8. A Matter of a Name #4
“I was not alone with him, Papa,” Elizabeth protested, removing her hands, but not before noticing her gloves were stained with his blood. “Seeing as you have been standing here providing parental commentary.”
“And so I am.” Mr. Bennet chuckled. “Mr. Darcy, I believe you once requested a favor from me as your cousin. You have merely to say the word.”
Elizabeth froze, her chin lifting, her eyes blazing, and in them, Darcy read a challenge as clear as any words: Do not. Do not you dare.
He held her gaze, those rather fine eyes, embracing him, or so he would like to believe.
She wished to rid Longbourn of him, had schemed with her uncle and plotted angles.
And she had worried about his reputation while offering him nothing.
And yet, when her father had suggested he make an offer for Jane’s hand, she had balked. Why?
And now here she stood, her hand still warm against his bleeding arm, her cheeks flushed, her eyes daring him not to seize the opportunity her father had handed him on a silver platter.
Darcy considered the prospect with a slow, wicked deliberation.
All three of them knew exactly which non-proposal her father was referring to, what Elizabeth could offer in exchange for the change in the entail.
He smiled at the prospect, could picture them at the altar, pledging enmity on her part while he gallantly signed the release document, adding female to the entail, and his smile caused Elizabeth’s eyes to narrow, her lips to snarl, and oh, how he enjoyed watching her face hate him, even as her heart said otherwise.
He let the moment stretch, left her dangling, wonder and fear, and then, slowly, reluctantly, he turned to Mr. Bennet with an expression of wounded innocence.
“Sir, I could not possibly impose upon your generosity in such a fashion. The young lady did not see me bloodied and battered at her feet in my shirtsleeves. She was merely rendering Christian assistance to a gentleman in distress. I am certain she noticed nothing… untoward.”
He held Elizabeth’s gaze just long enough for her shoulders to begin to ease, for her breath to steady, and then he winked.
Color flooded her cheeks; her eyes narrowed. She would find a way to make him pay… and he could not wait.
“Excellent.” Mr. Bennet retrieved his walking stick from where it had fallen.
“Then I suggest we all return to our respective corners. Mr. Darcy, your coat appears to be hanging on that branch over there. I recommend retrieving it before you catch your death. And I believe—” he squinted toward the kitchen garden “—yes, I believe Cleo has found a mouse. Order is restored to the universe.”
He set off down the path without waiting for a response, leaving Darcy and Elizabeth alone beneath the elm tree.
“You were eavesdropping,” she accused. “So ungentlemanly-like.”
“When in Rome… At least I wasn’t wearing a pink bonnet.”
“But you purposely spied on me.”
“I was rescuing a cat.” Darcy reached for his coat, wincing. “Your cat, I might add. A creature who has now abandoned me without so much as a backward glance. I begin to think ingratitude is a Longbourn tradition.”
“You!” Elizabeth sputtered, her hands clenching into tight little fists at her sides. “You insufferable, arrogant, eavesdropping—”
“Careful, Miss Elizabeth.” He shrugged into his coat, though the movement pulled at the scratches across his back. “You were just expressing concern for my reputation. It would be a shame to undermine your own arguments by calling me names.”
“How arrogant you are to believe I harbor the least bit of regard for you, Mr. Darcy.”
“If you harbored none, you would not have taken such pains to protect it from my aunt’s anticipated wrath,” he countered, his eyes locking onto hers, unyielding. “Forsooth, you regard me quite enough.”
“I would destroy you with my own hands if I could.” She snarled, exposing her teeth.
“My, my Miss Elizabeth, what big fangs you have. I should like to feel you try.”
“I should leave you exactly where you fell—bloodied, battered, and flat upon your face.”
“I believe you already have, although your father would deny it. I wonder, Miss Elizabeth, why you wished me to change the entail for your sake? Your words were: Would he not change it for me? Please, what exactly did you mean by that?”
The color drained from her face. “I hate you.”
“No.” Darcy retrieved his walking stick and turned toward the path that led back to the steward’s cottage. “You do not. That is rather the problem, is it not?”
He did not wait for her response. He walked away, his shirt flapping in the December wind, his back smarting from a multitude of thorns, and his heart hammering with something that felt dangerously like hope.
Behind him, Elizabeth let out a noise of pure, thwarted fury.
And Cleo, emerging from the hedge with a mouse in her jaws, gave him what might have been an approving look as he passed.
“Traitor,” he told her, smiling. “Or should I say, matchmaker?”
The cat dropped the mangled mouse at his feet as her offering of gratitude for the rescue.