Page 41 of Mr. Darcy’s Forgotten Heir (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)

“Perhaps we might save serious matters for after dinner,” he suggested, noting that the main course was about to be served.

“As you wish,” Elizabeth agreed, though her gaze remained sharp with curiosity. “Though I confess your formality has piqued my interest considerably.”

The roast was excellent, the wine superb, yet Darcy found himself unable to properly appreciate either. His mind circled endlessly around the coming conversation, refining phrases, anticipating reactions, weighing the appropriate amount to offer as compensation.

Georgiana made a valiant effort to maintain conversation, relating news from London that had arrived that morning. Elizabeth responded with genuine interest, asking after Jane and Bingley with a wistfulness that confirmed Darcy’s understanding of her estrangement from her family.

As the dessert course concluded, Darcy signaled for the footman to leave them in privacy. The moment he had planned for had finally arrived.

“Miss Bennet,” he began, his voice more formal than he intended. “I have requested this dinner to address a matter of some delicacy.”

“Indeed?”

“Your care during my illness was beyond what any gentleman could rightfully expect from a lady not of his family,” Darcy continued. “The circumstances, while necessitated by the absence of professional assistance, were nonetheless… compromising.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly, but she made no comment.

“A gentleman cannot allow a lady’s reputation to be endangered through association with him, regardless of her… previous circumstances.” He cleared his throat, uncomfortably aware of how his words might be interpreted. “Propriety demands acknowledgment of such a situation.”

“Propriety,” Elizabeth repeated, her tone unreadable.

“What I mean to say,” Darcy tugged at his cravat, “is that you attended me in my private chambers, at considerable risk to your own reputation, and provided care that… that no lady should be required to give.”

Heat flushed his cheeks as he spoke, the acknowledgment of intimate circumstances causing him profound discomfort. Yet the conversation was necessary, regardless of his personal embarrassment.

“Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said carefully, “if you are concerned about propriety, I can assure you that my reputation could hardly be damaged further by such service. My circumstances, as you have observed, place me beyond the usual social considerations.”

Darcy’s heart twisted at her dignified acceptance of her reduced station, accepting the degradation with a grace he could barely comprehend.

He steeled himself for the central point of his speech. “Nevertheless, I cannot allow your sacrifice to pass without acknowledgment. I believe it appropriate to offer compensation for the potential damage to your reputation that may result from having nursed me in such intimate circumstances.”

Georgiana sounded like she’d choked on a fish bone, but it was Elizabeth’s silence that clanged an alarm bell in his aching head. Those sharp, perceptive eyes of hers had gone completely still, fixed on his face with an intensity that made him inexplicably nervous.

“A settlement,” Darcy clarified, forging ahead with a dreading desperation. “Sufficient to provide security for yourself and your son, with my assurance that no one need know the source of your improved circumstances.”

“I see.” Elizabeth’s voice had developed a dangerous edge. “You wish to pay me. For nursing you through an illness that might have claimed your life.”

Put that way, it sounded considerably less noble than he had intended. “Not payment precisely. Rather, an acknowledgment of the potential social consequences?—”

“Tell me, Mr. Darcy,” she interrupted, her eyes unmistakably flashing with fury, “do you typically offer monetary compensation to everyone who assists you? Or is this special consideration reserved for women you believe to be already fallen from society’s good graces?”

Georgiana made a small, distressed sound. “Fitzwilliam, I don’t think?—”

“Perhaps,” Elizabeth continued, cutting across Georgiana’s attempt at intervention, “you might clarify exactly what service you believe you are compensating me for. Was it holding the basin while you vomited? Changing your sweat-soaked linens? Or perhaps the application of cool compresses to your fevered brow? Which of these duties do you find sufficiently compromising to warrant financial restitution?”

“You misunderstand my intentions,” he said stiffly. “I meant no insult?—”

“No? Then allow me to enlighten you, Mr. Darcy.” Elizabeth’s voice remained level, though her eyes blazed.

“When you offer money to a gentlewoman for services rendered in a sickroom, you place her in the same category as hired help. When you frame such an offer as compensation for damaged reputation, you imply that her virtue is a commodity with monetary value.”

Darcy felt the blood drain from his face as the implications of his offer, seen through her eyes, became horrifyingly clear. “That was not my intention?—”

“Your intentions,” Elizabeth said precisely, “matter considerably less than your actions. And your action, sir, was to offer payment to a woman you believe has already fallen from respectability, as if her additional descent would be mitigated by financial consideration.”

“I would never,” he began, then stopped, realizing that his protestations would only confirm the interpretation she had placed upon his offer.

“Wouldn’t you?” she asked with deadly sweetness. “How refreshing to discover that Mr. Darcy draws some distinctions in his commercial transactions. Though I confess myself curious about where, precisely, those lines are drawn.”

Georgiana suddenly slapped the tabletop. “This is intolerable!” she declared, her usual quiet demeanor entirely absent. “Why don’t we simply tell him the truth instead of allowing this… this farce to continue?”

Both Darcy and Elizabeth turned toward her in surprise, though their reactions differed considerably. Where Darcy felt confusion at his sister’s outburst, Elizabeth appeared to experience something approaching panic.

“Georgiana,” she said quickly, her previous anger instantly replaced by urgent caution, “that is quite unnecessary. Mr. Darcy’s offer, while… unexpected… requires no dramatic revelations.”

“Unnecessary?” Georgiana rose from her chair, her hands clenched at her sides. “When he sits there offering payment to his own?—”

“Stop,” Elizabeth commanded with such authority that Georgiana immediately fell silent. “Please. This is not… the time or place for such discussions.”

Darcy looked between them with growing bewilderment, sensing undercurrents he could not begin to interpret. His sister’s emotional state seemed entirely disproportionate to the situation, while Elizabeth’s swift intervention suggested knowledge of something he did not share.

“Perhaps,” he said carefully, “someone might explain what truth requires such urgent revelation.”

Both ladies exchanged a look of pure communication that excluded him entirely.

“Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said with obvious reluctance, “there are… circumstances… regarding our acquaintance that you may not recall clearly.”

“What circumstances?” he demanded, leaning forward with sudden intensity. “What connection could we possibly have that would make such revelations necessary?”

Elizabeth hesitated, clearly weighing her words with extreme care. When she finally spoke, her voice carried a quality he could not quite identify—sadness, perhaps, or resignation.

“We met previously, at the Red Lion Inn in Barnet. You assisted me when I found myself in difficult circumstances.”

The words struck him like lightning, illuminating fragments of memory that had remained frustratingly elusive. The Red Lion Inn. The name carried associations he could not quite grasp, images that flickered at the edge of consciousness without resolving into clarity.

“I remember… something,” he said slowly. “A coaching inn. Rain. But the details are unclear. ”

“You found me stranded there during the storm.” Elizabeth’s eyes were fixed upon the table rather than his face. “Cast out by my family, with nowhere to go. You intervened when some men approached me inappropriately, and you arranged for my safe passage to London.”

“That is why the rumors began,” he said, understanding dawning. “My assistance to you was misinterpreted by those who witnessed it.”

“Something like that.”

“But if I helped you,” he continued, working through the implications, “if I arranged your transport and ensured your safety, then surely my actions were entirely proper. Whatever gossip may have resulted cannot reflect poorly upon either of us.”

Elizabeth’s expression grew increasingly pained as he spoke, as if his words caused her physical discomfort. Georgiana had resumed her seat but continued to watch the proceedings with an air of barely controlled frustration.

“There is more,” Miss Bennet said finally. “When you were attacked on the road afterward, the innkeeper gathered your personal belongings. I… I kept them safe, hoping to return them when next we met.”

She rose and moved toward a side table where Darcy now noticed a small collection of items had been arranged.

His breath caught as he recognized his traveling writing desk, the elaborate case his father had given him upon his majority.

Beside it lay other personal effects he remembered from his journey—a silk neckcloth, his finest leather gloves, his silver-handled shaving kit.

“My belongings,” he said wonderingly, moving to examine the items. “I thought they had been stolen with everything else.”

“You left them in the room at the inn,” Elizabeth replied, her gaze steady. “When the Honywoods offered me safe passage to London, I brought them with me, intending to return them when the opportunity arose.”

“I am grateful,” Darcy said, “more grateful than I can express, both for your preservation of these items and for your care during my illness. Clearly, the debt between us is far more complex than I had understood.”

“There is no debt.” Her eyes glittered with moisture. “You helped me when I needed assistance, I helped you when you needed care. The account is settled.”

“I am gratified to know that I was able to be of service to you,” Darcy continued, still trying to process this new information. “That I behaved honorably in securing your safety.”

“Oh, you were the very model of a gentleman,” Elizabeth assured him, a strange smile playing about her lips. “Your conduct was beyond reproach.”

Georgiana made a small, choked sound that might have been suppressed laughter or distress. Darcy shot her a confused glance before returning his attention to Elizabeth.

“I hope you understand that I would willingly endure any taint on my reputation that resulted from assisting a lady in distress,” he said earnestly. “Any gentleman would have done the same.”

“Would they?” Elizabeth’s eyebrow arched skeptically. “I wonder. My experience suggests that true gentlemen are rarer than their titles would indicate.”

The quiet dig at his earlier condescension was not lost on Darcy. He inclined his head, acknowledging the hit. “I deserved that.”

“Perhaps,” she allowed, her expression softening slightly. “Though your intentions, however clumsily executed, were not entirely dishonorable.”

An unexpected warmth spread through Darcy’s chest at this small concession. The woman before him possessed a remarkable ability to cut him to the quick with her wit, yet show mercy when a killing blow was within her power.

“I find myself at a distinct disadvantage,” he admitted. “You appear to know considerably more about me than I do about you.”

“The circumstances are unusual,” Elizabeth acknowledged. “But perhaps not irredeemable. ”

Something in her tone—a hint of wistfulness beneath the composure—caught at Darcy’s attention.

There was more here, much more, than a chance encounter at a coaching inn.

The persistent pull he felt toward her, the inexplicable familiarity that haunted his dreams, the strange connection he felt with her child—all suggested a relationship beyond what she had described.

Yet she would not enlighten him further, and his own memory remained frustratingly incomplete.

“I shall endeavor to be worthy of your forbearance,” he said finally. “And perhaps, in time, my memory will provide what your discretion withholds.”

Elizabeth’s smile held a sadness that pierced him unexpectedly. “Perhaps it will.”