Page 10 of Such Persuasions as These (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

CHAPTER NINE

“ A ll the officers,” Kitty exclaimed, her eyes shining with anticipation as she and Lydia took in the multitude of red coats before them.

“Do not get carried away, you two. We do not know these men, and not all of them are gentlemen,” Elizabeth warned.

“Oh pish,” Lydia answered with a scoff. “The officers are gentlemen, Lizzy. They had to have some money to purchase their commission, after all. As far as I am concerned, there are no finer men in England.”

It clearly fell to Elizabeth to correct her sister’s ignorance.

After all, one could acquire a commission in the militia with far fewer assets to his name than was required in the regulars.

Gentlemen and their heirs had no reason to join the militia, and anyone in need of such a paltry income was in no position to care for a wife.

Before she could undeceive them, however, Kitty and Lydia were off.

Their insistence on being in their best looks for the officers’ supper had caused the entire family to arrive late, and no doubt they were eager to make up for lost time.

Elizabeth tried to relax her jaw, which had tightened as she watched her youngest sisters plunge themselves into the sea of red, lost all but for their giggles and the turned heads they left in their path.

Where other young ladies saw eligible beaux, Elizabeth saw only a troupe of extremely young men, wanderers who roamed from town to town and lived on tuppence.

Unless some of them were second sons with terribly ill elder brothers, she imagined few of them to be genuine marital prospects for herself or her sisters.

With no dowry of note , she thought, none of us would be considered a great catch, either .

These considerations eased her mind a little.

Hopefully their relative poverty would prevent any of the militia men from forming designs on, or even starting a serious flirtation with, Lydia or Kitty, provocative though they might be.

Perhaps, too, her warnings might resound at some point, and they might spare themselves the pain of disappointed hopes or worse, a bad match.

Knowing she could do no more to check them, Elizabeth determined to make the most of the evening.

She sought out Jane, but it was clear she was in deep discourse with Mr Bingley.

Smiling, she allowed them to continue without her interference.

Charlotte, she noted, was attempting to draw out that man’s sister—and failing.

Elizabeth supposed she should rouse herself to assist her friend, but as Miss Bingley appeared to be in acute torture at speaking with a mere country miss, Elizabeth concluded that taking Charlotte away would end that suffering prematurely.

She could not bring herself to desire that.

Mary sat alone under a sconce with a tome of some girth, while Maria Lucas fidgeted with a flounce on her skirt at her side.

One person she did not see was Mr Darcy.

As Elizabeth was scanning the crowd, Charlotte appeared at her elbow. Her efforts, it appeared, had been for naught, and she had finally given up on the impossible object of holding an engaging conversation with Miss Bingley.

“What has you so preoccupied, Eliza?”

“I cannot imagine what you mean,” she answered.

Had the room become warm all of a sudden?

“You have been spending an awful lot of time upon Mr Darcy’s arm these last weeks.

I understood him to be a proud, disagreeable man.

Indeed, after he slighted you at the assembly, I imagined you would scorn him altogether.

However, he seems to have earned your good opinion at some point.

” Charlotte’s gaze was a penetrating one.

“He is pleasanter than he seemed at first,” Elizabeth began, attempting to keep her voice and her expressions as neutral as possible. “I happened to come upon him at a vulnerable moment and offered to assist him. We seem to…understand one another.”

“I am not shocked that you two have some…understanding,” Charlotte said, her implication clear.

“Nothing like that,” Elizabeth replied, her pitch elevated in something like panic. “He simply requires my assistance. Mr Darcy feels ill-qualified to recommend himself to strangers.”

“Hmm,” Charlotte chirped. How so much could be communicated without articulating a single word, Elizabeth would never know.

“Hmm?”

“Why is it, I wonder, that a man of sense and education, a man who has lived in the world, might be ill-qualified to recommend himself to strangers? Perhaps he simply will not give himself the trouble.”

“He has certainly taken the trouble the last several times I have been in company with him,” Elizabeth protested, perhaps a touch too ardently.

“Indeed,” Charlotte replied, facing away, then darting a glance back to Elizabeth.

“I believe there is more to him than the man who owns half of Derbyshire. Throughout our acquaintance, I have seen glimpses of something…softer. I am simply interested in seeing what truly lies beneath that proud exterior.”

“As you are a keen student of human nature,” Charlotte offered.

“Precisely,” Elizabeth replied quickly.

Did Mr Darcy not come this evening ?

Not that she had been looking for him. She had certainly not been seeking an excuse to remain free in case he needed her.

Elizabeth had too much self-respect to put herself so wholly at his service again, naturally.

Of course, Christian charity would dictate that, if her fellow man was in need, she should do all in her power to give him relief, would it not?

If said fellow happened to be tall, handsome, clever, and well-spoken, it did not follow that her motives in helping him must be attraction.

He could not be attracted to her, certainly, for he must find her beneath him.

When he saw to her comfort with a glass of wine or a warmer seat, such consideration was only due to his good breeding.

When he stood so near that she could feel his breath on her ear as he whispered questions or observations, he was just being polite so that others might not hear themselves being discussed.

And when he smiled at her as they bantered and joked across the card table, that was simply a manifestation of his growing ease amid Hertfordshire society, she was sure.

Yes, absolutely sure.

A warmth crept up her neck at the recollection of his delight in watching her mother triumph over them at whist and the conspiratorial grin he had gifted her.

That his gaze had lingered upon hers longer than it ought meant nothing.

It could not. He knew about Freddie. As far as he was concerned, she was just an accommodating friend with whom he happened to be rather comfortable.

Besides, had she not decided that any agreeableness on his part was the exception and not the rule? Despite her claims to Charlotte, at his core, he must be the disdainful, conceited man she had first been introduced to, must he not?

Elizabeth found him.

No wonder she had not seen him, tall as he was. Mr Darcy—proud, imperious Mr Darcy—was almost kneeling at the side of her precious Colonel Ashe-Benning, listening jovially to his stories and smiling, asking questions and volunteering his thoughts as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She might have gaped at such a scene if she were not smiling so broadly.

Darcy tried not to search out Elizabeth as he and Bingley entered the soiree.

Nevertheless, a weight of disappointment made its home in his gut when he did not immediately see her.

He had to force his gaze forwards as he greeted Colonel Forster and was introduced to his new, surprisingly young bride.

Harriet Forster caught his attention by her coy smile, the brazen cut of her gown, and the way she fiddled with the pendant on her necklace, clearly flirting with him whilst hanging upon the arm of her husband.

She could not be eighteen, and Darcy wondered what the colonel, who was easily two decades her senior, could possibly see in such a vixen.

A cub, more like , he thought, disgusted.

Again attending to his expression, he gave the couple what he hoped was a respectful, if curt, bow, then wandered further into the room.

Several of the higher-ranking officers of the militia had dined at Netherfield when Bingley had first come into residence, so many of the faces floating above the crimson coats were familiar, but Darcy was not inclined to converse with any of them.

As he and Bingley had had no occasion to ride past Longbourn since having visited to thank Mrs Bennet for the excellent card party, Darcy had not seen Elizabeth in nigh on five days.

He felt like a child denied sweetmeats.

Her company had turned out to be just the invigoration he had needed after his harrowing ordeal at Ramsgate.

When he was listening to her tinkling laugh, all thoughts of Wickham’s treachery fled.

Looking into her bright eyes reminded him that light and goodness still existed in the world, erasing all traces of the bitterness he had harboured since having seen his old friend fall and feeling the man’s bullet rip into his flesh.

Without her, that storm began to gather, and he had no desire to continue living under the dark cloud of Wickham’s betrayal.

Resigning himself to her absence with a sigh, he perused the room, searching for one of the men about whom she had spoken.

She would expect him to continue on in the vein they had established, striving to become interested in the affairs of those about him, even those beneath him.

He espied an elderly gentleman sitting on a hard- backed chair across the room.

Elizabeth had introduced him as an army colonel, Darcy recalled.

Colonel Ashe-Benning, yes. What was it Elizabeth said she admired about him?

“Colonel,” Darcy said, crouching with bent knees to speak to the bushy-browed man eye-to-eye. “Might you wish for a softer chair, sir? I cannot imagine this one to be very comfortable.”

“Not at all, my boy, not at all. If I were to sit in a soft chair, I should not be able to arise again,” the colonel replied with a smile. “Mr Darcy, is it not? You are from Netherfield, yes?”

“I am staying there with my friend Bingley, who has leased the estate. I hail from Derbyshire.”

“Ah, Derbyshire. Pretty county, very pretty. My Prudie was from Surrey, you know.”

What relation there was between Surrey and Derbyshire, Darcy could not conceive, but his mention of a lady reminded him of Elizabeth’s reason for loving the old man. Prudie must have been his wife.

“Surrey is a beautiful place as well,” Darcy said with a smile. “Mrs Ashe-Benning grew up there?”

The colonel needed no more prodding to lead the conversation, describing his love in exquisite detail: her face, her fair hair, her sweet nature, and the fiery spirit his darling Prudie displayed over any injustice she witnessed.

Darcy listened for several minutes in delight.

It was easy to understand why this gentleman held such a place in Elizabeth’s heart.

The colonel had just come to the point of how glorious his sprite of a wife looked while heavy with child when he heard the scrape of furniture behind him.

The appearance of the footman holding a chair made him keenly aware that he was still crouching at Colonel Ashe-Benning’s side .

What has Elizabeth done to me? A Darcy does not squat!

Standing to allow the footman to place the chair next to the colonel, he met the beguiling eyes of the woman he had been seeking.

Darcy bowed. As Elizabeth rose from her curtsey, before her skirts could right themselves, a fleeting vision flashed through his mind of her heavy with child, more magnificent than Prudie Ashe-Benning could ever aspire to be.

“Do not forget to tell Mr Darcy what brought you to Hertfordshire, Colonel, for that is my favourite story of Mrs Ashe-Benning,” she said, smiling at Darcy with what he could only interpret as a sense of pride.

His efforts to converse with strangers made her proud? Why did that hold such meaning for him? And what was this swelling in his chest?

What was Elizabeth Bennet doing to him?