5. Elizabeth Takes Possession
CHAPTER FIVE
ELIZABETH TAKES POSSESSION
Elizabeth’s nerves were usually of the stronger variety, but the sheer restlessness of the city was beginning to fray them.
The streets were more crowded than she could have imagined, and the near collisions with other carriages and carts had her knuckles whitening on the door frame.
Add the sounds—from their driver shouting at the pedestrians to the cries of street vendors, and the constant clip-clopping of riders rushing around their carriage, it seemed as if the entire world were running from a raging fire.
Beside her, Jane maintained an infuriating serenity, her gloved hands folded as if she were merely traveling to Meryton for ribbons. Mary, however, was pressed against the glass with the look of a girl discovering that the world was larger than anyone had bothered to tell her.
Nettle, too, had both forepaws braced on the windowsill, her torn ear swiveling with the quivering attention of a dog who had been raised in a ditch and finding out that the city street had more smells and sights than the entire universe of Hertfordshire ditches.
And then, as they closed in on the West side, the hedgerows transformed into houses, then rows of terraces, and finally into broader streets where the buildings grew more magnificent with every mile.
Elizabeth should have been triumphant. Or vindicated and even appropriately grateful, but her fingernails went to her teeth, and only the touch of her glove kept her from biting down. Grosvenor Street meant Fitzwilliam Darcy arranging everything for her.
She could not forget the despair on his face when she had, unbelievably to him, refused his proposal.
She had not relished injuring him, and indeed, she had been much kinder to Mr. Collins, but Darcy had a way of making her bristle.
Her words had drawn blood, causing him to write the letter.
Sometimes she wished she had not read it, as she found it hard to keep her justified anger unclouded by a modicum of undeserved guilt.
The grand carriage, arranged by said gentleman, turned onto the paved street with such a smooth motion that Elizabeth felt as if they were drifting on a riverboat down the Thames.
The greenery surrounding the grand houses, with their pillars and stone facades, was ornamental and trimmed with the discipline befitting royalty.
“Jane,” Elizabeth said, pinching herself. “Are we dreaming or are we merely lost?”
“I believe we are exactly where we should be.” Jane’s voice drifted with wonder.
“Those mansions are becoming very large, and that square ahead could be paved with gold. And see that woman? She’s wearing silk on a Friday, and I fear we might have taken a wrong turning and wandered into someone else’s life.”
Mary’s gaze fixed on the surroundings, as if memorizing every detail as the carriage turned into Grosvenor Street.
The square itself was vast, as were the houses that encircled it.
They rose around a central garden of manicured green, like cliffs around a valley, white-fronted and black-railed and gleaming in the pale April sunlight with the smug, self-satisfied assurance of buildings that knew what they were worth and expected you to know it too.
“Lizzy,” Mary said, in a voice stripped of every affectation she had ever adopted. “Which one is ours?”
Ours. The word made everything startlingly real. “I believe it is Number Thirty-Three.”
The carriage glided to a halt. And there it was: a four-story house of white stone, grand arched windows, and a heavy mahogany door that looked thick enough to withstand a Mrs. Bennet-style bombardment.
The door itself opened, and a line of servants emerged.
A housekeeper in black bombazine, a very staid and proper butler, footmen in livery, maids in white caps, and a cook shaking out her apron.
They arranged themselves on the steps, all eyes fixed on the carriage and at Elizabeth Bennet, who owned the house they worked in.
And there, standing in front of them all, was Fitzwilliam Darcy.
He was hatless, his dark coat silhouetted against the pale stone.
His cravat—Elizabeth noted with an involuntary, traitorous precision—was loosened by the fraction of an inch at his throat.
It was a microscopic lapse in his usual armor, yet it sent a sudden, fluttering warmth through her chest that she immediately labeled as indigestion.
A footman opened the carriage door, lowered the steps, and Darcy stepped forward.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” He extended a hand. His voice was exactly as she remembered and everything she had tried to forget—steady, formal, without any of the agitation he had displayed at Hunsford. “Welcome to Mayfair.”
She placed her hand in his. There were layers of fabric between them—her tired cotton, his expensive leather—and yet the contact bypassed every stitch of common sense.
Her fingers tightened of their own accord before she could remind them that she was not a woman who clung to anything, least of all to him.
“Mr. Darcy.” She stepped down onto the pavement and released him, not looking at his face. “Thank you for the arrangements. The journey was most comfortable.”
Polite. Distant. Perfectly civil. If he noticed that she had not looked him in the eye, he was gentleman enough not to mention it.
Nettle, who possessed none of Elizabeth’s restraint, launched herself from the carriage and landed squarely on Darcy’s boot. She performed a thorough investigation of his ankle, calculating whether his trousers had recovered sufficiently to merit a second assault.
“I trust you have fed her,” Darcy remarked, glancing at the terrier.
A fleeting moment hung in the air—a fraction of a second where shared amusement might have sparked—but Elizabeth scooped up the terrier, and the opportunity vanished. It was for the best, really, as such moments ought not to be encouraged—not with their history.
Darcy turned to hand down Jane, and then Mary, his movements a study in aristocratic grace. As the three sisters stood before the silent phalanx of servants, Elizabeth felt a dizzying sense of displacement.
“Your house, Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy said, gesturing towards Number Thirty-Three as if houses of white Portland stone, with their fourteen bedrooms and regiment of servants, were as commonplace as Hertfordshire acorns.
And then, because she was Elizabeth Bennet, and Elizabeth Bennet did not falter before a line of servants, she held her head up high with Nettle in her arms, and entered the house that, on paper, was now hers.
The entrance hall, though grand, was designed for comfort rather than intimidation.
A shawl lay draped over a chair; books rested on a side table, and landscape paintings evoked a surprising sense of familiarity—a view from a hilltop, a stone house nestled in a valley, and a seascape featuring white cliffs.
Lady Sophia Mottistone sat in a chair, waiting for them. She was smaller than Elizabeth had imagined. Fine-boned as a wren, silver hair swept back from her face, a distinguished face that held traces of her former beauty, and the expressive pale-blue eyes that didn’t just observe but delved.
“Miss Bennet.” She extended both hands in a gesture of unreserved welcome.
Her voice, as her letter had conveyed, was warm, direct, and laced with intelligence that made Elizabeth feel simultaneously embraced and entirely seen through.
“You are here. I have been waiting to meet you for rather longer than good manners would allow me to confess.”
Elizabeth curtsied, deftly dropping Nettle behind her skirts. “Lady Sophia. I am honored. Your letter was gracious. I have read it many times, and I hope my response was adequate.”
“I shall settle for your presence, my dear. It is a much more interesting proposition than dissecting our prose.” Lady Sophia’s gaze moved to Jane, and her smile deepened.
“And you must be Miss Jane Bennet. Everything I have been told about your beauty is an understatement. How comforting it must be for your mother and younger sisters.”
Jane’s curtsy was colored by a sudden blush. “You are too kind, Lady Sophia.”
“I am almost never too kind. Ask anyone who knows me.” Lady Sophia’s eyes turned to Mary with an expression of discovering a rare book. “And Miss Mary. A musician of the determined variety, I am told.”
Mary curtsied stiffly. “I play a little, Lady Sophia.”
“We shall put that to the test shortly. I have a Broadwood that has been quite lonely; it requires someone who isn’t afraid of a minor key.”
Mary’s composure, which had been holding through the servants, the marble, and the sheer scale of the house, wavered.
Reaching over, Elizabeth took her sister’s trembling hand. And then, because Elizabeth’s attention strayed, Nettle peeked out from underneath her skirts and licked Lady Sophia’s fingers.
Elizabeth’s heart performed a most undignified leap. “She… pray forgive her, Lady Sophia. She does not usually do that.”
“She does not do it for most people.” Lady Sophia scratched behind the terrier’s torn ear. “I told you in my letter, Miss Bennet. I trust her judgment entirely. It appears she has decided to return the compliment.”
Nettle wagged her tail—the full, unguarded wag she reserved for Elizabeth and Jane and, on occasion, Hill when biscuits were involved.
“Nettle approves of you,” Elizabeth said. “She has excellent judgment in these matters.”
“Does she approve of Mr. Darcy?”
“She is still deliberating. His demeanor has complicated her assessment.”
Lady Sophia laughed—a delighted sound that seemed to surprise even her. “Miss Bennet, I believe we shall get along splendidly. Now, shall I show you the house?” She extended one hand without looking. “Fitzwilliam, my cane.”
Darcy produced it—the carved rosewood with its worn brass handle—and helped her to her feet.
“Come,” Lady Sophia said to Elizabeth. “I shall show you the parts that matter.”