Page 25 of To India with Mr. Darcy

D arcy sat in the library the following morning, an open book resting on his knee as he looked out over the expansive gardens of Netherfield. He had meant to read, had come in search of silence and distraction. Instead, he found only his own reflection staring back at him in the window, indistinct and pensive, framed by the blaze of the turning trees.

He should have left days ago. Pemberley awaited, as it always did, steadfast, orderly, and demanding of his time. There were tenants to visit, stewards to consult, letters piling up like autumn leaves in his study. He had made excuses to himself, cited the changeable spring weather, the roads, the recovery of luggage delayed in Portsmouth. Anything to prevent him from leaving. But he knew the truth well enough, the real reason he had not found his way home. He simply hadn’t yet been able to go.

A sudden burst of sound at the door startled him from his thoughts. It swung open without ceremony, and in swept Bingley, cheerful as ever and utterly oblivious to the meditative air of the room. Darcy cleared his throat, sitting up straighter as though he’d been caught dozing.

“There you are,” Bingley said, running a hand through his already messy hair. “I’ve looked in every corner of this house. I half-feared you’d been taken hostage by the second footman. He’s got the look of a rebel, don’t you think?”

Darcy tried not to laugh. “You always assume the worst.”

“I prefer to assume the amusing,” Bingley replied with a grin. “And besides, it’s unnatural to vanish at breakfast. You’re the only man I know who fasts on principle.”

Darcy gave a dry, sardonic smile. “Books are the only nourishment I need. Everything else is indulgence.”

“Rubbish,” Bingley declared, striding towards the hearth and throwing himself into a chair with all the unearned elegance of a man for whom chairs had never been hard won. “You’d shrivel to a husk in a week if I let you live on ink and moral philosophy. Besides, today is no day for quiet introspection.”

Darcy set the book aside, his interest piqued. “Oh?”

Bingley’s face broke into a grin so wide it looked as though he could scarcely contain it. “I have news.”

Darcy leaned forward, something tightening in his chest, though he wasn’t quite sure why. “What sort of news?”

“The best kind.” Bingley exhaled a laugh, shaking his head in a way that made him look, for a moment, boyish and unguarded. “I’ve spoken to her. To Jane.”

Darcy inhaled sharply. He’d been hoping for this, but he wasn’t sure it would happen. “You did?”

“I said everything,” Bingley said, softening his voice. “Everything I should have said in Calcutta. Or on the ship. Or that night in the drawing room when I saw her and lost my courage. I said it all. And she forgave me.”

Darcy blinked, his tension not quite loosening. “She did?”

“She did more than forgive me,” Bingley said, his grin returning in full force. “She accepted me. We are engaged to be married.”

For a long beat, Darcy said nothing. Then, finally, as if fully allowing the relief to flood through him, he said, “You are engaged!”

Bingley nodded, and for a moment, looked entirely overwhelmed by his own happiness. “Yes. I still can’t quite believe it. I keep expecting to wake up and find I’ve dreamt the whole thing.”

“I am so very glad,” Darcy said at last, though the words were barely more than a breath. He rose and walked to the window, looking out over the garden.

Bingley followed him with his eyes. “I’ve you to thank, you know.”

“No,” Darcy said quickly, too quickly. “Don’t say that.”

“But it is true.”

Darcy turned to face him. “I encouraged you away from her once. I gave you every reason to doubt her, every reason to question what you felt. I interfered. I was wrong. Terribly wrong. If anything, this is merely me trying to correct what I should never have done.”

Bingley’s expression softened. “Still. I would not have found my way back without you.”

Darcy looked down, his jaw tight. A part of him wanted to accept the gratitude, to take the sliver of satisfaction and hold it close. But another part—the louder part—could not forget the other mistake, the larger one. The one that lingered still in every unspoken word between himself and Elizabeth.

He had helped to restore someone else’s happiness. But his own would never be restored. Not now.

Bingley clapped him on the shoulder with cheerful force, unaware, or perhaps mercifully pretending not to notice, the weight behind Darcy’s silence. “You have done a good thing, my friend.”

Darcy offered the faintest of nods. “Then at least one of us has reason to celebrate.”

As if summoned by thought alone, there was a knock at the door. Darcy turned at once, anticipation tightening in his chest. The footman appeared a moment later.

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet to see you, sir.”

“Ah,” Bingley said knowingly, a finger raised in the air. “I shall leave you. I have things I ought to get on with.”

Darcy shot back to his chair, picking up his book in an attempt to look casual. He cleared his throat, brushing at his waistcoat as if he might dislodge something that wasn’t there, then ran a hand through his hair before immediately regretting it and smoothing it down again.

“Show her in,” he said and was absurdly grateful that his voice did not betray him.

When the door opened again, and she stepped inside, it was as though the light itself shifted. The room had been warm already with the glow of the morning sun, but now it seemed to brighten in a new way, sharpened by the figure framed in the doorway. The sunlight caught in her hair and turned it to bronze, the soft curl of it escaping her bonnet like vines in bloom. Her cheeks were pink from the air, her eyes clear and bright. And Darcy, for one terrible and wonderful second, was struck entirely speechless.

“Mr Darcy,” she said with a slight curtsy, her voice polite but kind.

He bowed, recovering himself as best he could. “Miss Bennet. What a surprise. A pleasant one.”

“Jane wanted to come to see Mr Bingley,” she said, stepping inside as the door shut behind her. “I thought I would find a quieter corner of the house.”

“You chose well,” he said, gesturing towards a chair near the hearth. “This room is rarely disturbed.”

“Except by brooding gentlemen,” she teased lightly, sitting with a grace that somehow still made him feel awkward.

He smiled, unable to help it. “Indeed. We are a nuisance.”

They called for tea, and while it was prepared, they fell into conversation with a familiarity that surprised them both.

“Do you remember that steward,” Elizabeth said, eyes sparkling, “the one who insisted that lemons cured seasickness but then ate an entire lemon himself and promptly fainted?”

Darcy laughed—actually laughed—a full, unguarded sound that startled them both. “I do. And then tried to pretend it was due to the heat and not the citrus. A most determined man.”

She smiled into her teacup. “I sometimes think about those days and wonder if they truly happened. It feels like something we dreamt. As though we shared some odd, floating world that no one else would understand.”

Darcy nodded slowly. “Yes. I’ve thought the same. And I have found the world since rather dull by comparison, if I’m perfectly honest.”

She glanced up at that, her eyes softening. “Would you ever go again? Abroad, I mean?”

He hesitated, unsure what answer she wanted to hear. “I believe I might,” he said cautiously. “At one time, I thought myself unsuited to such things. But now…” He looked at her. “Now I think I would like to see more.”

Elizabeth smiled. “I’m glad. I should like to see more of the world as well. India was only the beginning, I hope.”

He studied her in the firelight. “Then I hope the world is very good to you, Miss Bennet. You deserve a life filled with colour.”

A silence followed, one of those rare, delicate silences that held everything between them. It might have stretched forever had she not broken it, turning the conversation with a gentle pivot.

“Jane told me what happened,” she said, quieter now. “With Mr Bingley.”

Darcy stiffened, unsure of where this was going.

“She said he came to her and apologised. That he told her everything. Or rather, told her what you told him.”

He looked down. “I see.”

She leaned forward, her gaze steady. “I know it was you who encouraged him to come. I know it was you who made him see sense.”

Darcy said nothing. What was there to say?

Elizabeth smiled, her voice warm. “Thank you.”

He blinked, looking at her in surprise.

“For that,” she continued, “and for everything else. For carrying me when I could not walk. For helping that sailor. For helping when my aunt fell ill. For your kindness, even when I did not see it as such. For returning my shawl when it blew overboard, though you pretended it was the steward who found it.”

Darcy’s mouth twitched despite himself. “He was sworn to secrecy.”

“I surmised as much,” she said. “It was a very neat knot.”

He looked at her, and she looked at him, and there was nothing between them but the truth.

“I may have misjudged you,” she said.

He gave a half-smile. “Only a little.”

That made her laugh almost sheepishly. And then her voice turned serious again.

“You have changed, Mr Darcy. I see it in your actions. In your words. And it humbles me.”

His heart twisted. He couldn’t speak for a moment, but when he did, his voice was low and certain.

“If I have changed,” he said, “it is because of you.”

Their eyes met again, and this time the silence between them felt like something waiting, like the held breath before a storm, or a kiss, or a promise.

But neither of them moved. The fire crackled. The tea cooled. And the world, just for a moment, held very still.