Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Once Darcy turned down the passageway after Elizabeth struggled to admit she wanted to kiss him, a grin burst from his lips.
It would have been ungentlemanly to show his triumphant feelings, but he was ridiculously happy.
Elizabeth might love him after all. Coming to Woodcote had rendered him still more sensible of the treasure he had lost, and he now had another chance at exquisite happiness in having such a wife.
Nothing could diminish the ardency of his love for her, and now it felt possible that she might feel the same for him.
He had not wanted to kiss her before an audience, even if it was all part of a game.
It would mean too much to him, and it would pain him to know it might mean nothing to her.
He hated that he had unintentionally slighted her, but there was heat in Elizabeth’s eyes when he said he would someday kiss her thoroughly.
He would propose to her before they left Woodcote.
Was tomorrow too soon?
“Mr Darcy?”
The voice that met him did not belong to the one woman he would not mind lurking outside his door.
“I am going to bed, Miss Metcalfe. Whatever it is, it must wait until morning.”
“I only wanted to ask if you had a fondness for Elizabeth Bennet. I can hardly credit it, for she is such a poor, inconsequential person, but it seems to me there is something between you.”
Julia had no right to address him on the topic, but he had to deny it.
He did not want her to be unkind to Elizabeth in jealousy.
“We are friends, and my friend might marry her sister. You may ask her about it when you go to the races tomorrow. I understand you are disguising yourselves as boys to run about as free as you please?”
“Will you look for me if I go?” she asked with a flutter of her eyelashes he had seen a thousand times.
“The men and I are attending together,” he said firmly. “At the ending post. Where I will stay.”
“Then no, there is no appeal in dressing in breeches.” She laid a hand on his arm. “I think I will remain at home and sleep in, for I plan to stay up late.”
She was hinting staying up late with him. “Your mother must be wanting you—”
“I am exactly where my mother wants me to be.”
If Lady Metcalfe sanctioned a liaison hoping to get a proposal out of it, he would have a trying week. He shrugged off her hand. “I do not need a companion for the evening.”
“What about for life?” she asked, boldly meeting his eye. “We could stay up together and see if we suit.”
He had been about to say something about never seducing a virgin, but since she was so confident, he doubted the noun still applied. “The faculties that please for an evening may not please for life. Do not ask me again.”
Anger flashed through her eyes. “I had hoped to make a stronger impression on you.”
He contemplated her finely proportioned figure and beautiful countenance. “If the qualities of your mind were but half as captivating as your person, most certainly the impression would be irresistible—to a weaker man.”
Julia set her shoulders and flounced away. He felt no satisfaction in being alluring to a woman like that. Her affections were not engaged at all. Self-interest was her only motive.
Darcy left early in the morning for Epsom with Sir John, Mr Travers, and Henry.
They ate at one of the ordinaries, a pre-race meal at one of the inns.
It was better to eat cold fish, raw venison, and green fruit with the men than suffer seeing Julia so soon, even if it meant he would not see Elizabeth until tonight.
Epsom was already a rowdy environment with a fair-like atmosphere, and the races would not start for hours.
“Lady Metcalfe sounded angry with you when we left, Travers,” said Sir John as they walked past the booths, stalls, sheds, and tents set up along the course.
There were shelters in case of rain, billiard tables, gaming tables, ballad singers, acrobats, food sellers, and a great deal of alcoholic drinks.
“Something about wanting to ride this morning and you were nowhere to be found?”
Darcy lifted his eyes at Sir John’s leering tone. Everything was an innuendo with him.
“I have more on my mind than her.”
Darcy silently wondered if what he had on his mind was a fear that his friend Lady Metcalfe would push her daughter onto him, too.
Mr Travers touched his hat. “I am for the betting post.”
“May I join you, Mr Travers?” Henry asked him. Darcy hid a smile at his earnest tone. He was dressed as though he had a violent desire to be a fashionable man, but he was so very young.
Mr Travers glared. “My boy, I am here to win. I have no time for a flat when there are real risks and winnings to be had.”
“A flat?” Henry repeated as Mr Travers hurried toward the ending post where the bookmakers gathered.
Sir John laughed. “A na?ve young man, ripe to be plucked. Take heart.” Sir John slapped him on the back.
“Leave the reckless wagers to those regular race attenders who think they have the strategy. Spend your money on the Cyprians down from London instead. Presumably you know what to do with them?” Henry changed colour and gave away his answer.
“If not, go find a girl of your own age to practise with first before you pay for it with someone who really knows what she is doing.”
Sir John likewise touched his hat and walked toward the gaming tables, and Darcy suspected he was just as likely to be plucked as Henry would be by the bookmakers.
“Pay them no mind,” he said as Henry kicked at the dirt, appearing more like he was eight than eighteen, “and try not to lose all your money today, lest your brother thrash you like he thinks your father would have. There are serious gamblers who work in confederacies to manipulate the betting odds. The owners could ensure a horse will lose, manipulate the betting, then lay their own horse through an intermediary.”
“Lay?” he repeated, just as confused as before.
“Laying is when you bet that a certain horse won’t win, so the rest of the field will. Backing is when you name the horse to win.”
Henry looked impressed. “Are you a knowing one like Mr Travers?”
“Not at all,” he said, not hiding his disdain, “but my father laid it plain because he would rather see me buried under the turf than wasting money on it. He would not tolerate his son and heir trying to win at a game where they hold all the cards.”
“But how can you not wager?” he asked incredulously. “Horse races are esteemed only as they afford occasion for making a bet.”
“There is nothing wrong in taking a single horse against the field, entertaining yourself to the same degree you would at cards with friends, but for heaven’s sake, you are not cleverer than anyone.
Be social, but do not think you will make a fortune.
” He wondered if that greed drove Mr Travers, a man who had yet to inherit.
Henry nodded, and Darcy hoped his young friend could be prevented from suffering a total financial loss and being obsessed with horses and wagers to the exclusion of all else.
They saw the organisers at the Prince of Wales’s temporary stand erected for the week. Epsom had no permanent grandstand, but some of the other courses did. Henry huffed, saying, “I suppose I ought to greet them before the Woodcote Stakes.”
“It is your home, after all,” Darcy answered, keeping his patience with youthful indifference. The ten years between them felt wide. “Your brother would appreciate you acting in his stead.”
Henry trotted off, and Darcy was left on his own.
He did not mind, and would see familiar faces throughout the day.
Thousands would come on horseback and cart from London each day this week, to say nothing of those who travelled here for the entire race meeting.
He placed a few bets to be social. Everyone was at liberty to offer and take bets from anyone, distiller or duke.
Followers of the sport were drawn from all social levels.
A race meeting merged pleasure, social interaction, and commerce like assizes or fairs.
He sensed the giddy expectation all around him, from the unremitting fever of winning down to the giggling children running underfoot to see the fortune tellers.
Darcy also noted the pickpockets, prostitutes, and card sharps awaiting their quarry.
Deciding to go back to some vendors to find a trinket for his sister, he noted a boy looking at one of the booths.
Something about him forced Darcy to give a second glance.
He was dressed as every other teenaged boy, but he walked slower and with a light step.
The other boys hurried and the men strode with purpose, but this one meandered with an air of curiosity.
When they turned, it confirmed what Darcy suspected. He recognised that cheek, partly hidden by a stand collar. And when the crowd shifted, he now had a better view of that pair of legs than he had ever before seen.
Thugs, swindlers, and ladies plying their trade surrounded them, and Elizabeth Bennet was all on her own in a pair of breeches.
He was not surprised Julia begged off. She must be angry with him for his refusal, and maybe for the admiring way he looked at Elizabeth. Angry still, perhaps, for the way Elizabeth looked back at him. A new fondness was in her eyes, and his heart beat fast to think of it.
But why was Elizabeth not with Mrs Tessier or Lady Metcalfe, or a footman at least? Why had Henry not been tasked with accompanying her? He may be an idle fellow, but he would not have left her alone had he been asked. Darcy followed Elizabeth, staying several booths back.
When he saw a man with the look of a thief near her, he closed the distance. Then the man reached out a hand to the pocket in her coat tails. Muttering a curse, Darcy gripped the pickpocket’s shoulder and murmured, “Leave him be,” before shoving him back into the crowd that swiftly absorbed him.