Page 3 of Under Such Circumstances (Desperately Seeking Elizabeth #1)

How had she not noticed, truly? He had often thrust himself into her path.

She remembered a time he had called at the parsonage, the time that had caused Charlotte to jest that Mr. Darcy was in love with her, something they had thought an obvious jest at the time, for Mr. Darcy had been so quiet and stilted and clearly uncomfortable.

Ah, but this had been because he was nervous, she realized now.

I made Mr. Darcy, the great and mighty Mr. Darcy, nervous.

She let that settle into her.

Oh, dear. This would not do. She began to sift through all her memories of the man, how he had behaved, the things he had said, and began to look at them through the lens that perhaps he had not been behaving like an arrogant prig but had been perhaps nervous, and she began to wonder…

Oh, but why would I make him nervous?

Then, she began to sift through things she had said to him.

She had been a bit sharp with him, hadn’t she?

She had once told him his defect was a propensity to hate everybody.

She had said this in a light, teasing way, as if it were not a barb, and he had barely been able to react to it or to respond in kind, which she had taken as a triumph, for she felt then that he never thought badly of himself, and she wished to give him some moments of doubt about his high opinion of his stupid self.

Except…

What if he had been nervous, and she had only made him feel worse.

What had he said back? Something about how she willfully understood him?

She licked her lips, feeling a bit abashed.

Oh!

But if he were so threatened by her, why would he still be pining away for her? He had apparently been wrestling with some attraction for her that was so overwhelming he could not help but give in to it, even though he wished not to.

Whatever did I do that made him fall in love with me?

Truly, she had been nothing but prickly to the man.

He obviously didn’t think she was a great beauty, since she was not even handsome enough to tempt him to dance, so it couldn’t be that.

It made absolutely no sense.

Suddenly, she was hoping he would come to walk with her again. She was curious about him in ways she had never been curious. She wanted to ask him a number of questions, and she wanted—

No, he would not come.

Foolish, foolish thought that he would. She had humiliated him yesterday. He would likely never speak to her ever again and would avoid her company for the foreseeable future.

At which point, a servant came to collect her from her bedroom, saying there was a visitor in the sitting room.

“A visitor?” said Elizabeth. “At this hour?”

“Yes, quite out of the ordinary,” said the servant. “It’s a gentleman, however.”

“A gentleman,” she repeated. Well, that was odd. If it were Mr. Darcy, the servants knew him, so they would likely refer to him by name. Likewise, they knew Colonel Fitzwilliam, who often accompanied his cousin when he came to the rectory, and they would identify him.

“Asking specifically about you, Miss Bennet,” said the servant. “Mrs. Collins is already there. They are awaiting you both.”

Elizabeth made haste to the sitting room, and when she entered, she was stunned to see Mr. Wickham sitting there.

Mr. Wickham was the ideal of manliness in her opinion.

He was handsome—blue-eyed with a dimpled chin—but this was the least of it, for he was also amiable, easy to be around, the sort of man who simply set one at ease.

He was witty, all smiles, solicitous, polite, everything a gentleman should be.

In contrast to Mr. Darcy, he was everything fair, while Mr. Darcy was everything sour.

She broke into a wide grin and rushed over to him. “Mr. Wickham, what are you doing here?”

He was on his feet, grinning back at her, striding across the room to meet her halfway.

“I know, it’s awfully capricious of me, truly.

I had but a few days of leave from the regiment, however, and I was planning on visiting this area for other reasons.

Just boring business prospects in Kent, never mind it.

But I knew you were visiting here with Mrs. Collins.

” He grinned at Charlotte, who was seated on the settee in the sitting room.

“And I thought, why not see if the two of you lovely ladies were free for the day?”

“Free?” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, I don’t know if you’ve done much exploring of the nearby wood here?” He gestured, waving an arm high above his head. “There are some rather lovely trails and a waterfall. Have you seen the nearby falls?”

“No,” said Elizabeth, thinking that someone likely would have mentioned it. She turned to look at Charlotte to ask her about it.

But Charlotte was already shrugging. “No, I know nothing of it myself, but I must say I am not one for rambles in the woods.”

“Yes, what sort of trails?” said Elizabeth. “How narrow are they?”

“Oh, for a country girl such as yourself, nothing too narrow,” said Mr. Wickham, giving her a conspiratorial smile. “I know you can quite handle it.”

“Yes, but what of me?” said Charlotte, laughing brightly.

“Of course, of course, madam,” said Mr. Wickham. “I would not take you out into the very wilderness. You wound me if you think I could be so uncouth.”

Charlotte laughed.

Elizabeth laughed.

Mr. Wickham was ever so amiable.

“This business of yours?” said Charlotte pointedly. “Does it involve your intended, Miss King?”

“My what?” said Mr. Wickham, hand to his chest. “I am not engaged to anybody at all, I’ll have you know, Mrs. Collins.”

Elizabeth’s heart dropped into her stomach. “But we heard that you were engaged to Miss King.”

“Definitely not,” said Mr. Wickham, turning on her, eyes twinkling. “No, no, I am as free as a bird, Miss Bennet.”

Elizabeth felt her cheeks heating up, for that had been a bit pointed of him, had it not?

He was not usually that way, though she had wondered, had suspected, that there was some especial connection between them.

At least at one point, she had thought he held her in as high regard as she held him.

But she had also thought a union between them impossible for practical reasons.

They neither of them were flush with wealth.

They would struggle if they were to marry, so it was something she had decided not to even think about. She looked down.

“Ah, I see there will be nothing I can say to get myself out of this, will there?” said Charlotte. “Never fear, Elizabeth, I am at your disposal today. I shall accompany you both as your very matronly and very mature chaperone.”

“You, Mrs. Collins, are neither of those things,” said Mr. Wickham, grinning at her. “You are as fresh and young as a spring rain.”

Charlotte only laughed. “And you are as silver-tongued as ever, sir.”

“I only say things that are true,” said Mr. Wickham.

“Shall I have the marvelous cook that my husband praises pack us a picnic luncheon?” said Charlotte.

“That seems like a great deal of trouble,” said Mr. Wickham. “Perhaps a short ramble only.”

“Well, a picnic near a waterfall sounds lovely,” said Charlotte.

“Ah, that does,” said Mr. Wickham. “Very well, you have convinced me. Let us cause a great deal of trouble if it means we get a lovely picnic. It is quite worth it.”

Charlotte laughed. “Yes, quite worth it for us, I suppose. We shall not need to go to nearly as much trouble, however. But I don’t think it will be too onerous for the cook, who will likely be just as pleased to not have to see to us at midday.

I shall send word to her even now.” She got out of her chair and crossed the room to the door, where she called for a nearby servant.

While Charlotte was conveying the message, Elizabeth lifted her gaze to Mr. Wickham’s. She felt shy and excited and her heart was beating too fast.

Yes, this was the way a woman should feel about a man if she were to agree to marry him. Not the way she felt about Mr. Darcy, not at all.

And now Mr. Wickham was here and declaring that he was not engaged, and he was looking at her in that way, and she… did she dare hope? Could it work, somehow?

MR. FITZWILLIAM DARCY paced in the clearing, checking his pocket watch again and again.

Elizabeth always came here in the morning, always. She walked here. But ten minutes had passed since she would usually arrive and there was no sign of her.

Idiot, he told himself. Of course she is not coming here again. She knows you will be here, and she made it quite clear yesterday that she does not like your company.

How mortifying it had been, truly.

He had realized that when she had told him she tended to walk this way at the same time each morning, she had not meant it as an invitation. She had meant it to say that he should not be there. She did not like him. At all.

Really, he ought to leave it. She did not like him, and that was her affair, and at least some of it must his own fault.

He’d realized how she saw him as they had spoken yesterday during his first and only marriage proposal, a dismal exercise that had proved he was even worse with women than he had feared he was.

She saw him as arrogant, as having an inflated opinion of himself, as being used to getting his own way, and as having no regard for others at all.

He supposed she had some reason for thinking some of these things, but he was wounded by it, nonetheless, and he felt the need to speak in his own defense.

But not out loud, he did not think. No, it would be pointless.

She had a way with words, and she would cut him to ribbons if she started to speak, leaving him without words in his head, without the memory of how to use his tongue to form noises in his mouth. She was formidable.

So, a letter.

It was better, for he was able to express himself in the written word, with no interruptions, far more easily than in speech. He had not planned to engage with her, simply to give her the letter and then take his leave of her.

However, she wasn’t here.

This was a very stupid and pointless endeavor, he thought to himself, and he began to walk back towards Rosings.

But then he stopped.

He had gone to the trouble of writing the letter. He might as well attempt to give it to her.

Of course, she was probably walking elsewhere on the grounds, somewhere he would not find her.

Still, he could go to the rectory and give it to a servant to give to her. Of course, he could not stand it if a servant read what was in this letter, for it contained information that could be quite damaging to his sister’s reputation.

He decided to wait. When they walked together, he knew about what time, approximately, that they parted ways. He would go to the rectory then and hopefully get a chance to give the letter directly to her.

The waiting was interminable.

He paced back and forth in the gardens, thinking over the stupid proposal, wishing he could have done it differently.

He’d sneered at her that if he’d given her idle flattery she would have accepted him, but he knew that wasn’t the case, that it wasn’t only the proposal itself—however, it had been a very badly put-together proposal—that it was also his behavior to her for the entirety of their acquaintance.

It was only that she was interpreting so much of it wrong.

He needed her to know that, and he wasn’t sure why, possibly only for the purposes of protecting his own pride.

He wondered at the sagacity of revealing to her about Georgiana. Perhaps he should not be doing that. But he thought he knew her well enough that she would not spread such information about to anyone and everyone.

He hoped it was the case, anyway.

This gave him pause, however. He became convinced that he must actually tear up the letter and never show it to anyone.

He began to walk back towards Rosings, in fact, with the intention of doing just that.

He stopped once to tear the letter up and then realized it would only mean bits of letter everywhere, and he would rather burn it or something, burn it in a lamp in his bedchamber.

Then, he changed his mind again.

No, he was not burning this letter! It had taken him hours to compose the thing, and that was partly because he’d had three false starts before he managed to finish this version.

He marched directly to the rectory, then.

Only to be told that Miss Bennet and Mrs. Collins had gone on a ramble in the woods with a picnic basket to see the waterfall.

“What waterfall?” he said, hands on his hips. “There is no waterfall. I would know of one if there were.”

“The man who was here said he came here often as a boy,” said the servant. “He said he walked out to the falls often on his own.”

“They went in the company of a man?”

“Yes, someone they knew. He brought news of Miss Bennet’s family, spoke of her parents and sisters,” said the servant.

Mr. Darcy had an uneasy feeling in his stomach. “So, he’d come from the area near Longbourn.”

“From Meryton, I believe. Said he had leave from the militia regiment stationed there.”

And then he knew.

Heavens, how could Wickham be there? How could he have taken Elizabeth off into the woods?

There was another reason for the letter, he suddenly realized, and it was to his credit.

It wasn’t only his pride, but it was something else.

Elizabeth needed to be warned about that man.

He had charmed her, clearly. She had spat out Wickham’s story, his falsehood, and she had believed it and had pitied Wickham.

She had believed Mr. Darcy had victimized Mr. Wickham.

He could not allow Mr. Wickham to take advantage of her any longer.

He needed her to understand what Mr. Wickham was capable of.

Well.

He produced the letter. “Can you see that she gets this?” he said to the servant.

He reached into his pocket for his coin purse.

“I can give you a little something for your trouble and discretion. I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about Miss Bennet accepting letters from a man or anything.

It is not her error, but mine, and I would take full responsibility. ”

The servant thought this over. “Yes, well, it is rather irregular, isn’t it? Lots of people might be interested to know that Mr. Darcy is writing young women in this parsonage clandestine letters. Perhaps I would need a bit more than a little something to keep it to myself.”

“Oh, of course,” said Mr. Darcy knowingly. He shook coins from his purse into his hand. “I’m prepared to be generous.”