Page 7 of Done for the Best (Engaged to Mr Darcy #5)

CHAPTER SEVEN

FALLING IN LOVE WITH HIM

E lizabeth settled into her nap with thoughts of Darcy in her head, and she woke the same way. She lay there for a time, thinking of what she knew of him and recollecting the sweetness of their drive.

His sister has thirty thousand, which means Pemberley must be extraordinary. Astonishing , she thought, to imagine such a man to be in my power.

Did he truly love her? Why? She had never imagined herself making a brilliant match. She was not a great beauty, nor did she have the education or fortune or talents to impress a man. She was too clever, and did not hide it well enough. She was too apt to give her opinion and disinclined to flatter a man’s genius simply because he was a man.

It was not that she lacked confidence, only that she knew herself. If she had awoken from her illness to find that Jane had attracted such a man as Darcy, it might have made sense, but herself? No.

And yet, it did seem he loved her, and with each hour spent with him, she was falling more in love with him, too. Though her mind remembered nothing of him, it seemed her heart recalled their attachment very well.

She was fortunate, it seemed, to have earned the regard of a man who was, in disposition and talents, well matched to her; a man who could be her friend, her suitor, and—one day not so distant—her husband. “And he is handsome and wealthy.” She shook her head. It all felt too good to be true.

What is wrong with you, Lizzy? Have more faith in yourself, more belief that you are as capable as any lady of attracting a worthy gentleman.

She could not quite shake it, however, the niggling sense that surely all of this was too fantastic to be real. Perhaps she was looking a gift horse in the mouth but only because she was fearful it was about to bite her.

If I knew more, perhaps I could worry less , she reasoned, and to that end resolved to begin asking him about the time they had known one another. I must learn how it was that we fell in love.

She improved a bit each day. The drives she took with Darcy were the best part of any day and soon became a regular occurrence. Darcy would call in the morning and take her on a little drive and then later, when she had slept, call again and either sit or walk out with her.

She hoped she did not flatter herself unduly that the bloom was returning to her countenance, her fatigue was abating, and her energy was returning. She remained quick to tire when she exerted herself, and headaches were common, but all of it steadily lessened even though her memory showed no sign of returning. It seemed a year of her life—an important year—would be forever lost to her. Darcy, she realised, was the means by which some of it might be returned. She hoped he would not grow weary with her questions about their acquaintance. She wanted to know everything, every moment of what seemed to have been an excessively important autumn and winter, and yet every question begat more questions. She wished to learn not only the bare facts, but also the feelings and impressions and shades of meaning that went along with those facts. Happily, Darcy never seemed to grow impatient explaining things to her, even when she required second and third explanations.

“You came with Mr Bingley in October, with Mr Bingley’s sisters and?—”

“Mr Hurst,” he told her. “He is married to Louisa who is Bingley’s elder sister, and Miss Caroline Bingley is his younger sister.”

“Miss Bingley is my age?”

“She has just reached her majority.”

“Is she pretty?”

To this, Darcy replied with only a sidelong glance.

“Is she?” Elizabeth persisted.

“Her outward appearance is too often contradicted by her…mean-spirited tendencies.” Darcy grimaced. “I know her too well to think her pretty.”

“She must have had hopes for you,” Elizabeth mused. “Being an intimate of her brother as you are.”

To this, Darcy replied with a satisfying shudder and an unintelligible sound that clearly communicated his distaste for that notion.

“An assembly in Meryton,” was his reply to her question about their first meeting. “Though we did not dance together at that one. I danced only with Bingley’s sisters, for I did not know anyone else.”

He had, apparently, asked her to dance while she stayed at Netherfield, nursing Jane through an illness, however. “I said no to you?” she asked with no little amazement. “How…rude of me.”

“I cannot fault you your refusal,” he said. “You had every reason to. In fact, you had refused me once before as well.”

“Had I?” Elizabeth laughed. “My mother must have been fit to be tied.”

Slowly he shook his head, his eyes trained on the path they walked. He seemed too dismayed about the matter, which she had been prepared to treat with levity, and it concerned her. After a short pause, she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Is there more to the story than that? You appear unduly distressed for what seems to me an impertinent lady’s refusal of a dance.”

“There is…” She watched as he swallowed hard. “There is a great deal more to the story, in fact.”

Her hand still rested on his arm, and she gently squeezed it through his greatcoat. “You certainly must tell me all, then. After all, what can it matter now?”

He did not immediately reply, but his steps slowed and he stopped walking, turning to face her. Elizabeth removed her hand from his arm, folding her hands in front of her.

“The first night we met, I, um, well I was feeling prodigiously uncivil. The situation with Georgiana that I mentioned before…”

She nodded, and he continued, “It was very recent, and the pain associated with it was still acute. Being in a different society than I am accustomed to is never easy for me, but that night it was positively intolerable. So much so that I declined to be introduced to you and your sisters. Your mother was not pleased by that.”

Elizabeth smiled. “I do not doubt that. Was she very unkind to you?”

He shook his head. “She…well, she said a great many things that I easily overheard. Indeed, most of the assembly overheard her, and it did nothing to improve my mood or my feelings towards her or your family. So then when Bingley began urging me to ask you to dance, I…I reacted badly. I believed that, like your mother, you were, um?—”

“Presumptuous? A bit vulgar? Insolent?” Elizabeth smiled again. “I love my mother, but I do know how she is perceived by others, particularly when a new bachelor is come to town.”

He dipped his head to one side but still did not meet her gaze or share her light humour. “I was vexed with her, and with you by extension, for I assumed that like mother so must the daughter be. I was also angry with Bingley; he seemed to me to be wilfully uncomprehending of my feelings, and I could not like his imprudence with regards to your sister. They had danced twice by then, and I did not doubt he wished me out of the way so he could ask for a third without my disapproving stares. So I said, in reply to his urgings?—”

He swallowed hard again. “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me ; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Badly done!” she exclaimed mock-scoldingly.“And what did I do in reply? Did I say something dreadfully impertinent to you? Stamp on your foot, or slap your cheek perhaps?” She knew she would have done no such thing, but in the face of such a woebegone expression, she wanted to make him laugh, or at least relax a little.

“Would that you had!” He took one of her hands in his. “I deserved no less. You were and are too good, only rising to walk past me and go to your friends. You all laughed moments later, and I was left to burn with the shame of being an object of ridicule.”

“Oh no,” she said softly, reaching over to stroke the skin of his cheek with the gloved fingertips of her free hand. “How ghastly of me.”

He finally allowed a small smile. “And yet it was the seed. How could I not grow to love such a woman? Any other lady might have run off crying or been enraged. You were so very singular, in that as in nearly every other circumstance in which I have known you since.”

His admiration of her was so clearly overflowing, so plain in his eyes, that it made her blush. It felt, in every way, like a kiss must surely happen. She felt it in the air between them, a peculiar charge, and she lifted her chin slightly, held his hand more tightly, willing him to just do it.

A sound like a stick cracking made them both startle, and Darcy immediately stepped away from her. “We had better get you back to the parsonage. I fear we have walked too long.”

An hour later, Darcy crossed the path from the stables to the manor house with long strides, angrily tugging his gloves from his hands. A footman met him at the door to collect his coat and hat, and he reminded himself to be civil. It was not the footman’s fault that Darcy was behaving like a reprobate. Wickham had nothing on him!

With each moment spent with Elizabeth, his love for her grew. He had always believed they had similarity in the turn of their minds, and their drives and walks proved it. With their prejudices and quarrels set aside—or, in her case, forgot—it was easy to be lovers.

He retired immediately to his apartment, closing the door firmly and then standing, not knowing what to do with himself. It could not go on, this deception of her, and he was deceiving her. He could not prevaricate with himself. No matter what Dr Hughes had said about shocks or upset…he was lying to her.

A mirror stood nearby, and he glared into it. “A liar. You are a liar.”

Clearly, she was curious about the year of her life that had gone missing from her memory. She asked question after question, and he spoke honestly, but not once had he ever so much as mentioned, ‘By the bye, you have loathed me since last October. You thought me ungentleman-like and rude, arrogant and uncivil up to and including the hour I proposed to you. You had no design on me—no matter what I thought—and rejected my offer in no uncertain terms, and if a snake-bite-induced apoplexy had not ejected all of that from your remembrances, I would have been long gone from Kent, and we likely would not have known one another again.’

Darcy shook his head, disgusted with himself. This was, without a doubt, the worst of all his sins against her, to allow her to believe them in love. He sank into a chair, sighing heavily. Therein was the difficulty. He did love her, and he believed, in these past weeks, she had begun falling in love with him too. It was, as many things contrived of fairy dust were, sheer perfection.

What temptation it did present! A second chance in every sense of the word.

I can be a man worthy of her. Have I not learnt what it might have cost me, my pride, my selfishness? I have changed and will continue to change. No, I shall never be a Bingley, who beamingly embraces anyone he meets, but neither will I disdain those I do not know. The shades in my character that she admonished, though she does not remember them, will be remedied.

But still, I must tell her.

She had laughed about his insult of her. Perhaps she would be equally amused by the contentions and misunderstandings of their past.

He hoped rather than believed it to be true.