Duty and Desire (16 page)

“Finances in complete disarray, sir. Shouldn’t think but His Lordship will have to seriously retrench in the spring. Owes money to tradesmen, bankers, and moneylenders alike. Debts of honor —”

“In other words, a typical peer of the realm.” Darcy had interrupted him. “I do not attend at his invitation in order to become his banker, Hinchcliffe. Or partner him in any scheme,” he had quickly added before his secretary could raise the objection. “You have taught me well in that regard. I am merely in a humor to be entertained.”

“Very good, sir,” Hinchcliffe had replied, although through long association, Darcy had taken him to mean no such thing.

In complete contrast to the stiff disapproval of his secretary had been the reception of his decision by his valet. Fletcher’s eyes had widened considerably at the news, and his tense anticipation of the prospect had made him a trial to the entire staff of Erewile House. At Norwycke Castle, among the other masters of his art, Fletcher would be in his element, and Darcy had reluctantly conceded, he would be obliged to allow his man a certain freeness of hand. “Within bounds, Fletcher,” he had cautioned. “I’ll not turn fashion’s fool to satisfy your reputation. And no surprises!”

“Certainly, sir!” Fletcher had bowed eagerly. “Nothing remarkable in itself, nothing showy or vulgar, merely a higher degree of elegance,” the valet had sketched out. Then after a pause, “Mr. Darcy, sir?” Darcy had nodded his permission to speak. “The Roquet, sir. Would you condescend to —”

“Your accurst knot?” Darcy had grunted and looked away from him, all the discomfort of Fletcher’s recent triumph recommending itself to his memory. Weighing it carefully against the damage a refusal would deal to his valet’s pride and standing among his peers, he had turned back and given him a quick nod. “But let that be the tether end of your invention!”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!” Fletcher had gabbled, barely restraining his excitement, and departed the interview all but rubbing his hands together.

The revelation to his sister of Darcy’s departure had been quite another matter. Georgiana had swiftly covered the surprise and disappointment that his awkward announcement at supper had called forth. He had known he was distressing her, and he’d prayed she would ask him no questions on his sudden desertion; for he could give her no coherent answer or expect her understanding of the half-formed reasons with which he had assayed to satisfy his own conscience. For, in truth, the decision to attend Lord Sayre’s house party had had more to do with impulse than with reason.

Darcy had known Sayre since their days at Eton, and although the older boy had never been a comrade, he had been a decent sort when it came to the younger boys at school. Later, at Cambridge, they had quartered in the same hall, and the invitation to the house party had been pressed upon Darcy in terms of a reunion of hall fellows. But it had not been Sayre’s appeal to auld lang syne that had moved Darcy to an uncharacteristic acceptance. Oddly enough, it had been Caroline Bingley’s desperate little note. In the dark hours of the night, days after he and Brougham had composed Miss Bingley’s answer, the words of her missive had returned to make purchase of his mind and trouble his soul.

“Miss Bennet is in Town.” Although he now believed the wording of the note made it unlikely that Elizabeth Bennet had accompanied her sister, at the time, his beleaguered heart had leapt and a frisson of curious, breathless pleasure had coursed through him. The power of that momentary supposition had stunned and disconcerted him. But then, in the quiet reflection that night afforded, he had known that the wonderfully flurried intoxication he’d felt contemplating her presence in London had arisen from a seeming fulfillment of the fantasy he had entertained — nay, nurtured — since their days together at Netherfield.

He had reached inside his waistcoat pocket and drawn out his token of her, fingering his emotions, his desires, as carefully as he did the threads she had forsaken among the lines of
Paradise Lost
. Everything about her person — her smile, the rich color and curl of her hair, the contrast of her dark brows to the creamy perfection of her complexion…her eyes — excited his admiration and heightened his senses. Easily he had conjured her as she had been the evening of the ball: her figure, heart-stopping in its womanly curves; the small, glove-clad fingers, which had rested with increasing willingness in his hand. Of this he was certain: to be in her presence was to know delight in a more pure expression, to be alive in a more vivid sense than ever he had before. The depth to which his fancy had taken him was attested to by the fact that, despite his disavowals, he had not been able to leave her in Hertfordshire but had carried her home to Pemberley, to wander its halls and grace its rooms, an almost tangible presence at his side.

He had caressed the threads delicately between his thumb and forefinger as he then turned his mind to her other attractions. For the intelligence he had seen mirrored in those enigmatic eyes he had found testimony in a wit that had engaged his own sharply, substantially, in a manner that pierced him to the bone and left him tingling. Her bold ability to rise to his every challenge and meet him with acuity that was feminine in its contours yet unsullied with coquetry answered his ideas of what true companionship might be between a man and a woman. Further, she was all soft compassion to those she loved. Time and again he had been witness to it. Even, though he hated to admit it, in the interest she showed in that blackguard Wickham it was quite evident that in Elizabeth Bennet there dwelt no pretense, no artifice or deceit. She was herself, as she met the world, as she met him. As she came to him…

He had closed his hand tightly around the silken strands at the realization of what he was doing to himself. Elizabeth Bennet was
not
coming to him. What was he thinking? He’d risen from his seat by the hearth in his bedchamber and paced the length of the room. Nothing had changed in her situation. Her place in society, her connections, the deplorable state of her immediate family all remained insuperable barriers to the contemplation of a union. He had imagined the reactions of his relations and friends.

The Bennets of Hertfordshire? Who are they that the name of Darcy should be so degraded, its interests so diverted to loss? Think not only of the interest not acquired through a proper marriage. Would you lose all that your family has achieved in the course of generations? Further, shall such a mistress of Pemberley be received? Will you not, in time, regret the confined society such a wife would impose? And what of any issue of this misalliance? Who will they wed
—
the daughters and sons of your tenants?

He’d stopped his pacing before the fire and stared unwaveringly into its flames. It must end. The fantasy that he had allowed to beguile him must be put away and his duty attended to. Surely there was a woman of his own station as beautiful and blessed with wit as Elizabeth Bennet, whose charms would banish her from his mind and displace her in his heart. It was time he found her! The Darcy name required an heir, Pemberley required a mistress, Georgiana required a guiding sister, and he required…His eyes had closed then, his brow contorted from a pain located where he supposed his heart rested. He was required to do his duty.

Darcy had opened his fist and looked down at the token, glinting softly in his palm. He had looked back to the fire. He knew he should consign it to oblivion in the flames. He’d stretched out his hand to the fire, the strands dangling between his fingers. Duty and desire warred within his breast. It must be duty. He knew it must! But before they could slide between his fingers, his hand had tightened convulsively over the threads, and he’d turned away from the hearth. Wrapping them around his finger, he had opened his jewel case, laid them there in a tight coil, and latched the lid. Then, striding purposefully to the small table by the fire, he had poured himself a finger of brandy, tossed it back, and let his mind roam until it settled on Lord Sayre’s invitation. His attention to his duty would begin there. It was as good a place as any! He had poured himself another and, lifting his glass to the unknown woman whom Duty would take to wife, taken a sip and hurled glass and all into the flames.

“Mr. Darcy!” The hand was finished, and Bingley, Hurst, and the others had repaired to the refreshments recently laid down by the staff, giving Miss Bingley an opportunity to whisper to him under her breath. “I am to pay a call upon Miss Bennet on Saturday! What is your advice, sir?”

Darcy lifted the port to his lips and slowly drained the glass. Then, rising, he looked down upon his supplicant, his face expressionless. “Do as you think best about Miss Bennet. I do not wish to hear the name again.”

By the time James, the coachman, brought the ill-matched team they had been forced to engage at the last inn to a respectfully attentive halt under the portico at Norwycke Castle, Darcy was desperately weary and inclined to regret his impetuous decision to attend Sayre’s house party. The journey had been fraught with incident, not the least being the acquiring of an ominous crack in the coach’s rear axle. Snow-drifted roads had added inconvenience as well as time to the journey; the lamps were already lit at the portico and in the castle’s old Great Hall, where Sayre was called from supper to greet him.

“Darcy, my dear fellow!” his friend had expostulated upon his entrance. “What a dashed unpleasant journey you must have endured! And this your first visit to Norwycke Castle! You must allow me to make amends!”

Darcy bowed to his host. “Sayre, it is I who must apologize for interrupting your supper and taking you away —”

“Tush-tush, Darcy, say no more. Old hall fellows need not stand on such ceremony! I am certain you are ravenous, and the table is laid. Let my man show you to your rooms, and please, join us as you are able,” Sayre assured him with a smile as he motioned to a servant.

With Fletcher in his wake, Darcy followed the footman to an opulently appointed suite overlooking a small, walled garden now buried beneath a pall of snow. Beyond the garden the shadows of night reigned, but Darcy expected that the moat he had crossed flowed from there to the east. They had barely time to take in the amenities of his accommodations when the sound of trunks hitting the dressing room floor called Fletcher away to his duties. Soon hot water and warm towels appeared, a testimony to Fletcher’s quiet efficiency, and hope arose in Darcy’s breast that he was now in a fair way to shedding the discomforts and turmoil of the last several days and putting them into their proper perspective.

Proper perspective!
Darcy mused as he sat back to allow Fletcher to begin divesting him of his travel day’s stubble. His fingers unconsciously sought his waistcoat pocket but encountered nothing there.
What?
He started to sit up and then caught himself, but not before Fletcher’s blade nicked his jaw.

“Oh, sir!” the valet cried in dismay as he hastily put a cloth to the cut.

“The devil!” Darcy exclaimed, spattering shaving lather in all directions as he shooed his valet away and grabbed the cloth. He looked down at the bright red splotch. Pressing the cloth once more to his jaw, he sighed and fell back into the chair. “A fitting end for this day!” For a moment he just looked at the ceiling over his head, then turned to his man. “Can anything be done for this, Fletcher?”

Fletcher dabbed at the cut and applied a sticking plaster, his face a study of concern. “It is not deep, sir, and should heal quickly, but I cannot say yet whether the plaster may be removed before you go down to supper.”

Darcy grimaced. “I
must
go down, arriving so late as we did. It would be an affront to Sayre and his other guests to refuse to join them.” He resumed his former position. “Finish the job, Fletcher. If the plaster must remain a testimony to my folly, then so be it.” His valet shot him a curious glance as he retrieved the soap cup and the boar’s hair lathering brush but offered no comment. Folly, he had called it, and folly it was. Of course, the threads were no longer in his pocket! They reposed in his jewel case, where he had put them away from him. How could he have allowed them to become almost a talisman, a blasted lucky rabbit’s foot!
Good God, save me from becoming any more a fool!