Page 14 of Under Such Circumstances (Desperately Seeking Elizabeth #1)

THAT EVENING, ELIZABETH’S bleeding came.

She was a little stunned, because this hypothetical child of hers had been nearly real with all the intangible possibilities she had planned for it.

She almost felt a bit of a twinge, she had to admit, which was puzzling, for she was relieved, vastly relieved, quite relieved.

Being with child would have been calamity. She was quite pleased.

The next morning, it was only Mr. Darcy who met her.

“The colonel will likely be along shortly,” said Mr. Darcy as they began to walk. “He slept late this morning and tried to get me to wait for him, but I said I would not keep you waiting.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I shouldn’t have minded, I suppose. I would have waited for you both.”

“I wished to speak to you without him, though, so this is fortunate,” he said.

“I don’t mean to harp on things when you have been quite clear, madam, but I do wish to point out that you had all but accepted my marriage proposal out there in the rain, and I am not withdrawing it.

A gentleman’s word is worth something, after all. ”

“Oh, but Mr. Darcy—”

“I am only saying,” he said, “if you change your mind…”

She regarded him, and she thought this through. He was all the things he had always been—righteous and arrogant and so very wealthy and rather handsome and seemingly in love with her for no reason she could even discern.

“You could think about it,” he said. “You’ve been through a difficult ordeal, and you are still reeling from that. Even if you are with child, we could marry within a month or two and it would all go well. You may wait a bit of time to decide is all.”

“I am, as it happens, not,” she said.

“Not what?”

“Not with child,” she said.

“Oh,” he said and he smiled a very wide smile. “Wonderful.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yes, it makes everything easier.”

“It does,” he said, looking down at his feet. “Yes, it can be as if it never happened.” His smile had faded.

“Mr. Darcy,” she said, “I feel I must ask you to clarify something for me, if I am to truly consider this marriage proposal of yours.”

His gaze jerked up. “Yes?”

“It is only…” She turned away, unsure of how to put this. “I need to understand why you are this way with me. Because I know you don’t even find me pretty—”

“Oh, this is about the comment at that dreadful ball in Meryton, isn’t it?

It was less about you than it was about Bingley.

He was needling me about dancing, which I didn’t want to do, and it put me in a bit of a foul temper, and I lashed out at whatever was handy, which happened to be you, because he had suggested you, but I had barely looked at you at that point and I certainly didn’t have any real opinion of you.

I am sorry you heard it. It wasn’t for your ears. ”

She didn’t like that answer, and she found herself feeling that same rising annoyance that she always felt when she spoke to this man.

Wasn’t meant for her ears? Sorry that she heard it?

But not, conspicuously, sorry for having said it.

And at no point had he said that he did, in fact, find her attractive or that he had changed his opinion on her looks.

Not that she needed him to find her attractive, truly, only…

“As for why,” he said, “it’s not about the way you look.

I don’t mind that, obviously, but I find you impossibly alluring, and it’s mostly because of this way you have about you, this indescribable way that draws me in, like a moth to a flame, just a siren’s call to destroy myself. ” He chuckled softly, shaking his head.

“All right, then,” she said. Well, this told her everything she needed to know, didn’t it? He didn’t mind the way she looked? And he thought of her as destructive, something he wanted that was not good for him.

He glanced at her. “I’ve bungled it again. Why can I never say anything to you—”

“You are released from this awful draw to your own doom,” she said with a laugh.

“Heaven knows, you’ll be quite better off without me.

I have not brought you joy, I don’t think, Mr. Darcy, only some kind of odd torment.

I am not with child. I have an inheritance.

You may wash your hands of me and go on your way. ”

He stopped walking.

She stopped too.

He looked crestfallen, like a very disappointed little boy. He put his hands into his pockets, bowing his head again. “I said once that you willfully misunderstood me,” he said. “But it isn’t willful, is it? It’s just that we don’t seem to speak the same language, I don’t think.”

“What do you mean by—?”

“Ho, there, how fast have the two of you been walking?” came the voice of the colonel as he hurried to catch them up. He walked right between them, grinning widely. “I supposed it’s good you two stopped walking for a moment, or I never would have had the chance to get here.”

“Richard,” said Mr. Darcy, blinking up at him. “So good to see you.” But there was a bit of irony in his tone.

If the colonel noticed, he didn’t let on. “Yes, good to see you as well. And Miss Bennet. Any news?”

“News?” she said.

“Oh, yes, we are all in suspense. You said you might get your bleeding, and did you?”

She flushed, laughed, turned and started walking. “I did.”

“Ha!” The colonel was jubilant. He caught up to her and slung an arm around her, squeezing her against his broad chest. “Marvelous news!”

She laughed, looking up at him. The colonel was not handsome, but he was so very likable, and his exuberance was a great deal of the reason. “Yes, it actually is.”

He gave her another squeeze and let go, seemingly realizing how very improper he was being.

“So, then, it’s all right. You’re free, and there is nothing, and no one ever has to know.

” His grin seemed to overtake his entire face.

“Thank God, Miss Bennet, really, with everything that’s happened, we deserved at least one thing to go well. ”

She nodded, smiling up at him.

“Put it all from your mind, whatever happened,” said the colonel. “I tell you, no matter what anyone says to you, Miss Bennet, you are intact. You are whole. All right?”

She looked away.

Was she, though?

I CAN’T HAVE wanted her to be carrying Wickham’s child , Mr. Darcy thought to himself over and over again as they made preparations to take Elizabeth to London.

It was a bit more complicated than he had first thought it might be, owing to the fact he had to secure some kind of chaperone for her, since she couldn’t travel all alone with himself and the colonel.

Since they were all to be in a carriage, he hadn’t given it much mind, for with most ladies of his association, a lady’s maid would be sufficient in such a situation. But Elizabeth didn’t have a maid.

So, this had necessitated his trying to secure one of the servants at Rosings, but then this would mean the servant was in London, and would have to be transported back to Rosings.

Elizabeth was no help with all of it, joking on a walk that she was already ruined, and what did it matter?

The colonel had chided her, saying she must never say that and never think that. She was not ruined, and he found himself speaking up to agree, even though he knew it was sort of a lie.

The colonel kept saying she must pretend nothing had happened.

But she was changed, and Mr. Darcy could tell, and it ripped something free inside him in a painful way.

He also had discovered the letter he’d written to her in the pocket of his jacket, and it did not look as if she had ever moved beyond the first page of it.

It looked still folded the way he’d folded it.

What was he to make of that? He didn’t know, so he made nothing of it.

He threw the letter in a fire, as he had thought to do originally.

Best to destroy any mention of his sister’s damaged reputation, after all.

Anyway, he finally squared away the chaperone situation, securing a female servant who had family in London and would take a few days off to visit them, conveniently, since they were offering to take someone to London, and that was finally resolved.

Then, the day of the travel dawned, and all of them were in the carriage together, though they couldn’t speak of anything because of the chaperone, so he was mostly quiet. He had a book, but he didn’t really read it. He looked at it, and then he looked at her.

And felt wistful that she hadn’t been increasing, and that he hadn’t been able to force her into a marriage with him.

I wouldn’t have wanted her that way, he told himself. I would have wanted her willing.

Which was true.

No, it was a lie. He would have taken her even if she’d been maneuvered into the marriage. He wanted her that badly. He just wanted her.

It didn’t make sense, because he shouldn’t want her now that Wickham had put his grubby hands all over her. The idea of marrying a woman who wasn’t a virgin? If anyone had put this to him before now, he would have sworn there was nothing on earth that could induce him to do it.

And yet.

Still, perhaps he felt some kind of nobility about that, perhaps he thought that it was not really her fault, and therefore it spoke well of him to want her even in the face of that. Perhaps his vanity could be engaged on that score.

But the shameful fact was that he wanted her even though she did not want him back, and that made him a villain, because he could not seem to stop wanting her, no matter how many bargains he made with his cousin that they would both give her up and no matter how often he told her he would not pursue her.

What he would be, however, was patient.

She needed time, that was obvious. She needed to heal or recover or… he didn’t know.

And perhaps, with time, he would stop wanting her. It was possible.

He didn’t think so, however.