Page 48 of Tempted (Heart to Heart Collection #2)

Chapter 48

S o, this was how it was when dreams died.

Darcy did not linger at the door or in the drive when the carriage bearing his Elizabeth rattled away. Georgiana remained with the rest of the family, all consoling one another with baseless hopes that the fugitives would find not only safety but comfort. His loss opened a chasm too deep for words and empty platitudes to fill. Numb, in a delirious haze, and demolished in spirit, he wandered to his rooms, where he could press his brow against the glass and see the fading speck of the carriage as it departed over the western slope.

Half an hour. That was how long it had taken from the moment he helped her down off Sage’s back until the moment Richard carried her away from him forever.

She never even said a proper farewell. A hug for Georgiana, a tearful kiss for the countess and the dowager, and a pale-cheeked nod for him—that was all he had to remember her by. That, and the ring he still clenched in his fist—the one she had returned to him out on a grassy slope that very morning.

Richard, however… something had simmered in Richard’s gaze and in his grip in those last moments. Had they a bit more time, Darcy doubted not that they would have exchanged heated words and perhaps even blows. Indeed, it was a mercy they had no opportunity, for they had both remained civil.

Reginald must have told Richard everything, and now his cousin hated him. Their last moment together could not even be one of peace! Darcy felt the loss of that old brotherhood more keenly than he had when his cousin had sailed off to war.

She would be on a ship bound for nowhere by now, or perhaps the next day. Richard had been exceedingly vague about his destination in those last moments—intentionally so, in case anyone should ask. No one would be forced to lie for him. All Darcy knew, which was hardly worth knowing, was that they were now bound for any port except for Liverpool. Scotland, perhaps, and then… Heaven only knew. All that mattered was she was as far out of his reach as the stars twinkling down from that heartless sky.

Afternoon faded to twilight, then full dark descended upon Matlock estate. He had seen no one since midday, save for the footman who had brought him a bottle of the earl’s finest—a little something Richard had picked up for his father in France during the year ‘92. It was not that he desired to drink himself into blissful incoherence. It was just a way to pass the hours until he could breathe again… until he, too, could leave, and go someplace not haunted by her memory.

“Come,” he called when someone was finally audacious enough to knock on his door. Light poured in from the hall, then Reginald’s figure blocked it out.

“Are you dead?”

Darcy made a face and set his empty glass aside. “I am perfectly well.”

“I am not so sure about that, but if you mean to survive the night, I will join you. You haven’t drunk the whole bottle yet, have you?”

“Not even a quarter.”

“Splendid. That is the last of that lot. I was hoping you might have left me a few drops.” Reginald sank into an opposite chair. “I even brought my own glass,” he pronounced with a satisfied grin. “Thought I would find you like this.”

Darcy hitched forward and filled his cousin’s glass. Reginald sighed, as if all the long day’s trials had been bound up in his chest, then lifted his drink to his nose to sample the bouquet. “Well, of all the ways I could have lost my brother, that was not the one I expected.”

Darcy grunted in agreement as he gazed down into the amber depths of his own newly filled glass.

“Are you well, Darcy?”

He blinked into the darkness of the far corner of the room. “‘Well?’ That state of being is not in the realm I am familiar with now.”

Reginald cleared his throat. “Her Ladyship has given me strict instructions not to try to comfort you. So, you will hear nothing from me about how you will forget and move on, or find someone else better suited to you, or be happy someday that things have turned out as they have.”

“I just heard it.”

“I mean nothing more. Look, I know we saw things a little differently, but there is nothing else to be done now. If you wish to talk about anything or… anyone…”

Darcy laughed bitterly. “What shall I say?”

Reginald shrugged. “Anything, I suppose. I have lost my brother again, but you lost that and more.”

“And you want to know what it is like? Very well, I will tell you.” Darcy leaned forward and braced his hands on his knees. “Do you remember when we were boys, and our fathers took us on our first train ride to the coast?”

“Fondly. Your father took us up to see the engine.”

“Do you recall how the engineer allowed us to sit inside, and you got to pull the great whistle?”

“Of course. Probably the most thrilling moment of my life up till then.”

“We thought we could do anything. When we took our hunt lessons, we were charging through the battlefront with Old Wellington. We could outrun a bullet, leap any wall, and shatter enemy swords with our sticks.”

Reginald sat back with a nostalgic smile. “I remember.”

“Do you also remember just after I graduated Cambridge, when you and Richard and I each threw a sack on our backs and set out for almost a month, exploring Northumberland the Peaks?”

“I thought we would never get you down from those rocks,” the earl mused. “Every vantage point, you had to climb, and then you just sat there overlooking it all like an overgrown Buddha. For a man who never took risks, you certainly did on that trip.”

“It was like being on top of the world. I could look down and see everything, laid out and open before my eyes. I remember thinking, ‘This must be what it is like to fly.’”

“Go on,” Reginald prompted when Darcy’s gaze drifted to the floor, and he fell silent for a moment.

“Every moment I spent with Elizabeth,” Darcy sighed, “was even better. It is not enough to say I had wings. Does not go far enough to compare it with the feeling of invincibility. I was in another world. Sometimes, it was like I could look down again on this petty sphere, with all its cares and soils, and wonder why I ever bothered about any of it. Just to hold her in my arms was like grasping the tail of an eagle and holding fast for the ride, letting it soar higher and higher each day, with never any thought that it could be shot down.”

Darcy brushed his lip with his finger and nodded slowly. “You ask what it is like? What I am feeling? I feel as if she has left me up there in the cold heavens. As if I am still floating above the clouds, but alone now, wondering where the one who lifted me there has gone. And the trouble is… I do not know how to get down.”

The North Atlantic

“A re you not hungry?” Richard lifted his plate, nearly empty now, and gestured as if he would go fill one for her with something from the ship’s board.

Elizabeth glanced at her own sparse pickings and held up a hand. “No, thank you. Being on a ship is not entirely agreeing with me.”

“Oh, of course. A lady’s delicate constitution. Yes, I quite understand. Shall I call for the ship’s doctor? He may be able to suggest something to give you some relief.”

“No, that will not be necessary, but I thank you.” She nibbled her lip. “Ah… how did you sleep last night?”

His dismissive grin was as open and cheerful as it had ever been. “I've no idea. As far as I know, no sailors had to burst into my room to tell me I was frightening people in neighbouring cabins.”

She smiled. “I heard nothing across the hall.”

“First proper bed in three days. Perhaps I wore myself out sufficiently to sleep like a rock. I am sorry we had to travel in such haste with so little preparation, Elizabeth. I fear it must have been terribly uncomfortable for you.”

“It was nothing. I managed well enough.”

“You… you slept well? We hardly got the accommodations I would have liked—narrow, single cots and all that—but I hope you had a decent bed, at least.”

“Better than some I have known.”

“Good. The ship is to put in at Iceland tomorrow, so I will see about better accommodations for us then.”

She nodded.

“Elizabeth… are you sure you’re well?”

She looked up from the plate she had been staring at. “Yes. Why would I not be?”

“Well, I can think of a dozen reasons. You look a little peaked, you have not eaten a proper meal in days, and you keep gazing at nothing. Pardon me for saying it, but you do not seem quite the girl I remember. Are you ill?”

She shook her head. “No, I assure you, I am in perfect health.”

“Well… you will forgive me if I am not very adept at reading your wants. I’m sure there are others who could have done it better.”

She tilted her head. “What do you mean by that? I have not asked you to interpret my feelings.”

“On the contrary, I think it to be a requirement for a married couple. Don’t you agree? Any husband ought to know in his bones if something troubles his lady. I understand we know each other but little—ridiculous, isn’t it?” he laughed tightly. “My family all know you far better than I do, and yet, here we are.”

Elizabeth summoned a waiter to refill her teacup as a means of delaying her response. Precisely how did he wish her to answer that? After she had stirred in her sugar lump, she looked back to find his chin lowered, his lips pursed, and a narrow gaze levelled at her.

“Is there anything you need to tell me, Elizabeth?”

She swallowed too quickly, burning her throat, and causing herself to cough. “What about? It has been a year. I suppose we both have much to say.”

“I expect we do. Much can happen, both in war and love.”

Elizabeth framed her hands around her cup and cleared her throat. “You… uhm… You are referring to… to Mr Darcy.”

“I suppose I am. I am surprised, though, that I have had to drag it out of you.”

Her palms ached with an unexpected tingle of nerves, and she flexed her hands, then dropped them under the table. “I was not hiding it from you. I assumed William—Mr Darcy told you everything, and we would discuss it when we had an opportunity. It is not as though we have had a quiet few days, dashing from coaching inn to train station to dockyard, and always watching over our shoulders.”

“No,” he echoed. “It is not. But you are mistaken in one respect, for it was not Darcy who told me, but my brother. Any idea why that would be?”

“I… I cannot say. Perhaps he did not wish to part from you on uncomfortable terms.”

Richard sat back. “That must be it. Because what could be uncomfortable in finding out at the very last minute that my cousin had intended to wed my ‘widow,’ and would not confess it to me like an honourable man?”

Elizabeth’s spine stiffened. “I cannot account for all his reasoning and actions. All I can tell you is that he wished for nothing more than to see you alive and well. I watched him mourn you for months, and I will not hear you abusing his honour. Nothing but permanent harm to yourself can come from you lashing out in jealousy or wounded pride.”

He crossed his arms. “That is the first bit of spirit I have seen from you since I came back. Odd that it came in Darcy’s defence.”

Elizabeth bolted to her feet and tossed her napkin on the seat. “You are not the only one who endured hell, Richard! I lost everything, too, and just when I thought I had found my feet once more, the world turned upside down all over again. It is not your fault, any more than it is mine. I am not saying I would go back or do anything differently, but neither do I regret my time with William. I’ll not apologise for it!”

His arms fell, and he opened his mouth to call her back, but she was already marching away.

R ichard spent most of that morning stalking the steamer’s upper decks. Ladies and young children scattered from his path, usually with awe-stricken glances at his forbidding eye patch. That was the first good to come of this cursed infirmity—he terrorised anyone who would importune him.

Elizabeth had never spoken of it. Did it horrify her, as well?

He shoved his hands in his pockets and stretched his strides to their fullest as he paced like one driven. He was a fool to think she could still care for him. Still … as if she had ever loved him in the first place! To be fair, he had been no more in love with her, but there was respect. Admiration. Attraction. All the things that led to love, if given the chance.

That chance, however, had fallen to Darcy. The man who had to brush women off his sleeve like flies from honey. The man with a fortune worthy of an earldom, without the bother of court politics. The man with a face he had heard likened to Michelangelo’s David and eyes that would make any woman’s stomach turn to water and her toes curl in her pointed shoes. And Elizabeth, the girl who had grown to womanhood branding calves and laughing at the bumbling efforts of males to win her notice, had lost her heart to the prize of London and Derbyshire.

What did he have to offer her after that?

Richard leaned over the stern railing and watched the sea boiling behind. It was too late for anything else, wasn’t it? He and Elizabeth were well and truly stuck together. He gripped the railing until his fingers ached, then with a brief sigh, stepped back, resolved to do the only thing he could.

Elizabeth answered the knock on her cabin door instantly, as if she had been waiting for him. She offered a tear-streaked smile and stood back to allow him to enter, one hand crossed over her middle and gripping her opposite elbow.

“Do you want to sit down?” she asked.

The cabin was too small to do much else, so he nodded uncomfortably and extended his hand to the bed, indicating that she should sit first. She cleared her throat twice and sat on the far edge, her eyes fastened on his shoes.

“I came to apologise,” he began.

She looked up. “No… I should. I did not mean to make you feel…”

“Cast off?”

“Forgotten,” she finished. “I want you to know; it was never like that.”

He allowed her words to settle for a moment. “I should say,” he ventured, “that I have no right to challenge you over it. Darcy, yes. I would call him to face me and tell me everything in his own words. He said, that first day…” His cheek flinched, and he squinted at the wall. “He said you would have been better off if I had remained dead.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “That… was horrible of him.”

“I am under no illusions that any of us are perfect, but I am afraid that remark has left a rather painful thorn. So, if I appear slow to forgive him, I hope you will be patient with me.”

She drew her lip between her teeth and looked down, blinking. “I am sure he did not truly mean it.”

“Oh, he did. And part of me, you know, part of me cannot entirely blame him.” He waited for her to meet his eyes again. “No man in his senses could know you and not try to keep you in his life. How could I condemn him for doing precisely what I did?”

“Richard…” She hesitated, then reached for his hand. “I do count myself lucky. Many women never find one decent man to love, while I have known two.”

“What of this?” he asked, gesturing towards his eye. “And trite compliments are beneath you, so do not try to pass it off that I look like some swashbuckler, or that it makes me appear dangerous or heroic.”

She chuckled—the first approximation of a real laugh he had heard from her since Wyoming. “Then I shall quote the Bard: Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds .”

“Do you love me, Elizabeth? No—the better question is, can you love me? I will confess that this was never my notion of how my life would play out, but I am willing to make this, make us work, if you are.”

He watched her throat tremble, her lashes flutter, and her free hand nervously twist in the bed covering. “Yes,” she whispered at last.

“I will give you all the time you need,” he promised. “I’ll not ask you to share a bed or even kiss me.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “That is thoughtful of you, but…”

“But?”

She drew a shaking sigh. “I have always thought that once committed to a course, one ought to carry on as though there is no turning back. That… hesitation is more likely to lead to failure than otherwise.”

He sucked a breath between his teeth. “You are not, ah… not about to tell me that my first son will have blue eyes and a cleft chin, are you?”

Mortification flashed over her face. “No! How could you even think—no!”

“I am sorry, it is just that you have seemed ill, and… forget I said that. You see, I think we ought to take our time and get reacquainted. Let us keep separate cabins, at least until we reach New York, right? I will take care to always call you ‘my dear,’ and to think of your needs before my own. I’ve no doubt our hearts will shortly follow our heads.”

She gave him a smile that probably looked braver than she felt. “I’ve no doubt—particularly since we have only each other.”

“Yes. Particularly that. May I kiss you, Elizabeth?”

She filled her lungs with air and nodded, then waited for him to touch her lips like a child forcing itself to try a new food. Her mouth was as soft and sweet as he remembered, but instead of reaching for him, leaning into him, caressing him, she was holding her breath. And when he drew back, there was a distinct sheen over her eyes.

“Too soon?” he asked softly.

Her chin bobbed jerkily, and she began to blink. When that failed, she turned her head to brush away the tears. “I’m sorry.”

He straightened reluctantly. “Let us take a walk on the decks. I think we both need some fresh air.”