Page 16

AT brEAKFAST, SHE wanted to be touching him, still, but it wasn’t proper.

They kept finding each other’s gazes, though, and simply staring at each other, both thoroughly distracted from their food or conversation, to the point that Jane and Mr. Bingley were teasing them about it, laughing as they said that they looked like lovestruck fools.

Elizabeth didn’t care if she was foolish. She was in love. She had not entered this marriage in love with her husband, but she was head over heels now, overtaken by it, drowning.

Was it a failing within her that it had been brought about by their physical joining?

She didn’t think so. There had been nothing, well, carnal, about that. It had been something wholly more than that, something spiritual and elevated. She was transported and transformed.

It was only later, when Mr. Darcy was writing a letter in the sitting room and she was sitting on a couch and openly gaping at him, doing nothing at all but admiring the look of her handsome and perfect husband, that she noticed Caroline’s reaction to it all.

Caroline sat on the other side of the room with an open book on her lap, but she was not looking at the book. She was looking at Elizabeth, and then at Mr. Darcy, and then back at Elizabeth. Her expression was drawn, almost stricken .

“Caroline,” said Elizabeth softly. “Let us take a turn around the room, shall we?”

Caroline found her gaze gratefully, setting her book aside. “Yes, that sounds agreeable.”

When they fell into step together, Elizabeth wrapped both of her hands around her friend’s arm, for no reason she could fathom. She only felt she must.

The contact made Caroline’s steps falter.

“Oh, Caroline,” said Elizabeth quietly, quiet enough that no one else in the room would hear them.

“I’m not jealous,” said Caroline forcefully.

Elizabeth’s heart squeezed. “I’m ever so sorry.”

“You have it,” said Caroline. “What we spoke of two nights ago, the, erm, the thing between married couples. How have you suddenly gotten it? What did he do to you, Eliza?” She cringed. “Beth,” she amended lamely.

Elizabeth squeezed her arm. “I was wrong about that. You must call me Eliza, you and only you. It will be your name for me.”

Everything was different now, of course, strange and different and she had not given it thought before, but she was doing so at this moment.

She was Mrs. Darcy now. She was someone’s wife.

She was part of a couple. She was no longer the singular woman she’d been before, but she would not abandon Caroline even though she could see that whatever their friendship was could not quite compete with whatever she had with her husband now.

No, that can’t be true, she thought. I barely know him. He has incorrect ideas about me.

And yet, it was true, and the thought shook her.

“What did he do to you?” Caroline repeated.

Elizabeth got the urge to snicker, but she stifled it, only smiling too widely. “Lord, Caroline, you know what he did.”

“Yes, but… is it really like that?”

“Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth breathlessly. “You will know, though. I have not forgotten our vow. We shall find this for you. We shall find the right man for you, and you… you will see it for yourself. ”

Caroline turned to search her gaze. “All right.”

“We must think about it a bit differently, though. It cannot only be about a man’s status or his connections, you see. We must make sure that he…”

“What?” said Caroline.

“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth, furrowing her brow, because she had been stupidly blind about it with her own husband. She somehow had not seen how desperately he wanted her. Would she be able to see it if a man wanted Caroline in that way? “We must find someone who truly desires you.”

“But Eliza, men don’t want me,” said Caroline in a low and horrified voice.

“That isn’t true,” said Elizabeth firmly. “There are men who do want you, and when we get to London, we shall find them.”

Caroline gave her a look full of uncertainty and worry.

Elizabeth squeezed her arm very tightly. “We shall,” she insisted.

Later that afternoon, she and her husband took a walk outside alone, and he put his arm around her so that she was tucked tightly against him as they moved together, and she felt that same lovely small and soft and feminine feeling as she huddled into his warmth.

“It may be a bit rude,” said Mr. Darcy, “but I want us to take our leave on the morrow. I had intended to stay at least a week, but I had not anticipated what it would be like to be a newlywed, I don’t think. Mr. Bingley will understand. I want you all to myself.”

She flushed with warmth at that. She wanted to be kept that way, all his, just the two of them. She started to acquiesce, and then she thought of Caroline. “Actually, I feel I must speak to you about something regarding that.”

“Oh, this sounds serious,” he said in a tone that conveyed he did not feel serious about anything at all. “If you are worried about leaving your family behind, Lizzy, you must realize that we cannot be situated near your family. I do not live in the part of the country, and if— ”

“No, no,” she said. “I firmly believe there is nothing good in a wife being situated too near her family.”

He chuckled a deep-belly laugh.

“I wish to go to London,” she said.

He considered. “All right. London it is.”

“I wish… to bring Caroline.”

He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “You and Miss Bingley are fast friends, this I know, but she will be bored out of her mind with us. We shan’t be able to give her any attention, because we are going to be entirely preoccupied with each other.

I am nearly obsessed with you, Elizabeth.

I don’t know how to explain it, but whatever there was between us before, now—”

“No, no, I feel it, too,” she said. She sighed. “All right, I feel I must tell you something and I don’t know if you will like it. You may even be angry. But once you know, you’ll understand.”

“Mmm, this sounds even more serious.” He was still amused. Not even the idea of being angry had ruffled him. He trusted her implicitly, and she worried about that.

Eventually, he will see you for what you truly are, she thought. How will he feel about you then?

“The letter that brought you to Hertfordshire, it was not written by Mr. Bingley,” she said.

“What?” Now, he stopped his movement, so they were no longer walking. He still kept his arm around her, though.

She looked up at him, searching his expression. “Caroline sent it. It was a ruse. She had taken a fancy to you, and she thought that if she could entice you here that somehow, she and I… oh, we have a tendency to matchmaking, the two of us—”

“Your sister told me you two like to play at setting people up with each other but that it is usually people who are already inclined to each other, that you are taking credit for things that would have naturally happened.”

“Well, that is because, with my sister and her husband, it was that way, but we have improved in our techniques,” said Elizabeth.

“Regardless of that, the point is, you were here for her , and she has been abundantly gracious about the way it has gone instead. She didn’t have to be so good about it.

She could have been quite angry with me—”

“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Darcy, and now he removed his hand from her shoulder.

“You are speaking as if Miss Bingley truly thought she had some kind of claim on me, which is frankly preposterous, because for me to marry a woman like her, with money from trade, and absolutely no connections of any kind, would have been insupportable.”

A wave of dislike passed through her. Oh, she had forgotten about this part of him. How was it that their joining had wiped out all of that? He was so self-important, was he not? She grimaced.

He let out a breath. “Oh, Lord, I am now remembering a number of conversations with her. She was, in fact, obsequious to a rather vile degree to me when I arrived, which I suppose I should have…” He dragged a hand over his face.

“I didn’t pay it enough mind, because after I saw you the first day I arrived, I could not get you out of my head. Perhaps you’ve driven me mad.”

She wrapped her arms around her own waist, not liking the sound of that.

“There was a conversation about pens,” he said.

“I heard about that.”

“About how evenly I formed my letters.” He smirked.

“It was off-putting, I must say. But she is your friend, and that is neither here nor there, I suppose. It is only that, if she did indeed fancy me, I think it’s abominable to bring her along with us.

If she is truly your very close friend, Lizzy, you must see that would be cruel to her, forcing her to watch us together in that way. It would only bring her pain.”

Elizabeth’s lips parted. She was about to protest that it was not that way for Caroline, but she thought of her friend’s forceful declaration that she was not jealous, and she grimaced, wondering if he were not correct, if it would be cruel. She closed her mouth. She nodded. “Perhaps I see that.”

Mr. Darcy began to walk again and she walked with him, but now they weren’t touching.

“It is only…” She twisted her hands together in front of her body.

“Well, the original plan was that we would match her and you, and then she would contrive to get me to London—which, truthfully, I suppose I needed her to get to London more than she might need me. She has many more avenues than I do. She can stay with her sister and her husband, perhaps. I don’t know if she does have to stay with us, but I must do my part. ”

“Your part?”

“Yes, we were going to find me a match. I helped her with hers and she would help me with mine. And when she saw you wanted me and not her, we simply switched it, the plan. So, I owe her, you see. I have to help her find a husband.”