Page 21

SLINGS AND ARROWS

“ H ave you an archery range at Pemberley?”

Darcy steered Elizabeth around a mud puddle and away from the shooting line. “We have the equipment should we wish for it, but I prefer such activities in drier fields.”

“A house party where all the ladies’ skirts are six inches deep in mud sounds ideal to me.”

Their shared laughter attracted more than one of Darcy’s relations to come alongside them.

“Darcy, are you averse to carpets?” Saye gestured at the rugs scattered about the field. “Even a love-sick stag knows better than to lead his beloved into the muck.”

Fitzwilliam leant his head towards Elizabeth. “But would the stag not be just as stupid for leading his mate onto an archery range?”

It was bad enough Elizabeth bit her lip in that way that always anticipated an amusing riposte; such an expression usually compelled Darcy to kiss her.

Worse still was that he had finally wrangled her away from Miss Bentley, only to have his cousins quickly appear.

If only they had their own romantic attachments rather than constantly hovering over his!

At least Saye was pursuing his lady, curiously inept at it though he was.

Fitzwilliam was surrounded by a surfeit of unattached, wealthy, and generally handsome young ladies; he would do well to send his teasing quips towards them, and not at ladies firmly attached to others.

The audacious and self-assured manner in which Fitzwilliam had seated himself next to Elizabeth last night in the drawing room—the very moment Darcy had risen from the spot—ground at him.

He was not jealous—he had her, and she loved him, after all—but he could not like his cousin’s presumption.

Before the arrow he gripped could snap in two, he turned to Saye.

“I heard the squeals this morning as your men sacrificed a pig for this pagan feast you have planned. Are we to play savages all week, spending our days scampering about with bows and arrows and our evenings squatting on the ground and tearing at meat with our teeth and hands?”

“I have forbidden tiresome people here.” Saye peered closely at Darcy. “Your trousers are cut generously enough to allow ‘squatting’, but who am I to judge in what direction a man dresses, let alone the worthiness of his tailor?”

Saye tossed a smug smile at Elizabeth. “Pillows and cushions will be provided for those with delicate bottoms.”

“Elizabeth, you will enjoy my brother’s bacchanal,” asserted Fitzwilliam, “for unlike Darcy, you have a lively, playful disposition that delights in anything ridiculous.”

Fortunately for Darcy’s temper, Fitzwilliam excused himself to join the shooting line and sauntered towards Miss Bentley.

Elizabeth, who had seemed alternately taken aback and amused by Saye the previous evening, now was undaunted as she spoke to him. “Surely your cousin has regaled you with tales of my boldness in walking through the wilds of Hertfordshire. I fear neither mud nor censure for such diversions.”

“An admirable sort of courage, I suppose.” Saye nodded in the direction of Balton-Sycke and affected a stage whisper.

“Far less an outrage than audaciously scheming to impose oneself and one’s simpering sister on my party.

The lobcock is playing on my sister’s sympathies.

Washed out bridges, wretched stomachs, fears of highwaymen and forest trolls. .. bah!”

Darcy tried not to laugh. Saye was seriously displeased at the arrival of Balton-Sycke and his sister, a wilful girl with a pretty voice, two Seasons, and no serious suitors.

Saye might think his rival had only one aim in mind when crashing their party, but Darcy suspected Miss Imogen Balton-Sycke was equally invested in the scheme.

Searching briefly, he saw Balton-Sycke hovering around Lady Aurelia, loudly effusing on her inspired choice of archery for a winter house party.

Miss Goddard stood on a thick carpet with a few ladies, watching the first group of archers take their places.

His eyes returned to Saye, who appeared more intent on petulance than on taking any action of his own and joining the lady who was his true target.

Rather than offering advice to a man uninterested in listening, Darcy busied himself examining the selection of bows, looking for one as small, fine, and strong as the lady who would shoot with it.

Elizabeth had other ideas and continued speaking to Saye. “You must play the host and hero, and then send them on their way, no matter what forest creatures lie in wait. Escort them if you must?—”

“Leave my own party? Miss Bennet,” Saye gave her a look of thinly veiled impatience.

“I consider it comme il faut that the host of the party should be the one having the most fun. Is that not the point of it all? I have gathered my nearest and dearest here to divert me. Trotting off into the forest with an idiot like Balton-Sycke would quite defeat the purpose.” With a roll of his eyes, he was off to stew in what Darcy presumed to be even greater depths of irritability.

“I meant he should send a footman,” Elizabeth said quietly. “I am not sure your cousin thinks I am intelligent.”

“Not even a man as silly in love as Saye could think you anything but clever. I should not be amused by his inelegance at wooing the first woman to truly touch his heart.” Darcy looked down, surprised by Elizabeth’s sudden grip on his wrist. “What is wrong? That is my shooting hand.”

“Miss Goddard is the first, truly?” she whispered. “He has never been in love?”

“Until her, love was sport and a means of amusement. Nothing to take seriously.” He bent his head closer and whispered softly, “He is an even bigger fool than I am.”

“A ridiculous thought, sir.” She blushed and glanced off at the ladies and nodded to Sir Phineas and Mr Emerson, who stood nearby watching Mr Withers instruct Miss Barlowe in her stance.

Darcy handed Elizabeth a beautifully polished oak bow. His body tightened and flushed as he watched her stroke it and compliment the smoothness of the wood, and he was forced to look away a moment and get himself under regulation.

With cheerful innocence, she remarked, “It is rather like holding a catapult in one’s hands. If you close one eye, breathe in deeply and pull back, all come together in a perfect shot.”

Sir Phineas coughed loudly, and after a long moment watching the first round of shooting, Darcy managed to enquire whether she had experience as an archer.

“I know little of it beyond the aiming and breathing,” Elizabeth replied, explaining she had spent one summer as a girl fascinated by a small catapult built by the neighbouring Lucas and Goulding boys.

“After they shot down most of the leaves on a small oak tree and beheaded all of the roses in Mrs Grant’s garden, they began to aim at birds’ nests and rabbits.

It fell to Charlotte and me to hide all the rocks and pebbles they used for ammunition in order to forestall a rampage. ”

Others had drawn nearer now, and amid murmurs of disapproval from their audience, Darcy bit back a chuckle at his intrepid country girl.

Sir Phineas snorted. “Do you liken shooting an arrow to shooting off a catapult? Both might be used within the act of war, but only archery is an art.”

They all turned to watch the second round of arrows fly to their targets.

“Yes, the archer is a romantic character,” Darcy said drolly. “The muddy marksman who mans a catapult would never be compared to Cupid.”

“Cupid, indeed!” roared Sir Phineas. “Saye, where are our feathery wings?”

Suddenly shouts and shrieks rang out, followed by awkward laughter. Exchanging looks with Elizabeth, Darcy was uncertain whether to be more alarmed by the sight of the injured man leaping about and swatting at his bottom, or by the peculiar expression on Saye’s face.

“Cupid’s arrow has gone awry,” Saye observed with a smirk.

The cosiness of Matlock’s smallest saloon was welcomed after a morning outside spent playing bows and arrows; Elizabeth was amused by the ornate décor and the ladies sitting within it promised equal diversion.

As desperately as she had missed Darcy’s ardent looks and company these past weeks, she had equally yearned for his rational and intelligent conversation.

While such talk was rarely found at Longbourn, she was finding the company at Matlock had cleverness and wit in abundance.

It was encouraging to her; she had long-feared a chilly reception among London ladies who were all of a piece with the likes of Miss Bingley.

Instead, she found a group of likeable, sensible young ladies whom she might one day call real friends.

It delighted her, and she found herself drawing nearer to the group of them, that she might take part in their conversation.

She quickly received a warm welcome from the ladies and the offer of a cup of tea.

“Mr Darcy stares at you quite often, Miss Bennet,” observed the lady to her left.

Miss Hawkridge; Elizabeth had had few moments to speak to her thus far but suspected she might be the cleverest of the bunch.

She was beautiful, too, with lustrous blonde hair, lips that seemed to be permanently curved into a pretty but dangerous smile, and eyes the most startling shade of green Elizabeth had ever seen, but she did not seem to count it her chief attribute.

Elizabeth smiled at her. “He does. He always has.”

“It does not trouble you then?”

“Indeed not. I find it flattering.”

Miss Hawkridge inclined her head. “He is evidently quite taken with you. I daresay you could not escape his affection even if you wished to.”

“’Tis a good thing I do not wish it,” she replied, laughing.