Page 22 of Under Such Circumstances (Desperately Seeking Elizabeth #1)

RICHARD TOLD DARCY about the theory of the French nobleman being Elizabeth’s father, but he didn’t say he’d spoken to Elizabeth about it, just made it seem as if he’d gotten it from eavesdropping.

He also didn’t tell Darcy he was going to call upon the Bingleys, but he did.

He arrived there, saying he was just looking in, that he simply had a question for Bingley, but he was received by both Mr. Bingley and his sister Miss Caroline Bingley, who looked him over with interest and seemed to attempt to steer the conversation, badly, towards a discussion of dowries.

Clearly, she had pegged him precisely, knew just what he was after, and was seeking a husband in a rather desperate manner.

He looked her over and thought she would be prettier if she seemed less desperate, before he turned back to her brother.

“It’s a trifling matter, really. I was speaking to Mr. Darcy the other day about a book I lent him.

Warkfield Castle . And he said that he didn’t have it anymore, that he had no memory of having borrowed it from me, but I know that he did.

Anyway, I know he spent a great deal of time in your company recently, and I simply wondered if you’d seen it. ”

“You are here because you wish to have a book returned to you,” said Miss Bingley. “Truly?”

“I never pay a bit of attention to books,” said Mr. Bingley. “Not much of a reader myself, really.” He shrugged.

“You don’t think he might have lent it to Miss Bennet?

” said the colonel. “For I shall likely go there next if there’s any chance of it.

I’m secure enough in myself to take a journey to Gracechurch Street, and I do want my book back.

I was thinking, maybe he gave it to her when she was ill at your country house you were renting. What was it called? Netheregions?”

“Nether field ,” said Caroline, quite scandalized.

He smirked at her.

She narrowed her eyes at him, clearly disapproving. “And what are you saying? You are speaking of Miss Jane Bennet? Surely, she is home with her family in Hertfordshire!”

“No, she is visiting her relatives in London,” said the colonel.

Mr. Bingley seemed to be absorbing this knowledge. “When do you think you’d go? Perhaps I could accompany you.”

“You think she might have the book, then?”

“I don’t think so at all,” burst out Caroline. “Why, I never saw Mr. Darcy with that book once, and I paid quite a bit of attention to everything he did.”

The colonel turned on her. Ah, yes, she was very desperate for a husband, was she not? She was trying to manipulate anyone and everyone. “Everything? How astonishing.”

She huffed. “You know what I mean. We were all together, and I would have noticed if he was reading that, and he was not. I don’t think he ever had your book, sir.”

“That’s also what he says,” the colonel said, shrugging. “Perhaps he never did. I can’t say. At any rate, thank you both for your time.”

MR. DARCY FOUND only two French ex-patriots who’d been in the right area of England at the right time to have sired Elizabeth whose first names were Edouard and could have conceivably been called Eddie.

Neither of them, however, had been married at the time. One of them, it turned out, would have been only fourteen years old at the time, and that seemed to eliminate him entirely. The other seemed exactly right.

He’d been in his mid-twenties at the time, and he had run from his home because his father had sent him off.

His family had been meant to follow, but they hadn’t made it out or escaped being imprisoned.

His father had faced the guillotine. His mother had died in prison.

It had been him and his younger sister, then, who’d managed to arrive here and make their way.

He was married now to the daughter of a wealthy man in trade, and they had a house just across town.

Darcy went there, but he was informed that the Vicomte de Larilane, which was his title, and his vicomtesse had very recently retired to the country.

On his way back home, he considered whether or not he should go after the vicomte alone, or if he should take Richard along. He also engaged in a brief reverie of taking Elizabeth, which was, obviously, impossible. She couldn’t travel with him. It would be improper.

Unless she somehow consented to be his wife, which she wasn’t going to do.

He was thinking about going to call upon her, however, at the house in Gracechurch Street, even if he had promised, again and again, to stop pursuing her.

Certainly, it was a kind of villainy, to persist in the wake of a woman’s repeated refusals.

Certainly, it would only serve to make her hate him.

He was doing his best to talk himself out of such a thing as he arrived back home.

But when he got inside the door, a servant informed him that Mr. Bingley was waiting for him, had been waiting for over three quarters of an hour, and was in the sitting room downstairs.

Mr. Darcy went there straightaway. “Is something amiss?” he said by way of greeting as he entered the room.

Bingley shot up from his seat across the room. “Shut that door,” he said, eyes flashing.

Oh, dear. Bingley was angry. Darcy had seen the other man’s anger before and thus recognized the signs, but he did not think Bingley had ever been angry with him. He shut the door. “What’s happened, Charles?”

“You concealed it from me.” Bingley strode across the room, nostrils flaring. “Don’t think to deny it, because I have had it all from Caroline, how you all conspired together, how she told you of the letter she received from Miss Bennet, and how you advised her to lie to me about it.”

“Not lie necessarily,” said Darcy. “I never said that she should tell a direct falsehood, just not to bring it up.”

“Oh, as if that makes a difference!”

Darcy thought to protest, and then decided against it. “Perhaps not,” he agreed, bowing his head. “I am sorry. I may have been incorrect in my assessment of her, of Miss Bennet.”

“Oh, yes, because you said she didn’t like me, and then she came after me, and that tended to go against whatever it was you said.”

“I thought it wouldn’t matter. I thought you would have forgotten her by now and be on to someone else. You have to agree that typically, that would have been the case.”

“She’s different,” said Bingley.

“Yes, those Bennet girls,” said Darcy softly.

“I want an apology.”

“I have, even now, just given you one.”

“I don’t think you have.”

“I am sorry, Charles,” said Darcy. “I am quite dreadfully sorry. I repent of having done it. I should have let you go back to the country and to make love to her for the rest of November and December. It was not to my credit that I interfered.”

Bingley hesitated, still angry, wishing to lash out, but now having got what he claimed he wanted and having nothing else to demand. He huffed instead. “Well, it was not to your credit.”

“No,” said Darcy.

“I have called upon her. I am meeting her on the promenade tomorrow.”

“Well, good,” said Darcy.

“After all this, that is all you have to say.” Bingley huffed again.

“I don’t know what else you wish me to say.”

“It is only that it was so very important to you before, and you argued with me for the whole carriage ride up to London and then after we arrived, and you would not stop with your insistence I must give Jane Bennet up, and I didn’t wish to do it, but you were so adamant that I felt I must give it some credence. And now, you are so sanguine about it?”

“I suppose.”

“Can you make sense of that for me?”

“It wasn’t truly about you and her, I suppose,” said Mr. Darcy. “It was about me and the other one, the sister.”

“Miss Elizabeth.” Bingley chuckled softly. “Oh, yes, I should have seen that. ‘Not handsome enough to tempt me.’” He shot him a withering look. “I might have known that you were protesting rather too much, mightn’t I?”

Darcy’s shoulders slumped. “I hope that I shall soon wish you and Miss Jane Bennet joy, then. Truly, I do.”

Bingley huffed again. “I’m going. I have nothing else to say to you.”

“As you will,” said Darcy.

He started for the door, and then stopped. “So? What became of your interest in Miss Elizabeth?”

“Nothing,” said Mr. Darcy. “She refused me when I proposed.”

“She refused you? ”

“She had found that I did this,” said Mr. Darcy, “that I separated you and her sister. It did not ingratiate me to her, oddly.”

“Well…” Bingley cleared his throat. “Perhaps, then, if I make things right with her sister, perhaps, then you and she will be reconciled.”

“It is all a tangle now,” said Mr. Darcy quietly.

“But you still wish to marry her, do you not?”

“Oh, yes,” he said in a low and sure voice. “Oh, yes.”