9. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Darcy had faced difficult tenants, disputed boundaries, ill-tempered relations, and the full force of Lady Catherine’s displeasure before breakfast.
None of these had prepared him for Lydia Bennet with a fishing rod.
“You hold it far too stiffly,” he said, for the third time in as many minutes.
Miss Lydia Bennet lowered the rod in her hands, then raised it to him with frank offense. “I am holding it exactly as it wishes to be held.”
“The rod has no wishes.”
“Then it ought to be more agreeable.”
Bingley laughed from farther along the bank, where he had appointed himself director of the morning’s amusement without having acquired any particular authority over it. “Capital, Miss Lydia. I never thought to blame the rod.”
“You ought to try it,” Lydia called back. “It is very satisfying.”
Darcy shifted his attention to Elizabeth.
She stood near the stream beside Mrs. Gardiner, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun while she watched her sister’s struggle with open amusement. Their morning walk had ended less than an hour earlier, and Darcy had been trying not to think of it ever since.
This had become increasingly difficult.
Miss Bingley’s arrival had altered everything.
Meals became performances. Conversations acquired edges.
Rooms that had been satisfying the day before now required navigation.
Miss Bingley placed herself beside Georgiana, spoke too often to Elizabeth with studied civility, and found reasons to address Darcy whenever he had succeeded in speaking to anyone else.
Still, mornings remained partly his.
Miss Bingley did not rise early unless society demanded witnesses.
Elizabeth did. So did Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and occasionally Lydia if bribed by breakfast cakes or provoked by Georgiana.
Darcy had therefore contrived, without appearing to contrive anything at all, to walk before breakfast on three consecutive mornings.
The first morning, he and Elizabeth had spoken of Lambton.
The second of books.
This morning, they had spoken of nothing remarkable. A fallen branch near the path. The color of the hills after rain. Horace’s habit of stealing gloves and burying them beneath the laurel hedge. Ordinary things.
It had been dangerous. Not because conversation had been intense.
Quite the reverse. Elizabeth walking beside him in the early light, her bonnet ribbons stirred by the breeze and her wit sharpened by sleepiness, had disordered him more thoroughly than argument ever had.
He could guard himself against reproach.
He had no defense at all against her laughing at Horace’s crimes.
Her presence was intoxication.
He disliked the word even as it formed in his mind.
It suggested excess, weakness, a surrender of judgment.
There was no better one. Elizabeth did not soothe him.
She enlivened every faculty and unsettled each one.
When she spoke, he listened too closely.
When she was silent, he worked to understand why.
Whenever distance came between them, he remembered absurd details: the curve of her glove around a book, the mud on the edge of her hem after walking, the way she studied Pemberley with admiration she tried not to betray.
And Miss Bingley interrupted whenever possible.
“Mr. Darcy,” Lydia said loudly, dragging his attention back to the stream, “you are not instructing. You are standing there looking solemn.”
Elizabeth looked away, but not before he caught her smile.
Darcy adjusted his grip on the second rod. “Forgive me. I was gathering patience.”
Lydia gave him a suspicious look. “For me?”
“For fishing.”
“That is worse. Fishing has done nothing to deserve it.”
Georgiana stood a few paces away with Horace’s leash looped around her wrist. She had been smiling all morning, even after Miss Bingley had pronounced outdoor amusements “charming in theory” and taken a seat in the shade with Mrs. Hurst. Darcy had rarely seen his sister so unguarded before guests.
Lydia was responsible for a great deal of it.
That admission still surprised him.
He had once thought little of the youngest Bennet sisters, and what he had thought had not been kind.
They had appeared noisy, unchecked, and determined to expose every weakness in their family’s education.
Lydia especially had been a creature made entirely of laughter, ribbons, and flirtation, or so he had thought.
He had not been wrong about the noise. He had been wrong about its meaning.
Lydia was reckless, certainly. She spoke before thought had put on shoes and she adored admiration far too much. She treated rules as personal inconveniences and had no reverence for rank unless rank arrived attached to an interesting house, a handsome man, or a superior bonnet.
Still, she noticed what many better-trained people missed and when Georgiana withdrew.
She noted when Miss Bingley’s civility carried a barb and Elizabeth’s discomfort and resented it on her behalf even while continuing to blame Elizabeth for the loss of Brighton. She had defended Georgiana in ridiculous ways, improper ways, often inconvenient ways, but the defense was real.
Lydia Bennet was not a well-regulated young lady.
She was worth knowing.
The thought would have astonished him months ago. Now he watched her squint at the water with her bonnet slipping toward one eye and found himself wanting, against all reason, for her to succeed.
“You must draw the line back first,” Darcy said, moving beside her. “Not so far. Your wrist, Miss Lydia, not your whole shoulder.”
Lydia attempted to obey.
The hook flew backward into a bush.
Bingley applauded. “Excellent spirit!”
“That was not a cast,” Darcy said.
“It was a warning to the fish.”
Elizabeth made a strangled sound. Darcy looked before he could prevent himself.
She had one hand pressed to her mouth, eyes bright, shoulders shaking with the effort to contain herself.
Mrs. Gardiner was amused and sympathetic.
Mr. Gardiner had waded a little downstream and was engaged in a quieter, more competent attempt at fishing, though even he cast a glance back toward the commotion.
Miss Bingley’s voice traveled from beneath the tree. “I cannot imagine that fish are commonly caught by frightening every creature within half a mile.”
Lydia directed her attention toward Miss Bingley. “Then they lack courage.”
Georgiana made a small sound and bent to adjust Horace’s collar.
Darcy coughed into his hand.
Miss Bingley’s fan opened.
“Perhaps,” Darcy said, reclaiming the hook from the bush, “we should begin again.”
Lydia accepted the rod with narrowed eyes. “You are enjoying this.”
“I assure you, I am suffering.”
“You suffer too politely.”
“Practice.”
Elizabeth chuckled again, and this time he let himself look at her longer.
It was a single moment.
Still too long, perhaps.
Miss Bingley saw. He knew it without turning.
Bingley came toward them, his own fishing rod slung over one shoulder and his expression bright with the delight of a man who had never seen disaster approaching without offering it encouragement.
“Darcy, you must let Miss Lydia attempt it unaided. No one ever learned anything by being corrected before they begin.”
“That explains your fishing,” Darcy replied.
Bingley grinned. “Precisely. I learned through heroic failure.”
Lydia brightened. “That is my preferred method.”
Darcy surrendered the field. “Very well. Heroic failure.”
“Do not say it in that tone,” Lydia warned, planting her feet near the water’s edge. “You shall all be astonished.”
“I am already alarmed,” Elizabeth said.
Lydia ignored her and drew back the rod.
For one magnificent instant, Darcy believed the cast might succeed.
Then Horace lunged.
No one knew what tempted him. The movement of the line, perhaps. The flash of the float skimming across the water. Or simply a profound desire to ruin sport. Lydia had scarcely cast before Horace sprang forward, seized the trailing line in his teeth, and bolted across the bank.
“Horace!” Georgiana cried.
Lydia screamed, “He has stolen my fish!”
“You had no fish,” Elizabeth called.
“I had possibility!”
Horace raced toward the open lawn with the line trailing behind him. Lydia clung to the rod and ran after him, skirts gathered in one hand, bonnet sliding more precariously by the second. Georgiana released the leash by necessity and followed, laughing too hard to offer command.
Bingley doubled over.
Mr. Gardiner shouted advice that no one obeyed.
Darcy ran.
He overtook Lydia first and seized the rod before she could be dragged across a patch of wet grass.
“Release it.”
“Never!”
“It is attached to the dog.”
“Then stop the dog!”
“I am attempting to stop you.”
Horace made a triumphant turn around a low shrub, tangling the fishing line in three separate branches. The rod jerked violently. Lydia lost her footing.
Darcy caught her elbow.
For one hopeful second, disaster was averted.
Then the bank crumbled beneath her slipper.
Lydia sat down hard in the mud.
Silence seized the party for half a breath.
Lydia stared at her ruined skirt.
Horace, freed from the worst of the line, trotted back with the bait still in his mouth and wagged his tail.
Georgiana covered her face with both hands.
Elizabeth made a strangled sound.
Darcy’s attention shifted from Lydia to Horace, then to the fishing rod still in his hand.
It was too much.
Laughter escaped him before he could make it respectable.
Not a polite laugh. Not the brief, controlled amusement he permitted in drawing rooms. A full laugh, helpless and undignified, the sort he had not allowed himself among guests in years.
Lydia raised her head from the mud in outrage. “Mr. Darcy!”
That made matters worse.