Chapter Eight #2
Given that this blog post was my only lead—albeit a very small one—I clicked on Lily’s contact page and typed a message saying I had a few questions about Baskerville Books and wondered if she had time for a chat. Just as I was pressing send, I heard a shout from the living room.
“Miss Knight, come at once!”
Oh God, what had happened now? I slammed my laptop shut and hurried out of the bedroom.
Darcy was standing in the middle of the room, clearly fresh from the shower, as his hair was wet and his shirt clung slightly to his chest. I was suddenly reminded of Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy emerging from the lake in the BBC adaptation, a scene that had been the start of many of my earliest sexual fantasies.
And now here Darcy was, in my flat, looking indecently damp and disheveled.
What would happen if I lived out those fantasies for real by walking across the room and kissing him?
For a moment I tried to imagine it, my hands in his hair and his lips on mine, but somehow I couldn’t quite picture it.
It must just be too early in the morning for my libido to kick in.
“Is everything OK, Mr. Darcy?” I asked.
“It is past eight and I am famished. Where is my breakfast?”
I frowned. “I’m not your servant. If you’re hungry, you can make yourself some breakfast.”
His eyebrows shot up. “But I am a gentleman. I cannot be expected to prepare my own food.”
“Actually, you can. In 2026, plenty of men cook; they also clean and share childcare duties with their partners.”
He let out a derisive snort. “Now I know you are teasing me, Miss Knight. Winged mechanical vehicles that fly in the sky are one thing, but you cannot seriously expect me to believe that a respectable man would willingly partake in domestic chores? Next, you’ll tell me that woman are allowed to be doctors or vote in elections! ”
“Actually, we’ve had three female prime ministers,” I said, crossing my arms, and I saw his eyes widen in shock. “Women are also allowed to go to university, own property, and divorce our husbands. We can even marry another woman if we want.”
I was expecting Darcy to explode in horror, but he cocked his head on one side. “You mean to tell me that were my sister alive today, she could pursue a career or marry the person of her own choosing?”
“That’s right. Although things are far from perfect, and there’s still plenty of gender inequality, women in the UK have exactly the same legal rights as men.”
I waited for him to say something sexist about most women not being accomplished enough, like he does in Pride and Prejudice, but instead he shook his head in wonder. “But that is…extraordinary.”
“You don’t hate it?”
Darcy paused for a second, pondering my question.
“It is certainly a novel idea, and one I should never have believed to be possible. But no, I find I do not hate it. The thought that there could be a life for Georgiana beyond marrying well and providing her husband with an heir—that she should be allowed to find intellectual satisfaction or financial independence—is an attractive one. She is a capable young lady, and I believe, were she to be given the opportunities I have had, she could go on to achieve great things.”
A grin spread across my face. Of course Mr. Darcy was a feminist! I should never have doubted the great Jane Austen. After all, she’d written him as a man capable of taking feedback and changing for Elizabeth, so it was no surprise that he was open to new ideas.
“All that being said, I still balk at the notion of a man engaging in the domestic sphere,” he continued. “It is simply not proper to imagine a gentleman baking a pie or pushing a perambulator. Do all men dirty their hands with such feminine matters?”
“I wish I could say yes, but many men are still lazy arses. I’m not sure I ever saw my ex do the washing up, and my dad couldn’t even boil an egg.”
“Your ex?” Darcy said sharply.
“My ex-boyfriend, Crispin Carter. An utter douchebag who thought that household chores got in the way of his ‘creative flow,’ and so refused to even put his clothes in the washing machine, although he was perfectly happy for me to quell my creative flow by cooking and cleaning for him. Come to think of it, he’d have been right at home in your world. ”
“And your father?”
“Another selfish, narcissistic man who cared for no one but himself. He serially cheated on my mum and then disappeared on us both. He didn’t even bother contacting me when Mum died, and the last I heard, he was living with a girlfriend younger than me.”
My words seemed to have an immediate effect on Darcy, as he began to pace furiously across the room.
“The scoundrel! There are men like him in my era, too—cads and bounders who think nothing of ruining a young woman’s reputation for their own wicked pleasure. I despise them with my whole being!”
I knew exactly who Darcy was referring to: George Wickham, the character in Pride and Prejudice who tricked the barely teenage Georgiana Darcy into thinking she was in love with him and would have managed to elope with her had Darcy not discovered the pair in time.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel flattered at seeing Darcy get so riled up on my behalf.
He came to a stop in front of me, and his face softened. “Please forgive my outburst, Miss Knight. It is only that if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is people who are dishonorable and dishonest.”
I smiled, touched by his apology. “That’s OK, Darcy. Both Crispin and my dad were terrible men, so I appreciate your sentiment.”
“May I also be permitted to say how sorry I am to hear of the passing of your mother. I myself know the deep pain of losing a parent too young, and the shadow grief casts over one’s life.”
Of course, Darcy had lost his parents too. There wasn’t much about them in the novel, aside from them being good people, but it was clear from the look in Darcy’s eyes that he’d loved them and missed them just as much as I missed my own mum.
“Although this will be of little consolation to you, Miss Knight, I must say that it does credit to your mother that you are evidently such a conscientious and self-possessed young woman despite the poor character of your father. She was clearly an excellent woman to have raised a daughter such as yourself.”
My breath caught in my throat. I never talked about Mum with anyone but Bianca, and even with her I found it difficult, so to hear Darcy speak so freely and generously about her brought tears to my eyes.
Darcy must have seen them, because he frowned. “Have I spoken out of turn?”
I shook my head, trying to wipe the tears away. “No, not at all. I just… I find it hard to talk about Mum. She died when I was a teenager and it was horrible…really traumatic. But what you said just now… She was a wonderful woman, so thank you.”
I knew it wasn’t a very articulate explanation, but Darcy nodded thoughtfully.
“My sister was in her infancy when my parents died and has no memories of them, but I hang their portrait in the picture gallery, and I feel it is prudent to tell Georgiana stories of them. While I of course wish to protect her from sadness, it is also important that we do not forget, for I believe there is solace to be had from sharing memories of happier times.”
Darcy turned and walked toward the kitchenette, and I stared after him, open-mouthed.
I’d imagined meeting this man many, many times since I’d first read Pride and Prejudice with Mum and dreamed of Mr. Darcy whisking us off to Pemberley, which in my fourteen-year-old imagination was always warm, full of food, and had the best doctors.
As I grew older, I’d had hundreds of fantasies where a Colin Firth / Matthew Macfadyen mash-up appreciated my wit and intellect the way Darcy appreciated Elizabeth’s, or burst into Cake Expectations and declared how ardently he loved and admired me.
But never, in any of my thousands of daydreams about meeting Mr. Darcy, did I consider that he’d leave me speechless with a few simple words of kindness about my mum.