Page 12 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

After Elizabeth’s dance with Darcy, she noticed that Caroline was not where she had been sitting earlier.

There was a sharp jab of anxiety in her chest, but then she was approached by Mr. Gould, her next partner, and with a smile Elizabeth put her attention on him.

However she kept half an eye constantly out for her friend.

Over the course of that dance, Elizabeth became increasingly convinced that she was not in the room, and had not been in it for at least half an hour. And that she’d left while Elizabeth was dancing with Mr. Darcy.

Darcy had been…

The simple fact was that Elizabeth had enjoyed dancing with him enormously. He’d been mostly quiet, but the way he looked at her made her feel something… something different from anything else she’d ever felt. And when he did speak everything he said was persistently intelligent, interesting and clever.

His mind really was like that of her father in important ways, and he had an authentic interest in what she said. When he got her to start talking about a book, or her opinions on the character of their neighbors or anything else he listened to her.

Beautiful dark serious eyes.

Caroline had watched them. Elizabeth was sure that Caroline had watched them.

She needed to see Caroline and tell her… Elizabeth was not sure what.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth had already agreed to dance each of the remaining sets until dinner, and so she spent the next hour being swung around and around by one partner after another — each dance left her more anxious, more desperate, and more distracted.

She noticed during the supper dance that Caroline was not there to dance with Colonel Fitzwilliam as they had agreed. That gentleman spent the whole set standing with Mr. Darcy and calmly talking with him.

Soon as the supper bell rang, and they went to the other room that had been filled with tables, Elizabeth approached Charlie who was smiling sweetly at Jane as the two of them eagerly talked. “Charlie, Jane, have you seen Caro?”

Charlie blinked and shrugged. He looked at Jane.

She also shook her head. “I haven’t — hmmmm. Odd of her to not be dancing. Do you think she is well?”

“I am sure she is,” Charlie said. “If Caroline does not wish to be part of the party, she has no need to be.”

Elizabeth bit her lip.

She went to Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Do you know where Miss Bingley was when she’d been meant to dance with you?”

He opened his mouth, with half a grin, and then he sighed and shook his head. “Poor girl. But perhaps she has realized at last the reality — to know generally is superior to laboring under a misapprehension.”

Elizabeth then asked Louisa who had seen Caroline leave the room: She had in fact stood up and hurried from the room during the middle of Elizabeth’s dance with Darcy. And she had not been seen since.

Louisa’s comment was, “My poor sister. She’ll have to settle for a more ordinary gentleman — perhaps you won’t. Mr. Darcy seems enthralled by you.”

Elizabeth went pale. “He has no particular admiration for me.”

“Is that what you plan to tell Caroline?” Louisa clucked her tongue. “You both have always been quite silly together. Maybe you both will believe he has no interest in you until he makes you an offer.”

“He won’t—”

Louisa clucked her tongue again. “I do hope—” A long sigh. “I have seen the closest friendships destroyed over a man. I do hope… you two have always been like sisters. You certainly were closer to Lina than I ever was.”

“Of course we will remain friends! What sort of nonsense are you speaking.”

Louisa patted Elizabeth’s shoulder.

With an angry huff Elizabeth turned away.

It was hot.

So, so, so hot.

She couldn’t stand so much heat.

Why did so many people have to make everything so hot? Why did there even have to be so many people?

Everyone in the neighborhood talked about how there were so many families who dined with each other, and how this was such an excellent neighborhood and how the assembly hall was one of the best in the nation.

Lord!

Why did there have to be so many people?

Elizabeth felt as though a pressure emanated from everyone around her, as though they were aware of her, judged her, and thought about her.

She needed to get out.

Out.

With quick steps Elizabeth went to the door to one of the balconies.

The first two she glanced at were occupied, but the third balcony she found was empty. She grabbed a blanket that had been put there by the servants due to the cold of the night and wrapped it around herself as a shawl and stepped out into the chilled night air.

Her breath gusted around her in clouds of steam.

Elizabeth pressed her cold hands against the grainy granite of the balcony railing. She panted and glared at the garden beneath her. She was all awhirl.

It took several minutes before she properly calmed down, and the swirling in her thoughts stopped.

The moon slowly moved.

Calm. Peace.

The night was beautiful. That moon was big, nearly full. The stars peppered the sky, like diamonds on black velvet. The cold air had that barely perceptible smell of decaying leaves and dying autumn. Elizabeth spread her arms wide, and the shivery wind blew through her.

The air whistled.

From the hall there was the faint sound of the music starting again. Elizabeth glanced into the room. The quartet stood on the dais, led by the brilliant harelipped violinist, and Louisa performed on the piano.

The music, the candles, the scene of so many dozens of people going about happily, the murmur of their conversation with each other.

Elizabeth was stabbed with a sense of the beauty of the world, and her isolation from everything at this moment.

The sublime.

Elizabeth glanced upwards.

A candle burned in the window of Caroline’s room.

Elizabeth folded her hands together underneath the blanket she’d wrapped around her and leaned back against the balcony. She would go up to knock on Caroline’s door, and if her friend let her in she would… well, stay with her.

But for a little longer she wanted to just experience the peacefulness of the universe, of the outside, and of this awareness of the people and warmth inside, and the clear coldness here.

The balcony door opened, and at first Elizabeth grimaced in annoyance at having her peaceful moment interrupted.

But then she perceived that it was Mr. Darcy.

He glowed in the moonlight. There were deep shadows of his eyes, and a pale glow on his skin.

He looked at her and swallowed.

For a long moment Darcy seemed to be unable to move, staring at her.

Elizabeth wondered what she looked like to him, wrapped in a blanket, lit by the candles from inside and the moon from high above.

The wind blew around them. Darcy stretched out his hand and softly brushed it over her cheek. “Elizabeth.”

Her heart pounded.

He swallowed again. He studied her.

She felt a shudder go through her body, and her stomach felt like it had fallen off the roof of a building and was hurtling towards the ground.

“Dearest Elizabeth.” And suddenly his hesitance was gone. “Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth, you must permit me to tell you how I admire and love you. How I have determined to offer you my hand, my heart, and my position in life.”

She did not know what to say as he continued.

“Every time we speak, I feel something in my chest, something that pulls towards you. I did not mean to marry at present. Not for some time. But it would be impossible for me to travel away from this county without first begging you to make me the happiest of men. When we converse you make me think. When I watch you move, and talk, and simply exist, I feel something significant, filled with meaning, and powerful. It is more than anything else that I have ever experienced. You show kindness, loyalty, and cleverness. You are more desirable, more worthy, and more perfect than any other lady of my acquaintance. It is impossible for me to not love you. Please, Elizabeth, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth, I beg you, end my uncertainty, and say that you will marry me.”

Elizabeth felt numb and distant, as though it was someone else speaking, and as though the cold wind had frozen her all the way through to her soul. “I cannot. Forgive me, but I cannot marry you.”

He stared at her.

The smile on his face slowly faded away.

Elizabeth shivered violently in the cold breeze. Seeing that Darcy compulsively began to take off his coat, to offer it to her.

Elizabeth put out her hands on his arms to stop him. “No, no.”

He gritted his teeth.

Swallowed.

Darcy turned as though he were about to leave the balcony, and Elizabeth ached to see him go. But he turned back. “So is that all the response I am to expect? That you cannot marry me. Might I enquire upon the causes of such a summary dismissal.”

Elizabeth felt terribly sad.

He stepped around in tiny circles on the balcony, his jaw tight, apparently unable to speak further.

“I do not mean to hurt you,” Elizabeth said desperately.

There was a real passion, a real feeling in his behavior.

“I truly do not wish to cause any pain to anyone,” Elizabeth added. “I do not. I beg you to understand that—”

“I am not in pain,” he bit out, each word sounding like the snapping jaws of a bear trap.

She grabbed his warm hands with her freezing ones. “I truly… did not know. Know that you felt so… do not… Please, do not be so unhappy.”

His dark eyes poured into her like the moonbeams. “Elizabeth. Loveliest. Dearest. Elizabeth. I love you. Please… I beg you. I beg you — tell me there is a hope.”

A simple fact: He would not marry Caroline no matter what she said.

Elizabeth tasted the look in his eyes, sweet like syrup, and warm and rich like spiced chocolate.

Another simple fact: If she accepted Mr. Darcy’s offer, Caroline would never forgive her.

“I cannot, my concern for the feelings of another makes it impossible.”

He pulled back from her his jaw twitched. Then he growled, “My cousin. Well might I have guessed that he would win the affection of the only lady I have ever loved… to see my hopes of happiness ruined, even though it means the happiness of a cousin who I love is a hard—”

“It is not a matter of—”

“Has he asked you to marry him yet? You know he must marry well — if you did not have such a great dowry, he’d show no interest in your heart.”

Something of Elizabeth’s sympathy for him was replaced by anger. She clenched her jaw, and withdrew towards the door, and said, “Mr. Darcy, you overstep yourself.”

He stared at her and then he slumped into himself, as though the substance that usually made him reserved and full of pride had dissolved.

“Oh, useless. Useless.” Darcy pressed both hands against his face. “All of it is useless. You make me act wholly other than my usual habits. I am generally a most calm man.”

He was wiping away tears.

Tears pricked her eyes as well. “I do not believe — I wish… Mr. Darcy. But it is impossible for me to marry you.”

He looked at her longingly.

A deep breath. Another breath. Then another deep breath.

He wiped his hand over his eyes.

It was a kick in her gut to see his unhappiness and longing. She had a want that shocked her. She wanted to desperately wrap her arms around his waist and grip him with all her strength till he ceased to cry.

Her hand rose to reach towards his face.

“I truly, truly, truly wish… wish I could have given you the answer to make you happy,” Elizabeth said. “But… oh — Heavens! At such a time, nothing I might say will make it better. But you are a worthy gentleman, I believe that — oh, if only everything were different. Not so tangled!”

He made one of those stiff regal inclines of his head that would not have been out of place in the manners of a king.

“Then…” Darcy’s voice cracked. “Then God and the greatest of happiness go with you, Miss Elizabeth.”