courtship manoeuvres involved shouting at Aunt Catherine and threatening to despoil musical instruments. The entire servants' hall knows."
Richard ran a hand down his face. "Oh, God. Our aunt is going to murder me in my sleep. She is going to hire an assassin. Or worse, she is going to force me to listen to Mr Collins read Fordyce's Sermons every night for the rest of my life."
"I will pay for your headstone," Darcy offered graciously.
Richard let out a short bark of laughter.
He sat up, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
"I was an idiot, Darcy. About Miss Elizabeth.
I was dazzled. She is brilliant, but... we would have killed each other.
We are too much alike. Anne told me her elm tree looked like a cabbage, and I swear to you, my heart stopped. "
Darcy smiled, staring down at the amber liquid in his glass. "It takes a certain kind of bravery to admit one has been monumentally wrong, Richard."
"And you?" Richard asked, his blue eyes sharp and observant. "You have been hovering around the edges of this room as if carrying a corpse on your back. But tonight, you were different. You smiled. I saw you, so do not deny it."
"I love her, Richard," Darcy said, the confession slipping out easily. "I love Elizabeth Bennet. I have loved her since Hertfordshire. And I have spent the last six months making a complete mess of it."
Richard stared at him, his mouth agape. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face. He raised his glass.
"To us," Richard toasted, his voice thick with cousinly affection. "May God have mercy on us both, because the women we love are far too clever for us."
"To the clever women," Darcy agreed, clinking his crystal against Richard's.
He drank the brandy, the warmth spreading through his chest. Tomorrow, he would walk to the parsonage, and he would not hide behind his pride. He would go to her, and he would lay his entire heart at her feet.