Page 21 of Requirements for Love (Love in London with Mr Darcy #3)
Darcy had a concert to attend last evening and had then spent all of Thursday morning returning calls he had put off. Visits to friends, to the wives of friends, to friends of his family, friends of friends who might become his own friends if he kept up the acquaintance. It was exhausting.
And it all meant he had not a moment alone to speak to Elizabeth since he nearly kissed her last night.
He had almost committed himself. Elizabeth had not encouraged him, flattered him, or flirted with him.
She had been herself, charming and lively, and had made a deeper impression on his heart.
She had had reason to dislike him before, from his own pride and selfishness or her own misunderstanding, but last night, he was certain, she would have kissed him back if he had not remembered himself.
He had been tempted to marry her last November, but that would have been a terrible mistake because she disliked him, and he was unworthy of her.
But now, living in his house for a week had changed everything.
He loved her, and she might love him enough to accept him if he offered his heart and his hand.
“Darcy!” called a voice as a hand caught his arm. “I called your name three times. ”
Bingley was laughing at him for his inattention. He must have descended from his carriage and walked right past his friend on the pavement. He apologised, and Bingley asked him if he was going to Lady Linden’s card party tonight.
“No, Captain Peck is spending the evening to help enliven Miss Elizabeth’s captivity. You are welcome to join us.”
“I must take Caroline to the opera,” he said with a frown. “I would rather go to the card party or your house, I assure you.”
Darcy wondered if Miss Bingley had demanded her brother escort her to more amusements in return for resuming her acquaintance with Miss Bennet. “Miss Elizabeth was glad to see her sister yesterday. It was good of you to arrange her visit.”
His friend grinned. “I will mention that when I call on Miss Bennet tomorrow.”
They parted ways, with Darcy going into the house that Bingley just left to pay a fifteen-minute civil call.
He tried to be attentive, but his mind was on other things.
Bingley would marry Jane Bennet and be wildly happy with his beautiful, gentle bride.
They would return to Netherfield and live three miles from her embarrassing family, but was that not a small price to pay for a woman who loved him and brought him joy?
In a week, Elizabeth would be enough recovered to climb into a carriage and return to her uncle’s home.
Was he going to let her go without telling her he loved her?
Was the inappropriate behaviour of her parents and younger sisters worth it to have a wife like Elizabeth Bennet?
He was more certain that she was worth any trial.
By four o’clock, his round of visiting was over and Darcy returned home. While approaching his own door, he saw Colonel Fitzwilliam had his hand raised to knock.
“Paying a formal call on your dear cousin?” Darcy asked as he came up behind him. “I am flattered by your notice.”
“Don’t be,” Fitzwilliam said. “I came to call on Miss Elizabeth. She must find you a dead bore by now.”
Darcy turned his head to hide a smile. He remembered the way Elizabeth had leant into him as he carried her to her room yesterday.
The way her lips parted when he looked at her mouth.
The glow of regard in her expression as he looked into her eyes when he nearly kissed her told him the truth.
“Yes, she finds me tiresome. Thank goodness you are here to preserve her from my dull conversation. Can you handle a few moments with my tedious talk before you go upstairs to enjoy her smiles?”
“I may as well,” he said with a put-on long-suffering sigh. After they sat in the library near the fire, Fitzwilliam asked, “Are you going to Lady Linden’s card party or the opera tonight?”
“Neither. Captain Peck is coming in the evening, so Miss Elizabeth will not need your fifteen-minute call to sustain her.”
“How goes Georgiana’s plan to see her married?” Fitzwilliam asked, crossing one leg over the other. “Will Peck be the man?”
Darcy tamped down the retort that if any man married Elizabeth, it would be him. “I doubt it. Sir George was far too timid, and she met Walsh when he was preoccupied by politics.”
“I can see it now. One man was shy, and the other could not trouble himself. Sir George is a good man, but no woman will ever learn it. And Walsh too often goes on one of his zealous tirades and cannot stop long enough to look a woman in the eye.” His cousin laughed.
“But Captain Peck will not be too shy or too loud. I am not sure why he is still single. He is only in the army because his father does not want him to be an idle gadabout while he waits to inherit.”
“His father’s estate is in Wiltshire?”
Fitzwilliam nodded. “Worth three thousand a year. A bit of a Corinthian, but he won’t be reluctant or afraid of talking to your guest. He could afford to marry without attention to money, if he was inclined. Your guest is pretty and engaging enough to win him.”
He did not actually think any of his friends would marry Elizabeth, and now he no longer wanted any of them to. “Peck is an amiable man, but I do not think he would suit Miss Elizabeth. She and Georgiana have a list of her requirements.”
His cousin laughed. “And what is on this list of the lady’s demands?”
Darcy counted on his fingers. “He must be kind, allow her to sport with him, clever, respect her family, write her long letters, travel with her, be confident, and honest.”
Fitzwilliam levelled a long look at him. “You committed her list to memory.”
He could will himself not to blush. Absolutely, he could. “It is not a long list.”
“Hmm. Well, cleverness would clearly be a problem for you. As well as the second. You let me sport with you, but would you let a woman tease you and laugh at you?”
Any woman? No. But for the woman upstairs, he would eagerly allow himself to be an object of her open pleasantry. Ignoring Fitzwilliam’s teasing, he said, “Hopefully Georgiana does not feel badly when her marriage scheme all comes to nothing. I know Miss Elizabeth has no expectations.”
“Captain Peck might win her.” After a beat, Fitzwilliam added, “Would that trouble you?”
“No.”
“It is just that you look rather ill when I say anything about Peck marrying Elizabeth Bennet.”
His cousin had leant forward with a knowing look and enunciated the last words clearly. Darcy avoided his cousin’s eye, which probably only confirmed his feelings.
“Why did you not propose months ago?” Fitzwilliam asked.
Darcy rested his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor. “She has relations whose condition in life is decidedly beneath my own.” The excuse sounded dreadfully weak when he said the words aloud.
“You would rarely see the embarrassing relations,” Fitzwilliam mused. “And you do not want for wealth and connexions yourself. She seems confident and opinionated. I would not want that every day, but you would hate a woman who had not a single thought of her own.”
“She is perfect,” he muttered to himself.
“Is her family the real reason you fled Hertfordshire and convinced Bingley to forget Miss Bennet? You admired her, but her connexions were far beneath yours? ”
“I wanted Bingley to marry my sister someday, I thought Jane Bennet had no love for him, and the Bennets’ behaviour mortified me. They all played a role.”
“Then should she marry Captain Peck or some other man?”
“No,” he said sharply, raising his head.
“All my endeavours to forget her, to distract myself, have been in vain. I love her. I have loved her for months.” And after nearly kissing her last night, after knowing that she would have welcomed it, he had to ask her to marry him.
“And I can make her as happy as I know she will make me happy.”
Fitzwilliam clapped his hands against his knees and rose. “Let us go upstairs and visit the ladies, then. I want to see the two of you together.”
Darcy rose more slowly. “I am not about to profess anything while you or my sister are in the room.”
Fitzwilliam waved away his words. “I just want to watch you stare at her longingly and be awkward and silent. It amuses me. And I want to see if she throws any meaningful glances your way.” He turned back at the door. “Would you even know if she flirted with you?”
“I do not need your help,” he said.
They left the library and crossed the entrance hall to the stairs.
“She seems like too good a match for you to give up because of relations in trade.”
“It is not her connexions to trade. That is not what I would hope for, but I could tolerate that well enough if her parents and younger sisters behaved properly in public.”
“That would be a trial for you,” Fitzwilliam agreed.
“It is likely a trial to her, too.” He had noticed the look of mortification on her face several times at the Netherfield ball. “I would receive a deeper wound from the want of sense in Miss Elizabeth’s connexions than from their want of importance.”
They were in the centre of the staircase when he heard a gasp. Looking up to the lobby, he saw Elizabeth crossing from her chamber to the drawing room, leaning heavily on the walking stick he loaned her yesterday. The distress on her face was palpable .
After a moment of dreadful silence, she said, stiffly, “There is such a thing as being too honest, Mr Darcy.”
She then hobbled into the drawing room without another look at either of them.
Darcy muttered a dark curse, still frozen halfway up the staircase next to his cousin.
“Oh, I don’t think that one is strong enough,” Fitzwilliam whispered.
A strong enough oath did not exist.