Chapter Twenty Four #2
Lady Rebecca responded with a sharp intake of breath, her eyes wide.
The fortune teller moved along the table, approaching Elizabeth next.
She peered into Elizabeth’s eyes and then laughed.
“Lady Blanche has paid me to say that you have already found what you seek, but then, you were expecting something like that. Give me your hand.”
The fortune teller studied the lines of Elizabeth’s palm, then shook her head and tutted. “You are your own worst enemy, poor child. But you will have a visitor soon.”
“My sister is coming to Brighton at the end of the month.”
The fortune teller shook her head, then stared off into the distance. She glanced at Mr. Darcy, and cocked her head to one side, smiling at him. “Many visitors… who are known to you, and one who is not. But first, a bargain you must accept.”
Elizabeth frowned, wondering if she would have preferred a generic and syrupy promise of love and happiness.
When the fortune teller approached Mr. Darcy, she stared long and hard at his inscrutable expression. Finally, he presented his palm to her with a look of challenge, but she waved it away. “You will receive sage counsel; you must resist the urge to reject it.”
Seated on Mr. Darcy’s other side, Mr. Bingley was next. The fortune teller gazed into his eyes for a long moment, and then declared, "You have it all figured out.”
She moved on down the table, and Mr. Bingley guffawed. “She must have you and I confused, Darcy, for generally you have everything figured out, and I am in need of sage counsel!”
Elizabeth turned to Lady Rebecca, ready for her friend’s irreverent barbs about what they had just heard, but Lady Rebecca was lost in a reverie of her own.
She wore a wicked, contemplative smile, her fingers steepled beneath her chin, and Elizabeth supposed her friend was done with sulking and back to scheming.
***
Lady Rebecca could hardly tease Elizabeth about refusing to face her feelings for Darcy, when she was guilty of the same.
She had spent days moping over Bingley’s rejection, possibly the only thing more pathetic than being rejected in the first place.
Rallying her spirits was the only way to have the upper hand, and so Rebecca was resolved to be as playful and puckish as ever.
At the end of the meal, she joined Elizabeth in cheering when Captain Wentworth announced his betrothal to Jane; when the rest of the party got up to dance in the open center of the room, Elizabeth ran to her sister, and Rebecca flounced over to Darcy.
“Our Lizzy is in fine spirits tonight, Darcy.”
“It is good to see her so overjoyed at her sister’s news; Elizabeth might be further delighted to observe that Miss Bingley has realized her own triumph pales in comparison.”
He offered Rebecca a saucy look, and she glanced over at the harpy, who was indeed sulking that she was no longer the center attention, as a newly engaged woman ought to be.
But what struck Rebecca more was Bingley.
He was not staring and sighing wistfully at Jane, but smoldering with silent fury at his sister.
“Go and ask her to dance,” she told her cousin, giving him a little shove in Elizabeth’s direction. “Make the most of her elation, for she has been in a pet since her letter from home.”
“Is this the sage counsel I have been advised to accept?”
“It is common sense; but I have some other thoughts on the sage counsel – tomorrow, Darcy. Now, go and be merry with her.” Rebecca sent him off to Elizabeth, and watched happily when the couple joined the dance a few minutes later.
Bingley was still staring daggers at his sister, and startled as Rebecca took her usual place at his side. How many nights, in how many great houses and tedious parlors had she spent at his side, laughing and diverting herself? Perhaps she had been a fool to jeopardize their easy harmony.
“I believe I can guess your thoughts, at such a moment.”
“I should imagine so – you always do, and I doubt I am making any great secret of….” Bingley sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“How many years have I borne of her grasping and clawing in society, pushing me this way and that to better our connections – only for her to throw it away with little thought for how I might be damaged! She demanded I bring her up, yet she had rather dragged me down.”
“Take heart; it is not the first time such a thing has happened at one of these parties. The Goulding girls will hush it up. Lady Rosamund told me they have already sent letters to their vast network of gossips, putting out a much more respectable version of events. The guests here will be more concerned with boasting of their own conquests to spread and tales of a tradesman’s daughter and a derelict old baronet.
And if they do, they are sure to exaggerate their own exploits here so much that nobody will pay it any credence.
I daresay one could not even accurately describe the events of Shakespeare Night without somebody presuming the account were embellished! ”
Bingley smiled, finally drawing his seething gaze from his sister. “You always know just what to say.”
It was what he told her as they parted, the night she worked up the nerve to go to his room. And his eyes darkened as if he were recollecting her visit, too. Even the room darkened; footmen came to extinguish some of the candles, lending the old hall a more intimate atmosphere.
“Will you dance with me, Rebecca? Even Darcy is dancing – it would be a great failing if I did not.”
She took his hand, and they danced beautifully. They were not as boisterous as the other dancers, but they moved perfectly together, not speaking, but taking in whatever it was that existed between them – something had immutably changed.
She wished that he might be the one to acknowledge it, for she had been bold once before and was rebuffed. She wished him now to come to her, to put it all right again.
When they finished their dance, they withdrew to the side of the room. “I am fascinated by your fortune, Bingley. What is this mysterious epiphany that you have all figured out?”
He laughed. “I can only tell you what I have not figured out, which is why you have been acting so… like a girl. You have been uncommonly missish and withdrawn, which is even more frightening than your usual brand of terror.”
“Would it be better, if things went back to what they once were?”
“Of course.” Bingley smiled brightly at her.
Rebecca flinched as if he had struck her. “And so they shall; I am sure we will always be the very best of friends, even if… excuse me – it is warm in here – I might take some air on the terrace.” Feeling rather dizzy, she fled the room.
The night was cool, and Rebecca was obliged to immediately draw her arms about herself, but she leaned back against the cold stone edifice, keeping away from the torch light near the center of the terrace.
A shaky breath gave way to a sob, and she shook them from her face as she shivered.
She muttered a string of oaths at her own stupidity, and then heard a soft chuckle.
Bingley stepped out onto the terrace, closing the door silently behind him. He bandied a few oaths back at her, his voice a question, and she nodded her head sadly as she murmured a couple more.
He came closer, stopping just before her in the shadows, but his mouth parted at the sight of her tears. “I said the wrong thing. I must have done, if I made you cry.”
“No, not at all. I….”
“Rebecca, I am not in the habit of making beautiful ladies weep, particularly not stubborn ones who will not tell me what is the matter.”
She did not answer him, only silently begged him to figure it out.
He studied her, and finally took one of her hands in his.
“I do wish things to be as they were – for you to tease me and laugh with me and be always in my company. I wish for you to be happy, and to shine some of your light on me. You have been… different, and I have missed you.”
Bingley raised her gloved hand to his lips and kissed it, then held her fingers to his heart.
And then they heard laughter, tinkling and coquettish.
Rebecca looked around and saw nobody, but she heard a low moan and raised her brows.
Bingley peered around the corner of the house, and he tugged at her arm to follow him.
On the other side of the terrace, in absolute darkness but for the light of a half moon, a couple was making passionate love against the stone wall of the manor.
Rebecca covered her mouth to stifle a giggle, and she watched the silhouettes with fascination.
She leaned close enough to whisper in Bingley’s ear.
“Perhaps the fortunate teller got me confused with this lucky lady.”
“I think she was right about both of us, for I have indeed figured something out, Rebecca.”
“Oh? Astonish me.”
“I have figured out who you are going to kiss before sunrise.”
And then her back was pressed against the wall, and his lips were crushing down on hers, and Rebecca abandoned all reason to the sheer bliss of it.