Chapter Eleven
SHE WOKE ALONE. This was expected. He had said that he would only stay until she fell asleep. But she felt her isolation like pain, and the first thing she did was roll over in her bed and let out a pained sob into her pillow.
She let herself cry for a bit, and then she began to chide herself, inwardly.
She must pull herself together. She must not lie here and feel sorry for herself any longer. She must see to the fire, after all. Things needed doing here in her room where she was isolated.
When she got out of bed, she remembered she had brought food back from the kitchens at Pemberley, and this cheered her.
She set about building up the fire, and then she wrapped herself in a quilt and sat by the fire and ate more parsley potatoes, thinking to herself that potatoes themselves were proof that there was a loving God, after all.
Surely, potatoes were the most wondrous things in all the earth.
There was a knock at her door, and she stood up, confused. Who could that be?
She went and opened the door, and there he was, and she looked a fright, still in her nightdress, her hair all tangled this way and that. She worried about that tangle she could not get out. What must have happened to it while he had his mouth between her thighs? It could only have worsened.
And then—
“Who saw you?”
“No one, Lizzy, give me some credit. I can sneak around my own property,” he said. He had a plate of food. “I brought you breakfast.”
She moved away from the door, hands going to her hair and then to her nightdress. “I look a fright.”
“No, you definitely don’t,” he said. “You look…” He looked her up and down and then away, muttering an oath under his breath. “Let us say that I find you tantalizing and leave it at that.” He thrust the plate at her.
She took it, lifting the napkin that covered it to see that there were sausages and boiled eggs and buttered toast and sliced pears. She let out something like a moan.
“Oh, don’t make that noise,” he said, sounding devastated.
“Apologies.” She went and set the plate down. “There is never enough food, really. I am always hungry.”
“Well, eat, then,” he said.
“I wish to save it,” she said. “I wish to have some for later, and—”
“I shall make sure you have more food than you can possibly eat. This is ridiculous. I am not starving any woman under my roof, let alone one carrying a child, let alone one that I am in love with.”
She made a very tiny noise in the back of her throat. He had not just said that.
He muttered another oath under his breath. “There. Again. I cannot speak in front of you.” He ran a hand through his hair, his expression pained.
She clasped her hands in front of her. “You do not love me, though, sir. You said that, and you may have felt things before, but now you—”
“Now, you are my responsibility entirely,” he said. “And now I have seen you and touched you and kissed you, and whatever I felt before, I feel it twenty times more intensely now. You can’t think this between us has lessened my feelings.”
“Well, you think of me like some sort of bawd or something, though. You called it my…” She sat down in front of the fire, sighing. “Truly, I suppose I love you as well, but I would, wouldn’t I, when you are being like this to me now, when you are being ever so kind to me.”
He sat down in the chair next to hers. “I am not being kind. I am being wretched. But this is why I am here, so that we can remedy this, find the way forward. I want you out of this room. I want you somewhere else. Eventually, I should like you to have your own house, I suppose, and we need to talk about where that should be. You may wish to be closer to your family, though I suppose it may be some time before they can visit you, but they will be able to, when whispers have died down and no one is thinking about—”
“You want me to be your mistress,” she said, understanding him suddenly.
He raised his eyebrows. “I know, you have resistance to that, but you must think this through. You are making decisions about everyone else in your life, and I need you to think about yourself and your child, and I need you to recognize what I can provide. Also, I really think, and this is my own fault, because I did not—I just took you—but I think you are my mistress now.”
She put a hand to her mouth, because… he was right. She settled into the chair, all of the breath going out of her lungs, letting that wash through her, the depths to which she’d sunk.
“No, no, stop it,” he said, gesturing with both hands.
“You’re being very… female about it, and there is no reason to act as if it’s some sort of tragedy.
I have a great deal in the way of resources, and you must see that I can bring that to bear for the babe.
You think Hurst can provide everything that I can provide?
If it’s a girl, I can give her a dowry. I shall claim her, so if she’s my child, she’ll have a good marriage, something respectable.
Maybe she can’t come out and meet the queen, but she can certainly wed some merchant or a tradesman or something of that nature.
And if it’s a boy, it hardly matters. I shall send him to school, and he will have a profession, and everyone will accept him if I wish it. I have seen it. I can make it happen.”
She was stunned. Her lips parted.
He dragged a hand over his face. “I’m getting ahead of myself. When I practiced saying this, I did not go in this order. That’s very far down the road, and we must think, really, of now, of your comfort. If I could just take all that back and start over—”
“You practiced this?” She was shaking her head at him, rather amazed that he cared so much about what it was that she thought.
“I can’t let you deny me, Lizzy,” he said. “I don’t wish to force anything on you, but you must at least hear me out on it all.”
She gaped at him. She was at a loss for words.
“You’re not eating,” he said.
She sputtered. “I am not going to sit here and stuff my face full while you try to talk me into becoming a scarlet woman!”
He glared at her. “Forgive me. I’m not saying it’s entirely your fault, for a great deal of it is my own fault, but I think that ship has sailed.”
Her eyes widened.
“No, Elizabeth, you are ruined. You have already been ruined before I ever did anything to you last night, so—”
“Perhaps you might start with the speech you practiced,” she interrupted. “I thought your marriage proposal was bad, but really, I clearly had no idea.”
He grimaced, slumping into the chair opposite her.
“I am sorry.” He drew in a breath. “It is only this is what you do to me, you know. I see you, and I go barking mad, raving really, it’s as if…
” He sat up straight, squaring his shoulders.
“I am not like this, truly. I’m never like this.
I don’t speak this way to women. I don’t do these sorts of things to women—”
“Oh, clearly you do. There was the woman that taught you how to use your mouth on cunnies, after all.” She should not be sharp with him.
She really needed to school her tongue. Perhaps this man made her barking mad as well.
She huffed. “Forgive me. I have no right to say anything at all about that—”
“You are jealous of that and you are sitting here, with child, with someone else’s child, and I have said absolutely nothing—”
“No, yes, you are so very noble, of course, are you not? You wish me to sit here and agree to it, to jettisoning everything, my good name, my family’s good name, my entire existence—”
“Well, again, this ship has sailed. You are going to go and live as a companion—essentially as the Hursts’ servant, are you not?
You think that’s going to preserve your good name?
You think that’s some sort of future? Lizzy, we can be together.
We can have everything. I’ll find you a house, and I’ll live there with you, and we’ll raise this babe.
We can have more children. We can have a life together.
I want a life with you. It’s all I’ve wanted since I clapped eyes on you—”
“How can you say that? You would not even deign to ask me to dance. You said you would not be charitable to a woman who wasn’t good enough for other men.”
“Oh, God in Heaven you heard that?” He buried his face in his hands.
“You said I was tolerable,” she muttered into the fire.
“Well, that was a lie.” His voice was muffled.
“You say that now.”
“No, it’s…” He dragged his fingers over his face.
“The truth is, I said I would not dance with you, because I didn’t trust myself.
I thought, ‘If I dance with that woman, if I’m close enough to kiss her, I shall do it, and I shall say anything at all, lie to her, make her any number of promises, set my life on fire for the chance to lift her skirts,’ because I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you! ”
She got out of the chair, got out of it so quickly she knocked it over.
The clatter was loud.
They both looked at it.
He winced. “No, I don’t… it’s not… it’s not just that.
I did not know you then. It is not just some carnal desire, not anymore.
You are self-possessed and so very, very witty, and the way you spoke to my aunt, to Lady Catherine, you are very funny, and I—” He got up.
“Obviously, I would not have asked for your hand in marriage only because I wanted to bed you.”
She was too stunned to know how to behave.
She was looking back over every interaction she’d had with this man and seeing it in an entirely different light, and suddenly things were all lining up in a way that finally made it all make sense.
She let out a noisy breath. She bent over to right the chair.
He stopped her. “Let me do that.”
She did.
He set the chair back up.
There was a fierce whisper at the door. “What are you doing in there? The servants can hear you.” It was Caroline.
Elizabeth rounded on him, shaking her head.
He went entirely still.
“Sorry,” said Elizabeth, raising her voice, but still keeping it quiet. “An accident. I did not mean to knock the chair over.”
“I thought I heard voices,” said Caroline. The doorknob was turning.
“No, Caroline, do not—”
The door opened.
Caroline took them both in. She let out a horrified noise.
Elizabeth clapped a hand over her mouth.
Mr. Darcy advanced on Caroline. “All right, all right. Calm yourself. Clearly it doesn’t matter if my servants hear me in the house that I own.
Miss Bennet and I are in the middle of a conversation.
It doesn’t involve you, so please take your leave.
And you will never, ever strike this woman again, is that clear? ”
“Mr. Darcy!” cried Elizabeth. How dare he reveal that she had told him that? She sank down in her chair, letting out a noise of distress.
Caroline’s face turned several shades of purple. She looked at Elizabeth with an expression of pure vitriol, and then she turned on her heel and walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind her.
Mr. Darcy bowed his head. “This is not going well.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” said Elizabeth. “I have very little choice now, do I? Miss Bingley will not be inclined to help me in any way, I don’t think.”
He turned to her. “Well, Mrs. Hurst, I suppose I have not thought much about what a blow to her this might be.”
“No, she doesn’t want the babe,” said Elizabeth. “No, they will both be easily shut of me.”
His mistress, then. A shamed woman, cut off from her family, besmirching the reputations of everyone she cared about.
Why was it, no matter how far she had sunk, there was always some lower rung to descend to?