Page 16

THE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE FALL INTO PLACE

Mr Darcy,

Your efforts to locate my brother are deeply appreciated.

My sister and I share your frustration that he continues to be evasive, and we can only apologise that so much of your time has been wasted.

I beg leave to prevail upon your assistance once more, however, for this evening, Charles has again sent his excuses for dinner, only this time with a more concrete excuse: he says he has received a last-minute invitation to the Theatre Royal.

If this pretext should prove more credible than his others, it might present an opportunity for you to engage him at last.

Mr Hurst, Caroline, and I remain your most grateful friends,

Mrs L Hurst

D arcy would happily have left Bingley to lie in the bed he had made for himself, and all his relations to worry at his bedside.

None of them were presently inspiring much sympathy from him.

For Elizabeth’s sake alone, he replied to Mrs Hurst’s note that he would attend the theatre and keep an eye out for her brother.

He invited his cousin Fitzwilliam to join him, and Fitzwilliam invited their mutual friends Hague and Wallace.

“This is a merry party,” Wallace declared when they met in the lobby. “You got me out of a dreadful evening with my mother’s cousins. And how are you, Darcy? I’ve not seen you since the end of last Season.”

“Oh, on dit , Darcy is doing exceptionally well,” Hague said.

Darcy replied that he was in good health, but he was only partially attending to the conversation, for he was occupied surveying the crowd for Bingley.

Fitzwilliam looked at his fob watch. “We have missed the first performance.”

“I do not think that is any great loss,” Wallace replied. “I have heard it is nothing to write home about.”

“Are you looking for someone?” Hague asked Darcy.

“I am, but—” He stopped talking. He had to, for his breath had caught in his throat upon espying Elizabeth in the crowd.

His recent teasing about a supposed attachment sprang instantly to mind, but the consternation of encountering her again publicly was instantly eclipsed by admiration.

She looked positively resplendent in full opera dress, and as artlessly lively as ever, laughing with her companions and peering around the lobby with open delight.

“Who is that?” Fitzwilliam asked, following Darcy’s gaze.

Reasoning that his cousin had not been at Newton’s table to hear him blurt Elizabeth’s name and therefore would have no reason to link her to the vague rumour he had mentioned almost a fortnight ago, Darcy did not equivocate.

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Her family were Bingley’s nearest neighbours in Hertfordshire. ”

“Oh, that is Miss Elizabeth Bennet, is it?” Hague asked, undercutting all Darcy’s confidence in a trice. “I say, Darcy, what ho! It all begins to make sense now.”

“What makes sense? What is he talking about?” Fitzwilliam asked.

“I presume,” Darcy said in as disinterested a tone as he could muster, “he is referring to the rumour that she and I are secretly entangled.”

His cousin whipped his head round to look at Elizabeth with renewed interest. “Are you?”

“No.”

“Then you will not mind introducing me to her.” He set off directly towards Elizabeth’s party.

Wallace and Hague wasted no time in following him, leaving Darcy with little choice but to go after them.

He could not be too vexed with Fitzwilliam; it was doubtful he could have stayed away for long in any case, for the opportunity to speak to Elizabeth was invariably irresistible.

When she smiled at the sight of him, he forgave his cousin entirely.

Only when Jane Bennet turned around and coloured deeply upon seeing him did he recall the complexity of the situation.

When Elizabeth introduced her aunt and uncle, he felt a real twinge of alarm.

These were her relations in trade—and Mr Gardiner was brother to the woman Darcy had last seen mid-tryst. He did his best to remain poised as he shook the man’s hand.

“I hear you come from Hertfordshire,” Fitzwilliam said.

“Jane and I do,” Elizabeth replied. “My aunt and uncle live in London.”

Elizabeth’s uncle began explaining where to Hague and Wallace, and Fitzwilliam pressed Jane Bennet about the precise location of Longbourn.

Darcy stopped listening to any of them, for over Mrs Gardiner’s shoulder, he had caught sight of Mrs Bennet, hurrying with purpose towards a passage at the far side of the lobby.

That she was here, yet apparently not in the same party as her relations, rang instant warning bells in his mind, but he had not the opportunity to enquire about her presence, for he was not the only one who had seen her.

“Would you excuse me, just for one moment,” Elizabeth said to her aunt. “I think I saw someone I know.” Without waiting for a response, she left in the direction her mother had gone.

“Lizzy—wait!” Mrs Gardiner spun about, evidently meaning to go after her—as was quite proper, but Darcy could not allow it.

Elizabeth had clearly not expected to see her mother, which meant that Mrs Bennet had attended with someone else.

The prospect of that someone being Bingley, and Elizabeth or her aunt discovering them together as Darcy had done at Netherfield, was enough to prompt him into action.

“Allow me, madam.” He walked away before Mrs Gardiner could voice any objection.

He caught up with Elizabeth in the passage.

It was dimly lit and cold, with numerous archways leading off to the underbelly of the theatre along its length, which curved around into darkness at the far end.

Her steps slowed as she peered into each aperture she passed, until at length, she stopped altogether and let out a quiet sigh.

The place was empty; her mother was nowhere to be seen.

“Miss Elizabeth?”

She gasped and spun around, one hand to her chest. “Mr Darcy! You frightened the life out of me!”

“Forgive me. Your aunt was concerned that you left unaccompanied. I take it you did not find your…friend.”

Elizabeth gave a sardonic, lopsided smile and shook her head. “You need not prevaricate on my account, sir. I know you saw my mother too.”

He inclined his head in acknowledgement. “She is not here with your party?”

She sighed again, this time with discernible worry. “She told us she was going home.”

Darcy closed the distance between them, itching to comfort her but unable to offer anything other than nearness and a gentle tone as he suggested, “Might there have been a misunderstanding? If she was expected at Longbourn, the alarm would surely have been raised when she did not arrive.”

“She planned to travel on Saturday, but it was a last-minute arrangement, and I do not know that she sent word ahead. I certainly did not. They may not have known to expect her.”

“Perhaps she decided to delay her departure by a few days.”

“Perhaps. She has been so erratic of late I would not be at all surprised. I have spent most of my time in London thus far chasing after her, for she is rarely where I expect her to be.”

Their continually happening upon each other made sense at last: Elizabeth had been looking for her mother, and he had been searching for Bingley—both of whom were obviously frequenting the same places. Together. Darcy gritted his teeth in annoyance.

Elizabeth apparently mistook his irritation as meant for her and gave a little huff of unhappy laughter.

“You will have to excuse me for admitting as much—you have caught me off guard. But really, you are the perfect audience for my complaints, for I do not believe anything I say could make you think less of my mother than you already do.”

“I shall not pretend to approve of behaviour that causes this much anguish. But perhaps we were both mistaken. It may not have been your mother—only someone who looked like her.”

Elizabeth regarded him with a small, grateful smile that was nevertheless entirely dubious. “You are kind to try and reassure me. I wonder whether you would also be kind enough to say nothing of this to my aunt and uncle. I would not worry them unnecessarily.”

Darcy was glad he sounded reasonable as he assured her that he would mention it to nobody, because privately, he was absolutely crowing at the prospect of being in Elizabeth’s confidence.

At that moment, with her standing before him in a gown that could bring grown men to their knees and with her beautiful dark eyes beseeching him, he would probably have agreed to anything she asked.

The flicker of confusion on her countenance recollected him to himself. “We ought to return if we do not wish to miss the start of the next performance.” He half turned and waited for her to fall into step beside him, preposterously gratified when she did so without hesitation this time.

“I rather wish we had missed the first—it was awful! We only came tonight because my mother’s friend Mrs Randall was in it.”

“The same Mrs Randall who abandoned you in the entrance of Grenier’s Hotel?”

“The very one.”

“I hope she is a better actress than she is a friend.”

They reached the lobby and were obliged to walk closer together to avoid being separated completely in the crush.

Elizabeth did not seem to mind, continuing to smile as she replied, “I honestly could not say, because for the life of us, we could not make out which part she was playing. The costumes were all so outlandish and the voices all so strident.”

“I see your problem—she could have been any of them.”

Darcy felt rather ungentlemanly for saying so, but the reward of Elizabeth’s laughter went a long way towards assuaging his guilt.

“There you are, Lizzy!”

Darcy tore his gaze away from Elizabeth’s twinkling eyes to the gathered faces of their respective parties.

Her relations were looking at her in confusion.

Hague, Wallace, and Fitzwilliam were regarding him with undisguised amusement.

The latter raised an eyebrow in question.

Darcy looked away, though the silent challenge did prompt him, belatedly, to acknowledge the imprudence of chasing Elizabeth into a darkened passage without a chaperon.

This would do nothing to quash the blasted rumours.

“Who did you think you saw?” Mrs Gardiner asked her niece.

Elizabeth hesitated.

“Mrs Randall,” Darcy supplied. He disliked lying as a rule, but then, anything that made her look at him as she did then, all gratitude and conspiratorial smiles, was tolerable to his mind.

“I thought she might be able to confirm which part was hers,” Elizabeth added. “But if it was her, I lost her in the passage.”

“We had better get to your box, Darcy,” Fitzwilliam announced. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Bennet, Mr Gardiner, Mrs Gardiner.” He turned to Elizabeth and said with irritating emphasis, “Miss Elizabeth.”

Darcy joined him in wishing them good evening, not missing how Jane Bennet was scarcely able to meet his eye.

It made him reflect, as he walked with the others up the stairs, that Elizabeth had ceased asking him about Bingley.

Perhaps his warning had been heeded after all.

He could not be sorry for it, even if it had earnt him her sister’s enmity.

“Well, that was about as delicate as a bull in a ballroom,” Fitzwilliam said beside him.

Darcy pressed his lips together in annoyance. “I could hardly refuse to acknowledge her after you forced the introduction.”

“True, but neither did you have to whisk her off for a private audience in front of half the ton .”

“It was unfortunate timing.” His cousin only laughed, and Darcy said in a harsh whisper, “Pray, do not encourage these rumours if you hear them abroad. Miss Elizabeth is as delightful a creature as I ever met, but her family is repugnant.”

“They seemed decent enough to me. And it was I who was left to talk to them while you ran off to make love to Miss Elizabeth in a shadowy corner!”

“A talent for making pleasant conversation with strangers does not change the fact that he owns a warehouse.”

“Oh, untwist your bollocks, man. It will blow over.”

“And faster without you fanning the flames.”

Fitzwilliam held up both hands in a show of acquiescence. They had reached the door to Darcy’s box, and they waited for Hague and Wallace to go in ahead of them. Darcy gestured for his cousin to follow next, but Fitzwilliam hesitated.

“You know, if you truly want to convince people that you are not enamoured with her, you might consider not staring at her quite so voraciously.”

“I was not staring at her at all.”

“Had you stared any harder, her uncle would have been obliged to call you out.”

Darcy said nothing, instead striding past Fitzwilliam into the box and taking his seat.

He gave up searching the auditorium for Bingley when he heard Hague whisper to Wallace that he thought he must be looking for Elizabeth.

After that, he kept his gaze fixed on the stage and left at the end of the night without another glimpse of Elizabeth, her mother, or Charles bloody Bingley.