Page 11

A REPORT OF A MOST ALARMING NATURE

“ D id you not eat breakfast?” Darcy asked. He was watching his cousin stuff forkfuls of pie down his gullet as though he had not been fed in a month, let alone a few hours.

Colonel Fitzwilliam grinned around his mouthful and shook his head. “Only got in at six, then overslept.”

“I am honoured you kept our arrangement in that case.”

“Do not flatter yourself. It was a good bit of beef I was after.”

Darcy rolled his eyes but took no real offence. They had met at John O’Groat’s eating house precisely because the food was superb. “Where were you until that hour?”

“Lady Rochelle’s winter ball.”

“Oh God,” he said with feeling. Portia Rochelle was no lady, and the sort of dancing that occurred at her parties was generally done in a more recumbent attitude than the average quadrille.

Fitzwilliam only grinned more broadly. “You ought to have come. Or were you too busy with your new paramour?”

“I do not have a paramour, but I would not be caught dead at a Rochelle event. I was at a dinner at Drake House last night. Johnson was giving a talk on drainage.”

His cousin screwed up his face. “Quite literally as dull as ditchwater, then. Is that all you have been doing of late?”

Darcy washed down his own mouthful with a sip of wine, instantly wary of such a leading question. “Obviously not. Why?”

“I have just heard a few whisperings.”

“What kind of whisperings?”

“The usual sort of thing. Someone has linked your name to a pretty face.”

“Whose face?”

“I was hoping you would tell me.”

“You should know better than to pay attention to such talk. I daresay if you asked around, you would hear reports of a dozen ladies connected to any one of you, me, or Cunningham.”

“You could find a good deal more than a dozen women connected to my brother! But I take your point.”

It rather seemed he did not when, a few moments later, he pressed, “Any idea who it might be, though? Rumour has it that you singled this woman out to talk to.”

“I talk to many women.”

Fitzwilliam scoffed. “When it suits you.”

It was evident he did not mean to be unkind, but it still stung. Perhaps it would not have, had Tomlinson not said something similar the previous week—or Elizabeth the previous autumn.

“You think I am of an unsocial disposition?”

That was the phrase she had used, if he recalled correctly.

“Far from it,” his cousin replied. “But neither are you easily impressed. If someone has caught your attention, it is bound to have been noticed.”

“Well, I assure you, no one has.”

No one in London, at any rate. Hertfordshire was another matter.

That was largely the problem; he did not seem capable of having a conversation with any woman without being reminded in some way of Elizabeth.

One might have similar colouring; another might be of a similar height.

More often, it was an unfavourable distinction, and she would not be as clever, or as astute, or as interesting—and then, the memory of Elizabeth’s dark eyes or luscious mouth or arch wit would inevitably pop into his head to provide an unassailable comparison.

He had hoped the frequency with which he had been meditating about Elizabeth would diminish over time.

It had not, and now that he had seen her again, she seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his thoughts—and, alarmingly, some exceedingly vivid dreams, which were assuredly not conducive to his forgetting her.

It was fortunate that her relations lived in the City, well away from Mayfair, for if she were to trespass too often into his world, then there would be no hope of any other woman therein catching his attention.

Noticing his cousin’s irritating little smirk, Darcy became aware that he had been quiet for too long. He applied himself to cutting up his next mouthful, looking up only to insist, “There is nobody, Fitzwilliam. Cease grinning at me like a village idiot.”

Fitzwilliam did not cease grinning, but he did consent to changing the subject. “What else have you been doing, then? Seen much of Bingley lately?”

“Not since we left Hertfordshire.”

“No? Your new lady friend occupying all your time, is she?”

Darcy did not so much as acknowledge the gibe this time. “As it happens, it is Bingley who has been dallying—and in a most impolitic direction. I have been avoiding him.”

“Bingley? Gone rogue?” Fitzwilliam narrowed his eyes, then abruptly pointed at Darcy with his fork. “You must think I was born yesterday. This is your attempt to put me off. There is someone, is there not?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Darcy grumbled. “There is nobody!”

“Would you tell me if there were?”

“Probably not.”

“Then I shall continue to think there is.”

“Please yourself, but pray stop needling me about it!” Darcy threw his knife and fork down on his plate and took an angry swig of wine.

Lord knew which of his acquaintances he was supposed to have shown an inclination for, but if this was the degree of speculation that a mere conversation with someone in his own sphere could inspire, he could only imagine the furore that would start up if his partiality for Elizabeth should be discovered.

It reinforced all his scruples against forming a true attachment to her.

This was precisely why he had not introduced her to his friend Atkins in Hyde Park at the start of the week.

It was a slight that he was exceedingly fortunate she had not appeared to blame him for.

Even so, he could not help thinking how well Atkins would have liked her.

His sister certainly had—so well that she had asked afterwards whether she ought to have invited Elizabeth to call.

His answer—that she had been right not to, for such a display of favour would give rise to expectations he could never answer—had not been well received.

“You mean you could not marry her?” Georgiana had asked. “Why not, if you admire her so well?”

“All the admiration in the world cannot alter a person’s circumstances,” he had replied. “I have a duty to Pemberley and our family. I cannot simply marry where I choose.”

This, as many conversations tended to do these days, had led to Georgiana berating herself for having almost eloped with George Wickham, and the subject of Elizabeth had been mentioned no more.

Somebody stood up nearby, scraping their chair legs noisily and making Darcy conscious that he had, yet again, been silent overlong.

He said a private oath. He might as well be conducting a clandestine affair with Elizabeth, the amount of time he was spending thinking about her.

It had to stop. He took another healthy gulp of wine and asked Fitzwilliam a question about his fellow officers that was guaranteed to keep the conversation safely away from women for the remainder of their meal.

They parted ways with an agreement to meet again soon, and Darcy walked the mile back to Berkeley Square with his stomach pleasantly full and his mind unpleasantly troubled.

‘When it suits you’ . He wished he could dismiss Fitzwilliam’s flippant remark, but it kept swimming back into his head.

It had been much easier to dismiss Elizabeth’s accusation of taciturnity, for he had been certain she was teasing.

That, he surmised, was the root of his uneasiness: the comprehension that she had not been sporting; that was her true opinion of him.

It made him cross. Who could blame a man for being reserved when he was surrounded by the sort of people as had filled the drawing rooms and meeting places of Meryton? They had possessed very little beauty and no fashion, and from none of them had he received either attention or pleasure.

‘Neither are you easily impressed’.

He muttered an instruction for his cousin to stifle it, which was futile, for the words had been said, and the memory of them seemed set to plague him whether he liked it or not.

His butler opened the door to him when he arrived home, informing him that Miss Bingley had called on Georgiana and was presently with her in the saloon.

Darcy handed over his hat and cane. “Thank you, Bellamy. I shall not interrupt them. Would you bring me some coffee in my stud—” His attempt to avoid Miss Bingley was foiled when she appeared in the hall, accompanied by a footman and evidently on her way out.

“Mr Darcy! How good to see you. I have just spent a delightful hour with your charming sister.”

He smiled and bowed, intending to wish her good day, but she was not so easily deterred.

“Have you seen Charles since we last spoke?”

He gritted his teeth. “I am afraid not.”

“Louisa and I had hoped that we had persuaded you to have a word with him.”

“He has not been spending time in any of his usual haunts, but I am sure he will show his face soon. You cannot still be worried he is chasing after Miss Bennet?”

“I should like to say not, but now that I know her mother is in town as well, I should not be surprised to discover there is some scheme afoot to entrap him.”

“Mrs Bennet is in London?”

“Oh yes! She has been since before Christmas, apparently—all but followed us here when we left Netherfield it seems to me. Jane Bennet would have it that she came to nurse a sick friend—if you can believe that of such a thoughtless, hysterical woman.”

A hideous idea formed in Darcy’s mind. “No, frankly, I do not believe it.” Neither could he easily believe that Bingley could be fool enough, blackguard enough, to be dallying with a married woman, yet the timings gave him every reason for suspicion. “I shall speak to him, madam. Depend upon it.”

“Thank you, Mr Darcy. You are very good to us.”

He gave a curt nod and walked away into the house.

She did not need to know he was not doing it for her.

There was a small part of him that hoped to save an old friend from getting himself into dire trouble, yet the chief of his concern was not for any of the Bingleys; he thought only of Elizabeth.

He might not be at liberty to entertain any intentions towards her, but he did feel a real interest in her welfare, and whilst it was in his power to prevent it, Bingley would not be permitted to ruin her family’s reputation.