Page 38 of An Offer of Marriage (Engaged to Mr Darcy #7)

A SEPARATION AGREEABLE TO ALMOST ALL

M iss me? What on earth did he mean by saying such a thing? Elizabeth could not comprehend it, but neither did she wish to spend much time considering it. She was going home; she would be, soon, in the bosom of her sisters and old friends. Could there be any greater comfort than that?

A sentence or two to Beauregard and her packing would all have been managed, but she did not want that. She wanted to keep busy and avoid being drawn into conversation with her husband, and to tend to her own trunk was the best way to achieve that.

“I can gladly pack for you, ma’am,” said Beauregard many times, seeming perplexed by her mistress’s involvement.

“This entire arrangement has come about in such a last-minute sort of way, I am still trying to sort through what is needed,” Elizabeth assured her, her fingers on one of the many superfine muslins she had acquired since becoming Darcy’s wife.

She supposed that her new life had that much to boast. She was better attired than ever she had been before.

Alas, while the packing kept her hands busy, it did not still her mind which insisted on turning over Darcy’s remark.

He claimed he would miss her. Such sentiments were never passed between them, not unless they had an audience of more than Georgiana to witness it.

Could he have been in earnest? She shook her head.

“Ma’am?”

“Oh! I was just trying to remember where it was that I had put something I purchased for Jane,” she prevaricated. “The shawl? Do you remember it?”

Beauregard nodded and went to retrieve it. Elizabeth wished she had some means to send Beauregard off completely, but Beauregard would not be swayed from her duty and returned, too quickly, with the shawl which Elizabeth slowly packed in her trunk.

A knock on her door, right when the trunk was nearly finished, heralded Darcy’s arrival and then Beauregard did disappear, right as Elizabeth finally wished she would remain.

“It seems you have made short work of being packed,” Darcy observed. He had come to a stop a few feet from the door.

“Oh, well…” Elizabeth glanced at the trunk which was almost over-filled. “One is never really finished, I do not think. Always something comes to mind that one has almost forgotten.”

He chuckled, and looked down. She followed his gaze to see he held a letter in his hands.

It was too reminiscent of another letter he had brought to her and she frowned, turning back to the trunk, bending over it and rifling through the neatly folded gowns and accoutrements as if looking for something.

“I was wondering…”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think your sister is very attached to the notion of living near your family?”

She straightened and turned to face him. “I really cannot say. Why?”

He took several steps towards her, extending the letter. The sight of it made her heart pound even as her mind reassured her that Darcy did not seem angry or even ill-humoured. She fixed her gaze on the page, her anxiety in no way allayed by the contents.

It was a letter from a man called Bateman telling her husband of a fine property in Greenhill which was in Sheffield. Her first thought, provoked by recent fears, was to wonder whether he meant to purchase it, to send her there rather than having her at Pemberley.

“An aged baron, recently deceased, whose son is fallen on hard times and would rather have money than his birthright,” Darcy explained.

She took a calming breath before asking, “Do you mean to purchase it?”

“I am thinking of Bingley purchasing it,” he said. “It is not fifteen miles from Pemberley.”

The flood of relief which swept through her—coupled with elation at the notion of Bingley purchasing a home so near Derbyshire—made her knees threaten to give way. She moved to sit on the edge of her bed while Darcy continued to speak of the place.

“Very well-kept, by Bateman’s testimony, and he is exceptionally fastidious. The price…” Darcy made a little motion with his hand. “A bit more than Bingley ought to spend, but one can make a purchase offer and see where it goes.”

Elizabeth raised her hand and pressed her fingers to her lips, again looking over the letter.

To imagine dear Jane living so near to Pemberley!

She had imagined it—what seemed like a lifetime ago when she and Darcy were on better terms—but happiness in marriage of any variety had long since been a notion she surrendered.

“Does it…does it please you?”

“Please me?” She looked up, surprised to see him now seeming anxious, his eyes searching her countenance for she knew not what. “Yes. Oh, yes! Um…thank you.”

“You need not thank me for anything,” he demurred. “In any case, perhaps your sister will not like the place. We shall have to see how it all comes out.”

With that he bowed and left her.

Bingley, with his sister and Elizabeth, was off at first light the next morning, eager, no doubt, to be back in the thrall, and the arms, of his betrothed. Darcy had woken early and dressed, intent on seeing them off; as soon as he did, he was left at ends, wondering what he might do with his day.

What he wished to do was spend time sorting out the tangled feelings between himself and his wife.

He had meant to yesterday; he had gone to her bedchamber thinking the letter he held would please her and that a conversation might ensue from there.

Instead he had distressed her; obviously the last time he had thrust a letter at her, things had not ended well.

He had not considered that before going to her.

Given the hour, Darcy thought his time might be best spent on letters and business. Once ensconced in his study, with a hot cup of coffee before him, he found he had no attention for it. His eyes would be on the page, but his mind was on her.

Things had been so wonderful between them in their first days in London. Those days, those wonderful days when he had imagined them in love! Only to come crashing down like a violent storm in the midst of a summer day, shocking and destructive.

How had she felt in those days? Was it possible she had been falling in love with me then? If she had been, he had certainly brought a quick halt to it with his unmitigated rage.

He sat at his desk and quietly—although why he was quiet he could not say, for no one would hear him anyhow, nor would they care if they did—slid open his desk drawer.

The drawer had been very cleverly fitted with a false bottom that could be moved aside to conceal documents of a delicate nature.

It was in this drawer that he had placed the letters she wrote him; he had read them, or at least scanned them, but at the time, his heart had been hard and his mind filled with rage; they were surely due a re-read with a softer, more reasoned demeanour.

He selected from them at random to begin.

Mr Darcy,

I confess that I have rather lost hope of you reading any of these, much less responding, and yet I know not what else I might do to plead my case in this matter. Not that I have much of a case to plead.

The fact is that I know you are correct.

I allowed prejudice, formed the first evening of our acquaintance and grown during my stay at Netherfield, to sharpen my tongue and harden my heart.

I thought it quite a spur to my genius, to dislike a man whom others gave such deference, and I was not kind to you.

I was determined to think you the very worst of men, when now I understand that you are of the best.

I do not expect a mere apology to suffice, but I do vow to you that I shall make every effort to redeem my character.

It was never my wish to behave thus, and indeed, I do not think I have ever behaved thus to another.

It seems I have been much more vain than ever I understood, for one insult to my beauty formed within me an intense dislike. I see now it was silly.

An insult to her beauty. Darcy shook his head. There it was, then, the manner in which unbridled hauteur had set them off on the wrong course.

The scant days we were engaged were sincerely wonderful to me. To know you as you truly are was a delight, and even if you are never able to forgive me, if those days are all that I ever have of you, please know that I shall treasure them, undeserving as I may have been.

I pray you might find it in your heart one day to forgive me.

Yours, they were all very much alike—entreaties to speak to her, to allow her to explain, to hear her apologies.

If I might be afforded a quarter of an hour of your time…

My apologies, I know, may be perceived as tedious and repetitive, but I know not how else to convey how very sorry…

Pray know that the days we have spent in courting in London were the happiest I have ever had. I realise now how little I understood the man that you are, and I regret…

She had been truly repentant, truly wanting to heal the breach between them, and he had had none of it. He released a shaky breath and dropped his head into his hands.

“Brother?”

He raised his head to see Georgiana standing in the door to his study. She smiled once she saw she had his attention. “Shall we eat breakfast together, or have you already eaten?”

“No.”

“No? ”

“Um, no, I mean, yes, I would like to eat with you, and no, I have not already eaten.”