Page 42

ONLY A FLESH WOUND

E lizabeth stood in silence with Lilly and Georgette, watching Sarah’s determined steps as she hurried away from the garden.

Mired as she was in her own unhappiness this morning, missing Darcy and regretting the pain she had given him, Elizabeth was shocked that the three ladies she liked best might also believe she enjoyed the colonel’s attentions and the drama and jealousy that resulted.

“Colonel Fitzwilliam does not love me,” she finally said. “I am in love. I have watched true love take shape, grow, and deepen. This was nothing like it.”

Georgette sighed. “Elizabeth is correct. Fitzwilliam probably did it for sport, to goad Mr Darcy. My cousins tease each other incessantly—always have, for as long as I have known them. There is every reason to suspect Mr Darcy is just as bad.”

“It does not matter what it was,” Lilly said. “It only matters what Sarah thinks it was—or was not. I have never known her to be theatrical. She really must care for her colonel.”

There was a long silence as the ladies considered Sarah’s plight.

Elizabeth regretted that she may have contributed to her new friend’s confusion; while she had not encouraged the colonel’s attention and conversation, neither had she ignored him.

Darcy had reacted as any man long separated from his lady would.

He was furious and jealous, and now seemingly too mortified—or too angry—to speak to her.

She had been careless with the heart of a man who had done all she could have hoped for in proving himself the best man she knew.

Swallowing her own heartache, and determined to mend what had been fractured between them, she looked meaningfully at her downcast friends.

“Ladies, Sarah is correct. This whole, um, ‘mating ritual’ has gone badly. I must address my own mistakes, but first we must help our friends.” She smiled at her two companions with what could only be described as a martial gleam. “I was not formed for unhappiness. None of us were.”

Despite nursing their melancholy, Lilly and Georgette were delighted with the plan she unveiled.

Elizabeth retreated to her room to spend the hour before they had planned to meet again at her writing desk.

She was determined to do all she was able to ensure happiness for herself and her beloved Darcy.

She missed him, and was angry with herself for the distance now between them.

Enough of intransigence and sulking; that was the bane of her father—and he was at fault for their situation. Darcy had been patient enough.

Once she put pen to paper, Elizabeth required less time than anticipated to write the long overdue words.

When her letters were sealed, sanded, and ready for the post, she donned her coat and bonnet, anticipating that after her short interval with Lilly and Georgette in the carriage, she would go in search of Darcy.

Clasping the letters in her gloved hand, she moved swiftly down the staircase and nearly walked headlong into the man she least wished to meet.

“Eliz-er, Miss Bennet,” Fitzwilliam stuttered.

Before he bowed, she noticed a blaze of heat upon his cheeks.

“Colonel Fitzwilliam,” she said, inclining her head.

“I owe you an apology,” he blurted.

“I believe the greatest apology is owed to Darcy.” Elizabeth pursed her lips and watched as his eyes closed briefly. He looked as if in pain, and she was a little glad of it as recompense for Darcy’s bruised lip.

“Yes. Yes, him as well. But you see, Darcy will eventually forgive me whether I say it or not. It is his way—to look for ways to put things right, whenever they go wrong. He has ever put my feelings ahead of his own. But if you required it, he would cut me from his life—if it would put things right with you.”

“Perhaps that is why he chose me as his bride—I would never require the removal from his life of anyone he loves, no matter how great a jingle-brain.”

“I deserve that.”

“Yes, you do. Is that why you have been provoking him, using me to tease and upset him? Because you fear he no longer loves you best?”

She rarely was this angry; she wanted him to feel her anger, for he certainly deserved it.

“I-I did not think it all out, I suppose, until very recently. It was very ill-mannered of me, ma’am, to be so inconsiderate of his feelings.”

“Yet, you have been raised a gentleman, undoubtedly knowing better, and ‘ill-mannered’ is the least of it! He is dear. He should never have been hurt, especially by one of his own family! What is wrong with you?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I have no excuse for it, ma’am,” he replied.

“And before you hit him, before you threatened to see if he could indeed be the first man I marry, I heard you bark—for all to hear—that you ‘ceded the field’ to him. As if there ever was a field, and you and I had played upon it! As if there was ever anything between us! In, as I recall, our very first private conversation, you most politely made it clear that I was ineligible. Do you think yours was the first ‘hint’ of that nature I had ever received? Do you think I am so stupid as to entertain the slightest romantic feeling for any man who declares himself out of bounds? Do you imagine I would enjoy demeaning myself in that way?”

She waited, watching as the man whose easy camaraderie she had once appreciated turned pale, seemingly at a loss for words. After a long moment, a torrent of them flew from his lips.

“Never, ma’am. It has been most mortifying, the realisation that, had Darcy been in my own circumstances and met and loved you, he would never have withdrawn.

He would have worked, and wooed, and tried to find a way.

And if he could not make the match, if you would not have him, he would…

he would still have tried…something. Anything.

Anything to make your life better, in any way he could, if he could.

It is what he does. And he would never—ever—have simply stood aside whilst hoping that a richer version of you would wondrously, effortlessly appear in his life. ”

He bowed again, clearly hoping for her benediction. Elizabeth let him wait. And then at last she nodded.

“I will, of course, accept your apology—but only to the extent that you put yourself forward in attempting to make it up to him. And of course, I shall expect that all future behaviour towards myself be above reproach.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. ”

She nodded and turned away. But she had only taken a few steps when she looked back.

“Whilst you are ‘thinking things out’ and coming to ‘realisations’, you might glance around and try to see if your ‘richer version’—a lady who is, to my way of thinking, far more suited to you than I ever would have been—might still have you. That is, unless you truly are a jingle-brain.”

Elizabeth strode away to meet Georgette and Lilly, happy to put the whole incident behind her. Now if only Darcy could!

“She is meant to be a figurehead of feminine responsibility, not to be in charge of anything! She has no experience managing the particulars of a house party of this importance.” Saye kicked at a tree branch that refused to move from his intended path.

Mired as he was in his own self-loathing, Darcy had little patience for Saye whinging on about his sister, not when he had finally come up with the words to say—and the courage to say them—to Elizabeth.

He had spent a sleepless night trying to forget the look of shock and disappointment on her beautiful face, and risen early to take a furious hours-long ride.

Now, as the clock ticked away on an afternoon wasted without her company, he glared at his cousin, standing a few feet away looking over the sodden field he had wished to use for a croquet tournament.

“You forget she is no longer your little sister, crying for her lost dolly.”

“She is justly famed for her tantrums.”

“And yet years past such outbursts, here she is acting as hostess for the house party you wished to hold—and a good thing she is, else none of the ladies would be present. She is three years married to a baronet. She has greater experience in hosting society than any one present.”

“She is?—”

“Older than Miss Goddard, or any of the ladies here.”

“You are no help, Darcy. My guests expect fine entertainment and pleasures, not a carriage promenade to a bloody teahouse.”

“I did not see a mutiny among your guests. Perhaps some of them are eager for more, shall we say, straightforward entertainments.” He glanced at Saye, who despite his pique appeared distracted by other matters.

Darcy had enough of his own troubles to think over; he had little interest in territorial squabbles between the two cousins with whom he remained civil.

“Why waste your time complaining to me about your sister? Write to your mother and tell her how Aurelia has ruined your fun. Be certain to mention how she prevented any further damage to your family home.”

As the two men turned away from the field and began to walk back towards the manor house, Darcy watched Saye step stiffly across an icy puddle.

“I understand you wished to avoid the stables while the carriages were being readied, but why could you not call horses for us? You have never been one to walk across a muddy field.”

“It is a matter of some delicacy. A dreadful case of satin versus saddle.”

Darcy looked askance at him.

“I may have been a tad precipitate leaving to chase after Blandy without changing my trousers first.”

Darcy chuckled. “Resulting in that extra cushion on your chair last evening. Ironic, is it not, given your censure of Balton-Sycke?”

Saye ignored his bit of sly remonstrance. “That few inches of plump pillow allowed me a better view of my future wife’s delights as she awaits my proposal...or rather, my next proposal.”

“You have proposed to her?”