Page 22 of Reckless, Headstrong Girl (Pride and Prejudice Variations #5)

MERYTON

A t two in the morning, Darcy’s coach, with lanterns carried on long poles by the outriders to dimly light the road, rolled slowly through the sleeping village of Meryton and turned towards Longbourn.

His plan to rouse the Bennets with wonderful news struck Darcy as a poor one when he saw the house in darkness.

Mrs Bennet was ill, and everyone inside was in a constant state of anxious dread.

A sudden banging on their door in the night would instantly convince the family that they were about to hear something awful.

He called out to his coachman to proceed to Netherfield. Charles Bingley’s nerves could stand the shock of his unexpected arrival, and Darcy’s news could wait a few hours more.

Bingley stood on the landing of Netherfield’s impressive staircase in his dressing gown, looking like a startled young owl framed in candlelight. “Darcy?”

A sleepy young footman took his outerwear, and once he had stepped out of earshot, Darcy looked up and said, “Charles, forgive me for bursting in on you. We have found Lydia Bennet, and she is well.”

“Oh, thank God, Darcy. Come to my study, will you? Mrs Nicholls will make up a room for you.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Forgive me for such an inconvenient arrival,” Darcy said to the housekeeper who had just rushed up from below stairs covered in a shawl.

“Should I send up a tray, sir?”

“No, thank you. I do not need anything but a bed, Charles. I have had a very long day, as have my driver and his boys.”

“Mrs Nicholls will see to them after they have put up your horses. But you will want a brandy at least?”

Fearing he would not wake early if he drank much brandy, Darcy took a glass of claret instead, and gave Bingley an annotated version of Lydia Bennet’s retrieval. He then went up to bed and fell into a jangled heap. Thankfully, he slept.

Bingley’s man woke him at seven in the morning, and by eight o’clock, Darcy was hacking down Netherfield’s drive on a borrowed gelding.

Charles had the delicacy not to wedge himself into Darcy’s triumphant announcement.

He would ride over in an hour, he said, and hoped he would be welcome to share in everyone’s relief after their initial shock had worn off .

Darcy tried to plan what he would say to the Bennets, but he was still too tired to think, and so he put his mind where it always went when off the leash—on Elizabeth.

His thoughts, it seemed, must have conjured her in the form he could see down the road.

He blinked to clear his vision, but no! He had not imagined Elizabeth.

She was out walking down the lane from Longbourn!

His heart roared around in his chest as he stepped to the road and led his horse forwards to meet her.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he said with the blinding smile of an idiot. Unthinking he took her hands and kissed them, and then he kissed her cheek and beheld her face in wonder.

“Mr Darcy?”

“We have found your sister. She is well?—”

“Lydia? You have found Lydia?” she gasped, gripping his hands.

“She is at this moment with Mr and Mrs Gardiner.”

Tears filled her beautiful eyes. “Is she hurt?”

“She is well.”

“But—where was she?! Oh, but I have no right to hear anything before everyone else, Mr Darcy. As it is, you shall have to tell us what happened at least ten times in an hour. I can hardly believe it!”

“Nor can I. How should I tell them do you think? I am a little muddled just now.”

“You look very tired. I cannot imagine the trouble you have endured for us—a trouble, I will add, for which it is impossible to thank you! ”

“You will please me by not speaking of obligation, Elizabeth.” He paused, conscious he was blurting out her given name as if he had a right to.

“But I am obliged to you, Mr Darcy. Very obliged, dazzled even, and—” She turned up her face and graced him with a look of wonder before she blushed, and said, “In truth, I am filled with such admiration for you.”

“Admiration? You should know better than to encourage me with talk of admiration. I may begin to speak to you, to ask you things, without any assurance that my words—my questions—would be welcome.” What a pitiful speech!

And to hint at such a subject like a cowering dog!

Where had his dignity gone, he wondered, as he clamped his jaw closed.

“Mr Darcy,” she said, her chest rising and falling with quick little breaths. “There is nothing you could say to me that would be unwelcome, no question you could ask me just now to which I would not say yes.”

The world stilled. His mind stilled. He was aware of his breath and the beating of his heart. He stepped forward, putting his hand on her cheek, instantly certain of what to say to her for once.

“Will it rain today, Elizabeth?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Might I sit down to breakfast with your family?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek into his palm.

“And will you marry the last man in the world? ”

“Oh yes,” she breathed almost sorrowfully. “How stupid I have been not to know how good you are.”

He kissed her lips and her forehead with all the tenderness he felt for her. “I shall hear no talk of goodness, but if you wish to call me lucky—insanely fortunate—you may do so.”

They began to walk towards the house. “I feel as if I should hurry,” he observed. He could not make himself walk any faster than a besotted, meandering, moonfaced man strolling along with his lover.

“By rights, you should, but I am feeling selfish just now. Tell me of Lydia.”

“Of all her family, she asked for you.”

“For me!”

“She was very certain she wishes to see you first, before she comes home. Will you let me take you to London?”

“You will have a very hard time not taking me to London, Mr Darcy.”

“Your father may have other ideas, love.”

“You had better tell him, then, that I shall be marrying you just as soon as may be, and that from now on, if I go anywhere, I shall be going with you. And we shall take Jane.”

He chuckled. “For propriety’s sake?”

“Indeed. One elopement ought to suffice for excitement, and I cannot say what sort of indecency I could be tempted to if I were alone with you.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she looked up at him .

“You know, do you not, how very much I love you?”

“I do not believe I do. Some months, perhaps years, and many such avowals may be required for you to convince me of your feelings.”

“I am at your mercy, Elizabeth, but must you torment me with your charming mischief?”

“You have always liked me better for it,” she whispered, leading him forwards into the parlour.

Elizabeth and Jane retired in the haze of relief and exhaustion that marked their remarkable day.

They had listened with tears, laughter, gasps, and moments of shocked silence, as Mr Darcy recounted Lydia’s terrifying experience.

Mary and Kitty had gathered in the parlour with their older sisters, along with their father, and when she finally heard that Lydia was not dead because of her, Kitty wept so uncontrollably that Mary took her up to her bed.

Mr Bennet had read Mr Gardiner’s note and then listened in grave, attentive silence to Mr Darcy.

He looked twice as bewildered as Elizabeth had ever seen him and perhaps a little benumbed.

After half an hour, he seemed to be more himself and invited Mr Darcy to his library to hear any details that might not be suitable for his daughters’ ears.

What he heard instead, Elizabeth could only guess at, but he was surely shaking his head in disbelief that Mr Darcy, a man he would rather politely despise, would take away one of his daughters the very minute all five of them were restored to him.

He had barely recovered from this blow when Charles Bingley came into the library for a private word, and when that was gotten through, he went out on his horse for what remained of his morning.

Elizabeth would have liked to have been vulgarly curious about this, but she was much too busy.

She and Jane spent the rest of the morning with Mrs Bennet, impressing upon her the need for her to hold her tongue, for once, on the subject of Lydia’s flight from Brighton.

The degree of their success was questionable, and they were worn out from the effort.

“But is she not to marry Wickham?” Mrs Bennet asked tremulously.

“Mr Wickham left her between Brighton and London, Mama. He was not a good man.”

“Pshaw, Lizzy. You are very severe. Not a good man! Not a good man you say? But he looked so very well and had all the manners of a gentleman. He will be a promoted in no time. You shall see I am right.”

“He is a rake and a scoundrel with the looks and manners of a gentleman. Even Jane, who likes everybody, cannot approve of him.”

“Jane does not like him?” she asked in confusion.

“No, Mama,” Jane said. “I do not like him, approve of him, or even wish to think of him ever again. What we must think of is Lydia’s reputation.

We have decided that she went from Brighton on a planned visit to Mrs Gardiner’s cousin in Winchester, and that any confusion about Lydia’s whereabouts that comes to our notice will be waved off as jumbled hearsay. ”

“But why? Why must we say she went somewhere she did not go? If Mr Wickham has not married her, he must be found and made to do so! He must!”

They were getting nowhere, and Elizabeth, greatly irritated, finally spoke with brutal candour.

“Mr Wickham is gone and will never be found, I assure you. Never! And if we do not hush up Lydia’s impropriety, none of us have the slightest chance of marrying anyone, much less marrying well.

Who would want a girl from such a family that their daughter of fifteen would be allowed to run wild in Brighton and be ruined by a rake?

Nobody! Now, if you want us to be well settled, and I believe you do, you had better practise believing what we are telling you. ”