Chapter 6 In Defence of Honour #2
“Upon my honour, it has been many months since I have danced with such agreeable partners!” Bingley cried. “Come, you must dance with one of Miss Bennet’s sisters at least.”
“Bingley!” he snapped, vexed that his friend had distracted him from Miss Elizabeth.
What if she had left the room with that coxcomb she had been dancing with?
Images of Miss Elizabeth and the young gentleman flooded his mind, swallowing the bile he tasted at the notion.
Turning to look at his friend, he bit out through gritted teeth, “I assure you, I am in no humour to dance with any of Miss Bennet’s younger sisters. ”
In that instant, his eyes found the face he sought, the one who held his heart: Miss Elizabeth. The words, “from the very first moment of our acquaintance,” rang in his ears as fire blazed in her eyes.
Inhaling sharply, Darcy said to her, as much to Bingley, “Forgive me. My head still pains me, and I find myself unequal to company.”
Bingley raised a knowing brow at him and returned to his partner. Darcy clasped his gloved hands behind his back and said, “Miss Elizabeth, forgive me. But might I have the pleasure of your next dance?”
The silence stretched out as a myriad of expressions—anger, hurt, and for a brief moment, curiosity—trundled through her eyes.
Darcy’s cravat became inexplicably tight, fighting the urge to reach up and loosen the dratted article from choking him.
Ultimately, her good humour won out, and with a flash of her teasing smile, she said, “But what of your headache, sir?”
“I should suffer more, were you not to honour me.”
She took his hand, and he gave a silent prayer of thanks for this second chance. Leading her to the line of dancers, he cursed the sudden vacuity of his mind and struggled for what to say next, as tongue-tied as ever in her presence.
“Come, sir!” she teased after a few minutes of silent dancing. “We must have some conversation. Do not you think this is a very pleasant assembly?”
“Indeed.” Darcy smiled.
“I hope you and your party are having a most tolerable time, sir,” she retorted, her expression one of impish delight.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, his voice contrite. “You must allow me to apologise for my unseemly words back then. I spoke carelessly.”
“Mr Darcy, I shall acquit you of ungentlemanly conduct this once.”
Darcy raised both eyebrows, sure his face was the very picture of shock. Elizabeth burst into puckish laughter, and Darcy found himself chuckling, too. Relief coursed through him. Her forgiveness could not have been so easily won?
“Forgive me, Mr Darcy.” She arched a brow mischievously. “I have been told I have a rather fine impertinent streak.”
“I do not find your manners to be deficient, Miss Elizabeth.” Is she flirting with me?
He smiled indulgently, his earlier black mood disappearing with each turn of the dance, replaced by a giddiness he had not felt since he was a child.
“I have always found your lively manners refreshing, unlike the manners of some who cannot stay within the bounds of decorum.” Saying so, he glimpsed Lydia Bennet, who was at that moment laughing rather too loudly in the midst of some local gentlemen.
Following his gaze, Elizabeth frowned.
“You must know, Miss Elizabeth, that the manners of your family and your sister’s want of propriety…” Seeing indignation in her expression, he continued quickly, “Yet you know no one’s family is without fault.”
But it was too late. Her hand pulled away from his as they cast away to circle with the opposite couple, before returning to him.
Time slowed. His ears were filled with the thunderous beating of his heart as Darcy watched her lips slowly shaping into the words that would ultimately be another rejection.
He had lost her again as the figure demanded.
I shall never hold her heart, he lamented, as he regarded her rosy lips, still shaping words that he was unable to hear.
As the final notes of the set rang out, so transfixed was he that he almost failed to bow to her when she curtseyed.
The decorum she had displayed as she turned from him was one of the things he had come to admire about her.
Her witty and unassuming answers in the face of Caroline Bingley’s pointed barbs during her previous stay in Netherfield had always stayed within the bounds of propriety.
They had been delivered so sweetly that the recipients were unsure whether they had been made sport of.
She made her way through the crowd, smiling and greeting her neighbours as she passed, out of the oppressive rooms and onto the balcony. Had he lost her again already? Anguish marred his soul. I shall never love another, never marry another.
His heart stuttered out a petrified rhythm, and his mind conjured unsettling images of Elizabeth smiling at the young swain he had seen her with earlier.
No. His hands balled into firsts and with determination, he quit the assembly and followed.
So intent was he that he missed the questioning looks the others threw at him as he made his hasty departure.
A blast of cool night air swirled around him as he stepped onto the balcony, a welcome reprieve from the stagnant assembly rooms. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he spotted her standing at the railing, her back to him.
She recaptured an errant curl that had come loose from her coiffure.
Trembling, he tried in vain to master his emotions, the fine kid gloves he wore, slick with sweat.
Wresting his sodden gloves, he tucked them in his pocket.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he rasped.
She gasped and whipped around. He cursed himself for having discomposed her yet again.
“Mr Darcy, you must excuse me. I should return to the assembly before I am missed.” The cold tone of her voice heightened his panic.
Why had he even brought up her family’s behaviour? Would he never learn?
“Wait, please, I beg you.” Darcy’s mind whirred, the pretty sentiments unable to transfer to his thick tongue, the words of apology firmly lodged in his throat.
The only sound was the muted timbre of the merriment drifting from the assembly rooms and swirling through the cool night air between them.
“Mr Darcy, sir, I do not wish to be in the presence of a man who has insulted me again with his boorish behaviour. Excuse me.” She curtseyed, the stubborn set of her shoulders mirrored in her dark eyes. Darcy caught her hand as she made her escape, spinning her back around to face him.
“Please.”
A jolt of recognition ran through him as he realised she also wore no gloves. Glancing at her dainty hand encompassed firmly within his, a tingling sensation pulsed down his neck, settling between his shoulders. Surely, she could feel this connection? He could not be the only one so affected.
They stood close, closer than propriety allowed.
He could smell the scent of rosewater wafting from her hair, feel the heat emanating from her flushed skin as she fearlessly held his gaze, the stubborn set of her chin making her appear every inch the Valkyrie.
Even in all her righteous anger, he had never seen anything more beautiful.
His hand tightened its grip on hers, refusing to relinquish, knowing that he would never again be permitted to hold her hand.
Looking into her lovely eyes, her expression of surprise framed by thick lashes, his heart clenched painfully.
What would I give for just one kiss?
The tenuous control he had wrestled cracked. No longer able to rein in his tempestuous emotions, impulse seized him. Allowing the bubbling hysteria to guide him, he grasped Elizabeth into his embrace and silenced the surprise on her lips with his own.
Her lips were softer than he had even dared dream, yielding, pliable under his own.
After a heartbeat, the sensation changed; she was kissing him back.
A sob, half joy, half relief, tore from his throat.
With his heart beating wildly, he lowered one arm to encircle her delicate waist whilst the other trailed upwards in a blaze of heat and threaded into her dark tresses.
Lost to the sensations, the world around him ceased to exist; the only thing he was aware of was his love for Elizabeth.
He deepened the kiss, clinging to her like a drowning man adrift in a stormy sea.
“La! What do you think you are doing to my sister?”
Elizabeth’s hand pushed against his chest as she took a stumbling step back. He ignored Lydia Bennet in the doorway, focussing on Elizabeth, her breathing heavy, her brow furrowed as if she could not quite believe what they had done.
An unearthly hush fell over the assembly room, the likes of which had never happened before nor would likely be repeated. As the music stopped, dancers turned in the direction of Lydia Bennet’s vociferous exclamation.
“You rake!” Mr Bennet roared, his face flushed with rage as he hurtled himself at Darcy. Before he could react, he found himself in an undignified heap on the floor as Mr Bennet pulled a stupefied Elizabeth behind him.
Reeling from being bested by a man twice his age and half his stature, Darcy pulled himself to his feet, taking in the gaping faces of the Netherfield party and the indignant stares from the rest, straightened his coat, and cleared his throat.
“Mr Bennet, sir, it would be my honour to marry Miss Elizabeth.”
“No!” Miss Bingley cried out.
“Papa,” Elizabeth interjected.
“Aye!” cried Lady Lucas. “It is that dastardly kidnapper, come to claim his next victim in our very own Eliza!”
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Bingley.
“Seize him!” Mr Long’s voice joined the cacophony.
“Mr Bennet shall have to fight the Hertfordshire Hound and will be killed! Oh, my poor girls! To be without a father!” wailed Mrs Bennet.
Mrs Goulding declared, “Mr Bennet is the best shot in the county, why I—”
“Silence! Mr Darcy is not the Hound!” thundered Mr Bennet. “But I would like to know, what have you got to say for yourself, sir?”