Page 23 of London Holiday (Sweet Escapes Collection #2)

Chapter twenty-three

“ T hat went rather badly,” Elizabeth confessed as they hurried away from the supper boxes. She glanced back, only once, and saw to her relief that good Mrs Jennings had already turned her attention to a very small roast chicken which was closer in size to a pigeon.

“It could not be helped,” he answered in a strained voice. “It appeared to be a perfectly agreeable situation. I had no notion that I might be recognised by one not already known to me.”

Elizabeth kept silent as they walked a little farther. His admission was as good as a proclamation, that he was indeed fabulously wealthy and considered a fine catch by many. To speak now of what he had tacitly confessed seemed to her to drip of manipulative intent, a desire to work upon her strange intimacy with him and his delicate position to salvage her own situation. Her mother would have commended it, and even her father would have merely laughed at her good luck. She glanced up at his face, and her heart stirred with conviction. No, even should she wish it—and she could no longer say that she did not—she would not do unto him as others had done. He deserved better.

“Miss Elizabeth, you have grown strangely quiet. Are you distressed?”

“Not at all,” she forced a bit of cheer. “I was only thinking what a useful woman Mrs Jennings is.”

His cheek seemed to darken, and she heard him catch his breath. “Indeed? ”

“Why, of course. She clearly enjoys making herself useful, and she has such a pleasant way of going about it that none could be offended by her ordering of their affairs. Do you not know of others who enjoy giving themselves some purpose, to the point of becoming more of a burden than a help to the beneficiaries of their goodwill?”

“My aunt,” he retorted. “Although I believe Mrs Jennings might have sought the benefit of your interests as much as her own gratification. I cannot say that for my relation.”

“I believe she did,” Elizabeth lightly directed him back to the less serious matter of Mrs Jennings and her follies. “And perhaps I would be wise to accept her advice. You can see how well-matched the lady’s daughter and her husband are, which cannot help but proclaim all the evidence that is necessary of Mrs Jennings’ abilities.”

He stopped walking and was staring at her in astonishment. “You cannot be serious. I never saw a more mismatched couple in all my acquaintance than Mr and Mrs Palmer.”

“Why so, sir? One has all the gaiety, and the other has all the seriousness. Perhaps the scales are weighted evenly.”

He narrowed his eyes, tipping his head slightly as he tried to determine if she were in earnest. “Mrs Palmer is, I grant you, a kindly and sincere enough woman, but you could not wish such a silly-natured wife on a man of intellect.”

“What makes you believe he is such? Reading the paper and avoiding conversation does not indicate that the person is intelligent, nor even particularly dignified.”

“He refused to engage in a conversation which could only be termed as degrading.”

“Do you think that was out of an offended sense of decorum or, rather, a prideful inattentiveness? Do you not rather think he wished to impress us with his disdain? ”

“I think perhaps he wished to impress his wife, but she is insensible to correction and wilfully ignorant of her husband’s preferences.”

“You claim that his pride is under good regulation?”

He glanced away, seemed to contemplate the trees rather seriously, and made a careful reply. “I think it possible in theory, but perhaps his has been carried to extremes. He is more likely to give offence and make himself look the pretentious buffoon than to improve the mind of his wife.” He turned slowly back to her. “I do not condemn another man, Miss Elizabeth. Indeed, I speak without any malice whatsoever, for I can easily imagine the circumstances which could drive a man to behave so.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips in thought and began to walk on. “You do not consider his character flawed?”

“We are each of us flawed, Miss Elizabeth. It is how we prune our flaws, as well as cultivate our strengths, which determines our character. I would imagine Mr Palmer was never truly amiable, but had he chosen his bride differently, he might have become a tolerably civil sort of man.”

“Or,” she mused, “perhaps he is already matched to just the right sort of woman, but he will not trouble himself to mend his approach to her. My parents are not dissimilar, though rather than rudely dismissing my mother, my father makes a jest of her in the presence of her daughters. He is a clever sort of man who wants gaiety and liveliness to make him a perfectly agreeable companion. My mother’s mind might have been improved, and her energies given proper direction, had either of them in their youth attended to what was fitting between man and wife.”

He was looking at her strangely as they walked, his brow knit, and his mouth open as if to speak, but he said nothing. The idea appeared so shockingly novel to him that he was at a loss.

“Forgive my ramblings,” she apologised. “You can have no interest in my family’s affairs. ”

“You mistake me, Miss Elizabeth. Your insights are most profound, and something I had never considered. I shall take them to heart, for one day, of course, I must bind myself to a wife, and I may or may not have the choosing of her.”

“I hope that you will not find yourself in an impossible situation of that kind. My words were meant merely as an expression of my own thoughts, for I hope to learn from the example and to avoid such disharmony if I may.”

They walked on without another word for a few moments, giving only half their attention to the opening strains of music floating from the orchestra. They could no longer speak of such things without impropriety, no matter the strength of their mutual curiosity regarding the other’s opinions. Yet they could speak of nothing else either, for the issue seemed too pertinent to the fortunes of both, too intimate for casual discussion elsewhere, and too serious for immediate dismissal to easily shift to another subject without giving it due introspection. It was the sight of Mr Simpson once again, bowing and welcoming more guests to the Grove which at last inspired a smile from Elizabeth.

“He reminds me of a slightly less offensive version of Mr Collins,” she realised with a laugh.

William looked in that direction as well. “My aunt would approve of him.”

They continued their leisurely stroll in no direction at all, but any watching them might have paused curiously when noting a tall footman laughing gaily with his lady employer over some private joke, and how frequently she touched his arm as they walked.

He was in the midst of it before he knew he had begun.

Somehow, this tradesman’s niece had burrowed into the very tissues of his heart and nestled herself there. The thing was done quite without intent, and certainly without the knowledge of the lady in question, for she continued as lightly and disinterestedly as before… except that she seemed to have become rather comfortable in his presence.

So much more comfortable was she, in fact, that as the light grew longer and the crowds thickened, she made no objection to walking in rather near proximity to him. Why, she could only have been closer had their arms been entwined, a prospect which had lost all its horror for him. And when she turned to smile at him, or— heaven help him —laugh obligingly at some wry comment made in a pitiful attempt at a jest, he felt a nearly irrepressible desire to provoke another such response. Thus, within a quarter hour he had begun to feel himself rather witty, and indeed most of his friends would never have thought him capable of such a barrage of clever remarks or amusing anecdotes. In all likelihood, they would have been correct—he was not capable, not on his own. She had inspired him, and he drank in that fortifying elixir with near-manic devotion.

He was addicted to a woman he had only just met.

It was a craving of which he must deprive himself in short order. This he knew, but he was no more inclined to pull back from her now than he was to return home and wed the socially acceptable bride who awaited him.

One day! Surely, Fate could grant him one day of pleasure in a woman’s company. One day which might salve the whole remainder of his life, for even if Anne were not forced upon him, the remaining prospects were dull and tarnished by comparison. Could Elizabeth be correct in her supposition that he himself held the power to make his future companion more agreeable? And if it were possible, could he imbibe enough of her to infuse that sparkling life into another?

She accidentally brushed his arm again, all innocent laughter at one of his boyhood exploits with Richard, and a sort of fire jolted through him. Awareness burned with the same sharp pain as the snow on his bare twelve-year-old feet from his story—a tale he had never even told Georgiana because he had considered it too compromising to his dignity. In that instant, he knew.

She was wrong.

Nothing within his power could ever make any other woman a suitable partner for him, regardless of her pedigree. He could guide, he could coax, he could speak gently and exert himself to approximate some degree of interest in whatever peculiarities such a woman might possess… but he could not make her become Elizabeth Bennet.

“Your cousin is indeed an accommodating fellow!” she was declaring. “I am surprised he submitted to your dare and attempted the distance in nought but your nightwear. And in the snow! I can well imagine it was a memorable holiday from school that winter. Who won the race?”

“He won the footrace to the stables, for he was older, and his legs were longer. Once we had secured our mounts, I overtook him and was the first round the appointed tree and back to the house. Richard was certain we were both to die of pneumonia, so cold were we, but it was nothing an hour by the fire and a cup of chocolate could not mend. My father probably learned of the prank, but never did he speak a word of reprimand.”

“A wise parent. And did you soon after put such antics behind you, forever to become the grave and steady young master?”

He felt his expression cool, the unaccustomed smile twisting to a lifeless grimace. “I am afraid so. Only a few months later, my mother died giving birth to my sister.”

How long ago that had been! So many years of mastery and resolve—over half of his life had passed since that hideous day that had robbed him of feminine care and thrust him into manhood before his time. It was a matter of course, nothing to cause sorrow after over fifteen years, but this recounting was different, somehow. Without knowing quite why, he found his eyes fastened unseeingly on the festive lights dazzling the great fountain, for fear that if he moved them elsewhere, he would find them unaccountably moist .

“William?” She placed her hand full on his forearm, squeezing gently as only a friend might, and she turned him slightly to face her.

He blinked, and indeed his eyes had misted peculiarly. Why now? Why should one triggered memory of his mother’s last day suddenly evoke such feeling? He struggled for a tight breath and smiled. “It is nothing, Miss Elizabeth,” he reassured her huskily.

“There is no need to conceal your feelings. You are grieved, and rightly so. She must have been very dear to you.”

He choked on a short laugh, then sniffed back the sentiment. “What mother of grace and beauty is not the object of her young son’s worship?”

She did not answer in words, but there was a sympathy around her eyes, a sort of tightness working in her creamy throat, which spoke eloquently enough of how deeply she was affected. She held his gaze a moment longer, enough for the shared feeling to settle round both their hearts, then dropped her gaze respectfully to the gravel. “I suppose,” she idly brushed at a rock with her slipper, “that we ought to begin considering our return to my uncle’s house.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed reluctantly. He did not like to think of that… a return to Cheapside meant an acknowledgement of the gulf between her station and his, a reversion to the impossible troubles which plagued him, and a renewal of whatever difficulties she faced in her own life. “If we take the Grand Walk back, it is shorter,” he offered, “but if you can tolerate a few more steps, we can walk back through the arches.”

“Or we could look inside the pavilion. Perhaps the doors are opened by now?”

He submitted to this indulgence with no complaints of his own. A few minutes more could do no harm, surely. The parasol was no longer needed in this less brilliant light, so he slung its handle over his arm and gestured for her to “lead” the way, a mannerism which earned another of her bewitching smiles .

It was not so bad walking slightly behind her, and he happily satisfied himself with looking on her form as she walked. She was no conventional Grecian beauty, but those curves… no man would regret her figure once he knew more of it. There was none now to protest his admiration of her, so his pleasant inventory of her many assets continued undisturbed as they walked. So contented was he in this pursuit that he was quite startled when she halted without warning.

“Miss Elizabeth?”

She was looking straight ahead. “William… that man there is wearing the same livery as you. I do not normally care to notice such things, but yours is… rather distinctive.”

“What?” His gaze followed in the direction she indicated, and his whole being recoiled in horror. His jaw clenched, he felt his nostrils distend, and his fists curled. “He is one of mine.”

She looked to him swiftly. “The messenger sent by your Mr Wilson?”

“No. That particular footman is not among those I would trust. Wilson would have sent someone from the stables, or possibly the kitchens, if anyone.”

She was beginning to shrink back, closer to his shoulder. “We should walk the other way.”

He nodded vaguely. “Indeed, you are correct. Come quickly!” He captured her hand, heedless now of appearances, and spun her in the other direction before his own hired man could recognise him. “There is nothing distinctive about the back of my livery,” he assured her. “So long as we see no others before us.”

This proved a vain hope, for halfway up the centre walk loitered two others in the same attire. They were glancing casually about, but Darcy was sure that one of them, at least, had appraised Miss Elizabeth’s person as they approached. “Left!” he hissed into her ear.

She turned, but not sharply, as he would have done. Rather, she feigned interest in some of the flowers and casually drifted in that direction, placing her body strategically before his own so that the pattern of gold braid so distinctive to the Darcy livery would be hidden from them. The footmen did not seem to think anything conspicuous in her manner, for their eyes did not follow. He could not help a surge of pride in her and congratulated himself on having secured a clever ally in his plight.

“Where shall we go?” she whispered under her breath. “We’ve no way of knowing if there are more, nor how to evade them. What do they want?”

“Likely my aunt has sent them to search me out, which is unfortunate, for it means that my correspondence with Wilson has been discovered.”

Her look of alarm was not unfelt, and he flushed with guilt. “I am sorry, Miss Elizabeth.”

She drew a fortifying breath and stopped, after a short glance around to be certain that they were safe from witnesses. “Am I compromised as well?”

He set his teeth. “Not if I can help it. But we must be cautious, for my aunt would not scruple to destroy your credibility if she thought it might achieve her ends.”

“Then we must leave here at once!”

“It may not be so simple. I have… a number of footmen in my employ, and my uncle will have still more. I cannot think that his help has not been demanded as well. We are in the depths of the Gardens and must navigate a maze of watchful men to find our way out. I wish I had a way of knowing where they were all positioned.”

“Men move. They will be walking, will they not?”

“I doubt it. I believe they will each seek a strategic vantage to watch so that all the known routes will be covered. What we need is some way of seeing them before they see us.”

She frowned and looked about as he did the same. Short of climbing a tree—he started when she seized his forearm. “William!” She extended her arm, and his gaze followed where she pointed. “Have you ever been up in an air balloon?”