13. An Opening
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AN OPENING
Elizabeth’s father took a seat on the hallway bench with his newspaper opened entirely upside down.
He was obviously not guarding her virtue but instead setting up a front-row seat to a farce.
Meanwhile, her mother crowed to Aunt Philips, her voice carrying over the charades, “I knew it, sister. Did I not tell you? We shall be ordering wedding clothes, although I am surprised it is Lizzy who has gotten the proposals. Oh, if only she weren’t so obstinate. ”
“But, I do not suppose, dear sister, that even Lizzy would refuse Mr. Darcy. He is so very handsome, and I have seen her look at the fine gentleman when she believes no one is spying on her,” Aunt Philips supplied most unhelpfully.
Which sent her mother into a tirade of ecstasy. “A mother always knows. It is the still water that runs deepest. Oh, my Lizzy, such a genius, hiding behind her hatred.”
Here, both sisters dissolved into gleeful laughter, as if Elizabeth’s dislike of Mr. Darcy were the cleverest stratagem.
“Please, forgive me, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said, standing just inside the doorway.
“My mother meant to maneuver Jane into this position, but I know my sister’s heart.
It is tender, and she has suffered from my mother’s orchestration of the events this past autumn. My mother has clearly overstepped.”
“I do not believe your mother has any sense of boundaries when it comes to marrying off her daughters,” Mr. Darcy said. “In this, she has a lot in common with the mothers of the ton.”
“It is mortifying all the same.” Elizabeth heard the brittleness in her voice. “My mother takes no surrender when it comes to her matrimonial aims.”
He walked further into the tiny parlor but did not take one of the waiting chairs.
Instead, he rested a forearm against the carved mantelpiece.
She turned to face him and realized he still had flour in his hair.
Combined with the intensity of his dark eyes and the general severity of his expression, the effect was… unexpectedly endearing.
“You have flour. Just there.” She gestured vaguely toward her own temple.
Darcy raised his hand, missed the spot entirely, and succeeded only in redistributing the powder more evenly across his hairline.
“Better?”
“Worse, actually. You now look like a village barrister on trial for his own incompetence.”
“My valet will have several pointed observations to make about the general disarray of my person.”
The corners of her mouth twitched against her will.
“Your poor, longsuffering valet. Tell me, Mr. Darcy, exactly how many coats has he been forced to consign to the rag-man since you took up residence in our rustic valley? Between the muddy pond, Cleo’s ungrateful claws, the thorns on the hedge, and now the caked flour, I shudder to think of his state of mind. ”
Darcy let out a short laugh—rich and deep. “Vernon has taken to polishing candlesticks in protest. He believes every stain is a personal insult to the house of Darcy.”
“And the rabbit hair on your handkerchief?”
“A complete loss. He began sneezing violently on my return, so I pitied him and discarded it in the fire.”
“Then my mother cannot blame her unfortunate sneeze on stray rabbit hairs,” Elizabeth said. “Unless she has been by the bootroom where our guest, named Henry, has been dining on cabbage leaves.”
“Although she will give credit to little Henry if this conversation pans out the way she wants it to.”
“Meaning?” Her palms grew clammy, and her heart beat like a trapped bird. She neither desired a proposal, nor believed one was forthcoming, and she would gain no enjoyment with disappointing him. “I shall not fault you if you wish to escape.”
He left his position at the mantel and ambled toward her, too close. “I do not wish to escape, Miss Elizabeth. In truth, I find myself grateful to have time with you, but I did not imagine being trapped by a sixpence and flour in my face.”
He had a sense of humor she had not counted on, and somehow, his humility lowered her guard. “Then shall we sit? I believe the chairs have decent separation.”
He smiled then; she could see the crinkling of his eyes in the dim firelight. “I believe we should disappoint your mother with the distance we maintain. After you.”
Elizabeth moved to the chair closest to the fire, smoothed her skirts, and sat, unsure what Colonel Fitzwilliam meant about Darcy wearing out the floorboards. What would he have to say to her?
He cleared his throat. “You declared this evening that you are not afraid of me. Is that true?”
“I have never been afraid of you,” she replied evenly. “Merely of your imposing position. When you presented yourself as the heir of Longbourn, I saw a threat to my family.”
“The entail has always been there.” His voice softened. “Does my being the heir distress you more than any other gentleman?”
Elizabeth swallowed what she could not confess.
His presence unsettled her in ways she would never admit.
He possessed the singular talent of making her feel both dismissed and entirely seen.
Infuriating, high-handed, and yet—he always seemed to know when she required a hand or a word of encouragement.
“You are not nearly so grand as when you arrived,” she admitted. “With all your tumbles, the wardrobe casualties, and handkerchiefs lost in the line of duty, I find I can no longer quake in your presence.”
“Would it surprise you that I feared seeing you again after the Netherfield ball?” His eyes seemed to twinkle in the flickering firelight. “Where you had entirely demolished my attempt at dancing civily when you noted that we were two people who had less than nothing to say for ourselves.”
“You were not conversing, sir; you were evading.”
“Because you disliked me so intensely that you would not deign to share an opinion with me. When you read my character, which I freely confess, I did not portray myself in a good light, you implied that I was blinded by prejudice and did not secure a good opinion of you.”
“And do you dispute it?” Elizabeth looked up, startled by the admission.
“No, I believe we have both done ourselves no credit.” He leaned forward so that his elbows were on his knees.
“Miss Elizabeth, I did not have to come to Longbourn so soon after I discovered I was the heir. I came because I had to see you again. I believed that if I befriended your father, repaired all that needed repairing, and hired the masters for your sisters, I would be seen as a benefactor rather than someone who would imperil you. I knew how your mother felt about the dreaded entail, and how she feared being thrown in the hedgerows. I understand why she pushes you to marry well, because the Bennet entail is restricted to males. But it appears that my improvement campaign has drawn your ire, and thus you dislike me even more.”
“I no longer dislike you, Mr. Darcy.” The admission came from a place too deep, and she realized she could not recall it.
“But you wished me to be gone.” His voice broke rough. “I did manage to eavesdrop on that slippery elm tree. I heard you tell your father that you wanted him to overturn the entail and send me back to Pemberley.”
Elizabeth’s cheeks burned—whether from his candor or the nearness of the fire, she could not say.
“You understand the injustice. By a mere accident of birth, or the misfortune of another, you inherit what you never sought. You have Pemberley, and yet you arrive at our door like a conqueror before my father has even left us. And I feared…”
“That I would approach you precisely as Mr. Collins did? Demand your hand?”
“Yes!” She gasped at her directness, but since she already admitted it, she forged onward. “Because I do not bestow my affections where they are owed. I will not marry for gratitude or obligation. I am not conquered territory.”
“Then what are you? If not a second daughter of an entailed estate without a dowry or connections?”
“You are uncommonly severe, Mr. Darcy.”
“I do not mean to be unkind. I only wish to know what would compel you to marry.”
“Love.” The word cost her a breath, perhaps more.
He nodded, gaze so intense that Elizabeth felt like she was a burning log inside the hearth. “And I have not earned your love, not yet.”
“That is rather too far a jump from not disliking you.”
“Yes, although I would offer you whatever your heart truly desires.”
“I cannot.” She shook her head, realizing he was skirting around a proposal.
“Then I will do as you wish.” He lowered himself from the chair onto his knees and took her hand in both of his, closing his eyes, as if he dared not look at her reaction.
“Please do not, Mr. Darcy. I beg you.” And she realized she was shaking, because she did not wish to give him pain.
“I will consent to bar the Bennet entail through common recovery.”
Whatever Elizabeth had anticipated—a declaration, a demand, a plea—it was not legal language about the entail. “I beg your pardon?”
And then he looked up at her, his eyes large and round, taking her in as if he would not have another opportunity.
“I will give you what you want. Change the entail if you ask me to. I will change the terms to include female heirs, and I shall do it tonight. You only need to tell me it is your absolute desire.”
The fire cracked, a log popping, and sparks fluttered behind the grate. Elizabeth’s mind was reeling.
“You would relinquish your position,” she said, and her voice came out steadier than she felt. “The inheritance. The entail that gives you guardianship over this estate and everything in it. Why?”
“I would do it because it is what you want, because I covet your good opinion.”
“You do not need my good opinion, Mr. Darcy. You have Pemberley. You have connections, fortune, standing. The regard of a country gentleman’s daughter with no dowry and a mother who—” She stopped. “You cannot want this.”
“And yet I do. It is what I desire more than anything.”