Page 17

WHIMS AND INCONSISTENCIES

I n dire need of air, Saye exited the house, coming upon Darcy and his miss as they evidently tried to sneak off for some kisses. “Miss Bennet,” he said with as much disapproving hauteur as he could summon. “I assure you, madam, such goings-on are not the way at Matlock. Where is your chaperon?”

To her credit, Miss Bennet looked horrified, her eyes flying wide as she attempted to put some distance between herself and Darcy. “I…forgive me, my lord, I did not mean?—”

“Ignore him, Elizabeth. He is the last person to play the puritan,” Darcy said with a frown in Saye’s direction. “Do not torment my beloved, Saye.”

“I have to welcome her into the family, do I not?” Saye replied with a half-smile, giving Miss Bennet a courtly bow. She smiled back, looking relieved. “I antagonise them all, do not fear. ”

“Not now. We have not seen one another for months and?—”

“Months?” Miss Bennet turned shining eyes towards Darcy.

“A twelve-month at least,” Darcy said tenderly, looking down into her countenance, and Saye nearly gagged. “Or so it seems.”

They had both become lost in one another’s gaze, and Saye reminded them of his presence with a pointed clearing of his throat. “Much as I am loath to interrupt Darcy’s lovemaking, I am in a crisis.”

“I shall be glad to speak to you of it later, Saye,” Darcy offered.

“Later will not do,” Saye replied. “I need help, this very moment. Perhaps Miss Bennet will hear me and offer her thoughts as well?”

Saye could see that Darcy was about to refuse him, so he turned his attention to Miss Bennet. “Surely you would not wish to see my own romantic endeavours go so wrongly astray? A few moments of your guidance shall be just what I need.”

Miss Bennet looked up at Darcy again. “A few minutes could not hurt, could it?”

Darcy acquiesced, but not without casting his blackest scowl at his cousin. “I daresay I am obliged to give him some concession for his efforts in bringing you here.”

The three stepped back inside, Darcy and Miss Bennet sitting on a nearby stair which was mostly for servants’ use, while Saye paced before them.

For the benefit of Miss Bennet, Saye summarised quickly his dilemma and his plan to end the week engaged to Miss Goddard.

“So then,” he announced. “It was a simple plan for tonight. Get her drunk, feed her lobster, kiss the butter off her chin. But somehow, it all went off and next I knew?—”

“That was your plan?” Miss Bennet interrupted. “Truly?”

“Yes, truly,” Saye retorted. “I want her to see that life with me could not be dull, that I am in all ways different from Hairy Ball?—”

On Darcy’s quick but nevertheless frightening glare, he amended, “Mr Balton-Sycke.”

“And this Mr Balton-Sycke is dull?”

“Frightfully so,” Saye told her. “Like watching a scrim of ice melt on a pond while you pi?—”

On Darcy’s quick but blistering frown, he amended, “…when it gets warm.”

“Hmm.” Miss Bennet looked thoughtful, and Saye was immediately energised. Darcy had said she was witty…perhaps she would understand Lilly?

“What is it?” He leant over her. “What are you thinking?”

“Well…I do not know Miss Goddard, of course, so my prediction of what she is thinking cannot account for too much.” She smiled up at him, very sweetly. “But I would suppose that she already knows how much fun you are, yes?”

Saye shrugged. “Possibly. ”

“Possibly?” Darcy scoffed. “Saye, they all know the stories. Amusement is your religion.”

“So it is,” Saye agreed. “I see no purpose in tedium.”

“And your efforts to amuse yourself have grown increasingly outlandish,” Darcy added.

“I am two-and-thirty,” he owned. “I require more to divert myself now than I did as a boy at school.”

“Perhaps,” said Miss Bennet, “what Miss Goddard needs to see, then, is your more serious side.”

“A more serious side?” Saye pondered this for a moment. “I do not think I have one.”

“You do,” she said, most earnestly. “You must.”

“I might not.”

“No,” said Darcy. “He certainly does not. In truth.”

Miss Bennet considered this a moment, head tilted and curls falling rather fetchingly to one side.

Saye glanced at Darcy and saw that his cousin, too, had noted the appeal of his betrothed, and no doubt wanted to make short work of this confabulation.

Feeling an uncommon burst of magnanimity, he said, “I daresay I shall toddle off?—”

“It is evident,” said Miss Bennet, “that there is, in Miss Goddard, something that longs for a serious side of things. Something in this Mr Balton-Sycke must appeal to her.”

“Impossible,” Saye declared. “There is nothing appealing about him in the least. Do you know, the man actually possesses enormous fluffs of hair which extrude from his nostrils? Try kissing a man whose nostril hair might assault you at any moment!”

To this, Darcy snorted with suppressed laughter, but Miss Bennet was undeterred. “But if it were impossible,” she insisted gently, “then surely, it would not concern you so.”

Damnation! If the witch had not neatly cut to the heart of him.

Saye gave Darcy a helpless look, but at this moment, Miss Bennet, overcome by cool air in the hall and her rather useless-looking pelisse, shivered.

Darcy was immediately on his feet, pulling her close.

“Right then. We shall be inside, Saye, and I hope I shall see you in the drawing room shortly.”

Tucking her under his arm, Darcy prepared to take his lady off, but Miss Bennet stayed him.

Looking backwards, over Darcy’s enormous arm encircling her shoulders, she said, “If it is true, my lord, that you lack a serious side, might I offer only this—a woman cannot help but fall in love with a man who changes for her, or who shows a side to her that no one else has seen.”

She was given a kiss on the lips for this utterance, though in truth it sounded like the babblings of a madwoman to him, and then the pair of them walked off.

Saye sank onto the stairs himself, feeling utterly defeated.

“Women,” he muttered. “Just when you think they know something, they shoot a bunch of gibberish out the lips at you.”

Lilly went to her bedchamber where she refreshed herself and washed her face with cold water, trying as best she could to shake off the vestiges of too much champagne.

As she regained her composure, she looked about her, wondering if all the guest apartments at Matlock were as fine as the one she was in.

She sat on the bed, kicking off her shoes while she wondered whether she ought to call her maid. Was she in for the night? She was never one to shirk a party, although she felt very little like being amused or amusing by this time. Why, oh why, did Saye always vex her so!

There was a little knock on her door and before she could utter a word, Sarah entered. “Lilly? Whatever are you doing up here?”

“Oh…resting.”

“Resting?” Sarah walked across the room to peer at her. “Are you drunk?”

“Of course not!”

Sarah smiled. “Perhaps just a little?”

“A little,” said Lilly with a rueful giggle. “We shall see how much mercy my head extends to me tomorrow morning for the truth of it.”

“Your mother is not here to scold you, dearest, so eat, drink, and make merry to your heart’s content.”

“I know.” With a sigh, Lilly admitted, “It was Saye.”

“Saye? Was he cruel to you?”

“Lord no. He has never been cruel to me.”

“Then what is it? It seems like you are hiding away in your bedchamber.”

“I only meant to rest a little. What are they doing down there? Has Saye been in?”

“Lord Saye is not yet in, nor is Mr Darcy. But I hear that Miss Bennet arrived unexpectedly to surprise him, so I should imagine they are greeting one another in private somewhere.” Sarah giggled and blushed, even as she said it.

Lilly had no doubt her imagination was running wild, and no wonder!

They all had pined after Mr Darcy at some point.

Learning that he had some untold reserve of passion for this unknown country lady had only heightened his allure for them all.

“I am sure I have had quite enough of Lord Saye already tonight, so if he is absent, so much the better.”

“Oh Lilly, do you really wish him gone?”

“Why should I not?” Lilly huffed. “He is so irritating! He just rattles away and thinks we should all love the very ground he deigns to walk on.”

“He does rattle on a bit, it is true.” Sarah nodded slowly.

“Rattles away about anything and everything…everything except marriage, that is.” Lilly frowned.

“I daresay everyone is right—he is not the marrying kind. He will allow Matlock to go to Colonel Fitzwilliam’s son so he can be sixty and still be having as if he is twenty.

” She watched with amusement as Sarah flushed scarlet at the mention of the colonel. Interesting!

“In any case,” she continued, “I cannot dangle about, wishing for something that may never come to pass. Stolen kisses and naughty whispers will not get me out of my father’s house, but Balton-Sycke will.”

“Well,” Sarah said, “it seems your mind is made up. Which is good! One should not enter into an engagement without certainty.”

“Yes,” Lilly agreed. “If spending some time here in the absence of Balton-Sycke can at least give me certainty it will be time well spent.”

“Indeed, it shall.” Sarah smiled. “But I hope you do not intend to spend that time holed away. Come down, join us in the drawing room. Perhaps we can all meet Miss Bennet.”

Lilly agreed and rose, patting a bit of rice powder on her face and adjusting a few of the curls around her temples.

Balton-Sycke was an excellent match from a good family, and she would never want for a thing.

And if he never made her laugh, neither did he make her want to pull her own hair out, so surely that was for the best?

Laughter, and the sound of someone at the pianoforte, rang out from the drawing room. Lilly smiled, smoothing her skirts before she entered. A quick glance about the place showed Saye was not there. Better and better.