Chapter Eighteen The Absolution at Astley’s
IF THERE WAS AN ENVIRONMENT less conducive to the delicate blossoming of a gentleman’s fragile heart, Robert Fitzwilliam, Viscount Keathley, had yet to find it.
Astley’s Amphitheatre was an assault on the senses.
The air was thick with the scent of sawdust, roasted nuts, gunpowder, and an overpowering quantity of horse manure.
The wooden bleachers trembled with the stomping of hundreds of boots, and the orchestra was playing a military march with a zeal that bordered on outright violence.
It was, in short, pandemonium. And Robert, a man who usually thrived in the glittering ballrooms of Mayfair, was sweating through his white linen shirt.
He was seated in the front row of his private box, gripping the railing as though he were bracing for a naval bombardment.
To his immediate right sat Miss Jane Bennet, like a celestial being who had accidentally wandered into a stable.
She wore a gown of pale blue silk, and she was watching a man perform a handstand on the back of a galloping pony with fascination.
Robert tried to swallow, but his throat felt as though it had been coated in plaster. He had managed to escort her from the carriage to the box, a journey that had consisted of him staring straight ahead and offering stilted, one-word answers to her pleasant observations about the weather.
He was not well. The renowned rake of London, who had once talked his way out of a duel by complimenting his opponent’s waistcoat, was still mute.
Boodles had tied his cravat in the ‘Mathematical’ knot that morning without being told, but Robert’s inner state was rapidly descending into abstract geometry.
He glanced around the box, seeking an anchor, but he found no sympathy. His family was useless.
On the opposite side of the box, Darcy was leaning to Elizabeth Bennet.
The master of Pemberley—the man who, mere weeks ago, was a carriage wreck—was smiling.
Not a grimace, not a gargoyle spasm, but a devastatingly handsome smile.
I taught him that, Robert bristled. Miss Elizabeth whispered something behind her fan, and Darcy actually chuckled.
Robert rolled his eyes to the heavens but found no sympathy there either.
Look at him, he thought bitterly. The recovering lunatic is fluent in banter, and I am sitting here like a decorative urn.
Behind them, the Gardiners were conversing with Anne and Georgiana.
“Do you think, Mrs Gardiner,” Anne was musing, watching a woman in spangled pantaloons vault over a flaming hoop, “that my mother would permit me to install a flaming hoop in the drawing room at Rosings? It would certainly liven up the Sunday dinners with Mr Collins.”
“I have not had the pleasure of meeting your mother yet, but I suspect Lady Catherine might not agree to a fire hazard in her parlour, Miss de Bourgh,” Mrs Gardiner replied carefully.
“Pity.” Anne sighed. “Perhaps a small moat, then.”
“That formation is useless against French artillery!” Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam bellowed from the back of the box, gesturing with a roasted chestnut at the trick riders below. “They are exposing their left flank! You cannot charge a cannon while doing a somersault! It is insubordinate!”
“They are acrobats, Richard, not the dragoons,” Robert managed to croak, his voice cracking slightly.
Miss Bennet turned to him, her blue eyes filled with that luminous kindness of hers. “Are you quite well, Lord Keathley? You seem uncommonly warm. The air in here is very close.”
Robert’s heart was beating like a drum. Speak, he ordered his brain. Say something witty. Say something charming. Do not mention the weight of Egyptian sarcophagi.
“I am... robust, Miss Bennet,” he choked out, instantly wincing at his choice of words. Robust? I sound like Collins’s sow. “That is to say, the horses. They are very... fast.”
Her lips twitched into a gentle, forgiving smile. “They are indeed, my lord.”
Robert turned back to the ring, mentally preparing to throw himself over the railing and into the sawdust.
Then, the orchestra struck a final, triumphant chord. The acrobats took their bows, and the interval was announced. The noise in the amphitheatre shifted from a roar to a deafening hum of conversation.
Robert sat up straighter. The moment of truth was approaching. He had spent a small fortune ensuring this exact box was secured, knowing full well who occupied the one directly across the ring.
He surveyed the crowd opposite them.
“Well, look at that.” Richard leaned over the railing. “The Lord of the Fetlocks has spotted us.”
Robert followed Richard’s gaze. Charles Bingley was pushing his way through the crowded promenade. Robert cast a covert glance at Miss Bennet. She had seen him. Her posture straightened, her hands folding neatly in her lap, but she did not pale, nor did she gasp, clutching her chest.
Bingley reached the door of their box and burst inside, all smiles and idiotic blonde curls.
“Darcy! Lord Keathley! Colonel!” Bingley cried, pumping Richard’s hand before turning to beam at the rest of them. He emanated ecstasy as if he had just consumed his body weight in sugar.
And then, his eyes landed on the Bennet sisters.
Robert held his breath, bracing for the awkwardness, for Bingley to blush, to stammer, to look stricken with guilt or lingering longing.
“Miss Bennet! Miss Elizabeth!” Bingley exclaimed, his smile not dimming by a single fraction of an inch. “What an absolutely capital surprise! I had no idea you were in London! Are you enjoying the season? The trick riding is magnificent, is it not?”
Robert stared at him in awe. The man was oblivious. He had the emotional permanence of a trout. He was greeting the woman whose heart he had purportedly broken with the same cheerfulness he would use to greet a moderately pleasant vicar.
“It is a pleasure to see you, Mr Bingley,” Miss Bennet said, her voice perfectly modulated. “Allow me to introduce my aunt and uncle, Mr and Mrs Gardiner.”
Bingley bowed to the Gardiners with exuberant politeness. “A pleasure, a pleasure! Truly, this is a momentous occasion! Darcy, you did not tell me you would have such delightful company at Astley’s!”
Darcy, slightly nauseous, cleared his throat. “We... encountered them recently, Bingley.”
“Splendid!” Bingley clapped his hands together. He turned back to Miss Bennet, his eyes shining. “Miss Bennet, you must tell me—have you ever visited Yorkshire?”
Robert’s jaw tightened. Here it comes.
“I have not had the pleasure, sir,” she replied politely.
“Oh, it is God’s own country!” Bingley launched into his monologue with the fervour of an evangelical preacher. “I have let the lease on Netherfield lapse, you see. Done with the South! I have purchased a breeding estate. The mud in Yorkshire is vastly superior for the hooves.”
Miss Elizabeth let out a small, muffled coughing sound, quickly hiding her face behind her fan as her shoulders shook. Darcy stared at Mrs Gardiner’s bonnet.
“Indeed?” Miss Bennet asked, her tone offering nothing but polite encouragement.
“Indeed!” Bingley leaned forward, his voice dropping into a hushed, reverent whisper. “And the crown jewel, Miss Bennet... the pinnacle of my existence... is a dappled grey mare. I tell you, she is the most beautiful creature I have ever beheld.”
Robert gripped the railing, watching Miss Bennet’s face like a hawk. He waited for the crack in her fa?ade, for the pain of being so casually replaced by livestock to shatter her composure.
Jane Bennet gazed at Charles Bingley and smiled.
It was not a tight, polite smile. It was a brilliant, warm, utterly liberated expression. Her eyes danced with amusement as they found Miss Elizabeth’s and shared a split-second of communication that spoke volumes.
The fortress is empty, Robert thought, his spine relaxing.
“I am so very glad for you, Mr Bingley. She sounds like a truly remarkable creature. I wish you and your dappled grey every possible happiness in your lives.”
Bingley beamed, missing the subtle, comedic grace of her dismissal. “Thank you, Miss Bennet! Thank you! I must go—I saw a man in the promenade selling a revolutionary new bridle, and I must inspect the leatherwork! Capital seeing you all! Capital!”
With a final wave he bounded out of the box, disappearing into the crowd to chase his equine obsession.
The box descended into a stunned silence.
Robert kept on staring at Jane Bennet.
The bands that had constricted his chest since the day he met her snapped, the paralysis shattering into a thousand pieces, his dormant faculties finally yawning awake.
He leaned back in his chair, crossing one long, elegantly clad leg over the other. The confident smile that had conquered Mayfair slowly spread across his face.
“Well,” he drawled, his rich baritone returning in full force, filling the cramped space. “I must confess, Miss Bennet. I have never felt so inadequate in my life.”
She turned to him, her eyes still sparkling with mirth. “Inadequate, Lord Keathley?”
“Entirely.” Robert sighed dramatically, placing a hand over his heart. “Here I sit, a mere viscount. I have a respectable fortune, a passable wit, and an excellent tailor. But alas, how is a man supposed to compete when a horse’s fetlocks have already inspired poetry?”
Miss Bennet let out a delighted peal of laughter. To Robert’s ears, it sounded like silver bells, and it struck him straight in the centre of his chest.
“You are very hard on yourself, my lord,” she teased, the angel giving way to a woman of brilliant humour. “I am sure your fetlocks are perfectly adequate.”
“Adequate?” Robert gasped, clutching his chest as though he had been shot. “Madam, you wound me. My fetlocks are the envy of the House of Lords. Richard, tell her about my fetlocks.”
“They are a national treasure,” Richard supplied from the back row, not missing a beat. “We could use them to frighten the French.”
The lady covered her mouth with her gloved hand, shaking with laughter.