Page 17

A MOST CONSPICUOUS CUP OF TEA

M rs Randall cursed when Elizabeth marched into her parlour. She was standing on the hearth with the back of her skirt hitched up, warming her buttocks before the flames, and made no move to cease doing so. “You are incorrigible.”

“I am,” Elizabeth replied, striving to sound firm, though her heart was racing at her own impudence, having forced her way uninvited into somebody’s home.

The maid came bustling through the door behind her. “Beggin’ your pardon ma’am! She wouldn’t take no for an answer!”

“’Tis well, Maggie. I am familiar with Miss Bennet’s obstinacy.” Mrs Randall cast a peevish look at Elizabeth. “Although I thought to have seen the last of it.”

“I am sorry, Mrs Randall, but it is imperative that I speak to my mother, and I wished to ensure she was not hiding from me as she was the last time you assured me she was out.”

“Should you like to look under the beds? In the closets? Perhaps an inspection of the attic would convince you she is not here.”

“I am at a loss to know where she is, then, for neither is she at home.”

After her trip to the theatre, Elizabeth had been loath to visit Henrietta Street again lest it rouse anyone’s suspicions and had instead written to her father to ask whether her mother was at Longbourn. This morning, she had received his reply.

It is entirely possible that the woman you saw at Covent Garden on Monday evening was your mother, for wherever she is, it is not here.

In case the Gardiners should hear from your sisters that Mrs Bennet is not at home, I have been obliged to tell the lie that she has become ill herself from tending to Mrs Randall and has gone to Eastbourne with a nurse to recuperate.

It ought to defer any questions for a few weeks.

Beyond that, I cannot be confident of keeping this quiet.

Honouring her father’s wish for secrecy, Elizabeth had waited for her aunt and sister to go out and then come on foot to Mrs Randall’s house, leaving word that she had gone for a walk. The whole deceitful pretence had left her disappointed and angry.

“Am I to assume she has been kidnapped?” she demanded. “Ought I to be worried that she is lying injured in a ditch somewhere betwixt here and Longbourn?”

Mrs Randall dropped her skirts and turned to preen herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece, pinching her cheeks and poking at her hair. “I did not say she was not still my guest. I said she was not here. And neither should you be, for I have a friend arriving at any moment.”

Elizabeth felt herself redden. “Mr Bradshaw?”

Mrs Randall raised an eyebrow at her in the mirror. “You would do well to learn some of your mother’s discretion.”

A slightly hysterical laugh escaped Elizabeth’s lips before she could prevent it, but she did not trouble herself to argue the point. “Pray, tell me where she is, and I shall leave directly.”

“I see that I shall have no peace until I do. Very well. She is meeting a friend at Gunter’s.”

“What friend?”

“I cannot recall. Maggie will see you out.”

Under pressure to go, it occurred to Elizabeth that she had no idea how to get to Gunter’s tea shop and no chaperon to attend her. “About Maggie… I wonder, if you are due to be occupied with a visitor, whether you might be able to spare her for an hour, to show me the way?”

She did not truly expect it to work, but the promise of a hot drink upon arrival was enough to persuade the maid of the scheme, and after that, Mrs Randall’s impatience for Elizabeth to be gone outweighed any desire she might have had to object. The pair set out towards Mayfair.

Elizabeth tried every which way en route to elicit information from Maggie about her mother, but she was either an extraordinary liar, or she had genuinely paid no attention whatsoever to her mistress’s houseguest over the last month, for she had nothing of any interest to report.

Elizabeth gave up when they arrived in Berkeley Square—a handsome area with a park in the centre and some of the finest houses Elizabeth had seen anywhere in London surrounding it.

She had not expected the tea shop to be busy, given the time of year, but there were plenty of people standing about inside and out.

Several more were perched in open carriages on the other side of the road, wrapped in blankets as they enjoyed their treats under the trees—or tried to.

One of the carriages held a party of four, a very young girl among them, who was screaming blue murder to the obvious disapproval of everyone else, her parents unable to settle her.

“Look, Maggie, she has dropped her toy over the side.” Elizabeth hastened across the road and picked it up. “I beg your pardon,” she said, reaching up to hand it back. “I believe the young lady dropped this.”

The girl snatched it from her and stopped crying instantly.

None of the other occupants of the carriage appeared to know what to say, and since the family looked well to do, Elizabeth did not linger lest they think she was after an introduction.

She only gave a quick curtsey and left to rejoin Maggie.

“Thank you!” one of the ladies called belatedly.

Elizabeth sent her a happy smile and a quick wave, but when she turned back to step onto the pavement, she almost collided with somebody.

She recoiled and lost her footing on the edge of the kerb, stumbling back into the road.

In the split second before she knew whose strong grip had taken her by the elbow to steady her, she felt nothing but relief.

The instant she recognised that she had, once again, run into Mr Darcy, all her previous vexation with her mother returned in force.

How any woman could contrive to continually throw her daughters into the path of rich men without even being present was beyond her.

“I beg your pardon, Mr Darcy, I was not looking where I was going.”

“Think nothing of it.” He let go of her elbow and placed both his hands behind his back.

It was the second time he had taken hold of her in such a way.

Both times it had seemed an unconscious action on his part.

She wished she was as unaffected by it as he seemed to be, but on both occasions, she had seemed to feel his direct touch through every layer of clothing, and a lingering sensation there for some time afterwards.

It had been easier to dismiss the first time, but this second incident confirmed the mortifying truth: she liked it.

Embarrassment made her defensive. “This is becoming ridiculous. You seem to be everywhere I go.”

“Likewise, madam. But on this occasion, I think I might be forgiven. I live here. My house is on the other side of the square.”

Elizabeth just about repressed the impulse to groan. “I did not know that.”

“There is no reason you should have.”

Still, he did not go, and with his presence fully accounted for, Elizabeth felt the need to justify her own. “I am waiting for my mother.”

He raised an eyebrow. “It was her at the theatre, then?”

“Yes—at least, I believe so. That is, she is still in London, but I have not had the opportunity to speak to her since that night. But Mrs Randall informs me she is meeting a friend here, so hopefully I shall have the chance now.”

Mr Darcy’s countenance clouded, and Elizabeth regretted admitting as much.

She had been exceedingly grateful for, and not a little surprised by, his gentleness in her moment of distress at the theatre, but of course he would not approve of her mother’s continued perversity.

She wished, though, that if he meant only to disapprove, he would not linger.

Particularly as people had begun to take more of an interest in them.

She cleared her throat and said quietly, “You had better go on your way and allow me to find a table. We are beginning to draw attention.”

Mr Darcy looked, subtly, scarcely moving his head, then closed his eyes briefly, evidently irritated.

Then he abruptly announced that he would help secure her a table.

Caught between affront and astonishment, Elizabeth was too bewildered to refuse, and—after promising to have a cup of chocolate sent out to Maggie—accompanied him inside.

It was a pleasant space, flooded with light from the large windows and filled with the hubbub of congenial chatter and the heavenly aroma of coffee and baked goods.

An attendant scurried over as soon as they entered, fawning over Mr Darcy and directing them to a vacant table.

Elizabeth’s surprise multiplied when, instead of taking his leave, Mr Darcy sat down opposite her.

How wrong she had been to think that he had escorted her back to Henrietta Street out of an overblown sense of decorum, for here he was, sitting down to drink tea with her in as conspicuous a place as she could imagine.

She considered calling for Maggie to join them but decided against it.

If the fastidious Mr Darcy was not afraid, Elizabeth was quite sure she had no need to be.

Indeed, looking around, there were a fair few unchaperoned couples present who may, for all anyone knew, be unmarried.

Although it had to be said that nobody was looking at them —everybody’s eyes seemed directed towards her and Mr Darcy.

“You certainly attract a lot of notice,” she said. “I did not realise when we met in Hertfordshire that you were a figure of such notoriety.”

“I am not. London is just incurably prying.”

They were interrupted briefly when a server arrived with their order, but once they were alone again, she said very quietly, “I was asked about my connexion to you the other day. It seems our brief walk across Leicester Square provoked some interesting theories.”

His displeasure was more marked this time. “People have active imaginations. I would advise you to dismiss whatever you heard.”

“I shall, happily. Though I must say, it would help if you did not keep turning up in all the same places as me.”

“It would, yes.”

He did not expound. Elizabeth wanted to dislike him for it—would have despised him for it a month ago—but there was something strangely forlorn about his attitude that prevented it.

“I shall not be offended if you go,” she said in a low voice. “I never expected you to wait with me.”

A small smile flickered in and out of sight at the corner of his mouth. “I beg your pardon—I meant no offence. Perhaps my ‘notoriety’, as you put it, is somewhat greater than I acknowledged. It can be tiresome.”

He was preposterously handsome. The thought—and the accompanying flurry of nerves it stirred up in her stomach—came upon Elizabeth so unexpectedly, she almost laughed aloud.

Perhaps that was why everyone was staring: Mr Darcy was simply extremely nice to look at.

Fighting to repress a smile, she busied herself pouring a cup of tea.

She poured his, too, and was rewarded with an outrageously attractive smile.

“I take it your engagement to your cousin is not widely known. If it were, people would be in much less of a hurry to pair you off with every other woman you were seen talking to.” She had been carefully placing the teapot back on the table as she said this and looked up to find that Mr Darcy appeared deeply offended.

“I am not engaged to my cousin. Pray, who told you I was?”

For reasons she was not keen to examine, Elizabeth did not wish to admit that it had been Mr Wickham, finding it easier to tell the small white lie that Mr Collins had mentioned it.

“He has heard it from my aunt, then. Both are wrong.”

“I see.” Elizabeth longed to ask him more but had the distinct impression that such an enquiry would not be well received. “Well,” she said instead, “if it happens that we should see each other in public again, we shall pretend we do not know each other.”

“I would not be so ungentlemanly.”

“Oh, I do not know. You refused to speak to me for half an hour straight in Mr Bingley’s library once. I am sure you could manage it again.”

Elizabeth saw immediately that he did not comprehend he was being teased, but before she could clarify, a far greater mortification arrived in the tea shop to overshadow the trifling misunderstanding.