Longbourn to London (5 page)

“Come, Lizzy. Let us go back to bed.” Jane noticed her sister still held the dictionary. “Put that away.” Elizabeth shrugged but complied.

Upon gaining their bedroom, the sisters sat on Jane’s bed holding hands. Thus, they met the rising sun, having not uttered a word since returning upstairs. Sleep at the present time was not their friend.

Eventually, Elizabeth rose to dress. There was every chance Darcy would look for her on her accustomed morning walk.
How shall I face him?

“Will you meet Mr. Darcy?” Jane ventured.

“Yes, I expect so,” Elizabeth replied, realising Jane would have spied their morning meetings when they stole away by the eastern paths. “If only he had been with me last evening or if Charles had been there for you. I do not know to what further depths our Aunt Phillips and Mrs. Long can sink. What terrible things they expect of Mr. Darcy on my behalf.”

“You must not let yourself believe them. But you are very brave to face him this morning. I do not know how I shall face Charles.”

“Yes, I am brave, Jane. I have to be. Just look at the man I am marrying! I am convinced I am the only one in the world who ever stands up to him. It is why he loves me. And you will face Charles later today, quietly as usual and blushing in a most becoming manner, which he will observe without assuming anything at all amiss because you always
do
blush.”

Elizabeth shrugged on a spencer, took up her gloves, and was gone. Jane sat at the window seat and saw her sister emerge from the servants’ door, putting on a bonnet as Darcy appeared next to the far shrubbery. Usually, Elizabeth ran to him and took his hands without gloves, but now she approached him almost timidly. Jane feared for her.

Elizabeth greeted Darcy but did not reach for his hands. He held out an arm for her, and as if moving through cold molasses, Elizabeth tucked her gloved hand into his elbow, maintaining only the most tenuous connection. They moved slowly out of sight. Jane sighed for her sister and turned away to dress.

Chapter 4

An Awkward Awakening

“Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.”
William Shakespeare
Much Ado about Nothing

Darcy awoke even earlier than usual. His man, Murray, was not yet about with his coffee, so Darcy drank a glass of water and dressed for walking. Usually, at least for the last few days since the announcement of their engagement, Darcy would meet Elizabeth somewhere on the paths between Longbourn, Meryton, and Netherfield, but this day he walked all the way to the furthest reach of the Netherfield estate where it touched the Longbourn property without encountering her. He made so bold as to leave the public lane and enter the Bennet garden. He saw the kitchen door open and immediately drew back until Elizabeth stepped outside.

She looked at him from across the lawn and walked rather than ran to him, producing no beaming smile and wearing gloves. He did not venture to meet her—some intuition kept him close to cover.
Has our routine been discovered? Does she know someone is watching?
When she reached him, she met his eyes, and he could see, even in the pale light, she was awash with blushes.

“Elizabeth?”

“Good morning, Fitzwilliam.” She was still saying his Christian name as if trying it on for size. Other than the persistent blush, her face revealed nothing.

“Will you walk with me?” He held out his arm and was relieved when she took it. They started, not at their usual near-gallop, but instead with slow measured steps.

“Elizabeth? Are you not well?” he asked as soon as they reached the cover of trees along the cart path.

“I must confess, sir, I spent the night very ill.”

“You did not sleep.” It was a statement, for he could see her eyes were dull and the increasing dawn revealed circles under them.

“Hardly, sir, and when I did sleep, I got no rest from it.” She shivered.

“You had a nightmare?” He halted their progress and looked at her. She would not meet his eyes and blushed anew. “You may tell me about it, you know. Surely when we are married, we may console each other’s nightmares, though I cannot imagine having one with you in my arms.”

Elizabeth took a sudden inhale of breath, let go of his arm, and turned away.

“Elizabeth, please.”

“It is nothing; it is just silliness…” She turned back to him, but she was looking down.

He waited. She silently reached for his elbow, and they continued their walk.

Elizabeth considered how she should proceed, for clearly Darcy had enough knowledge of her to know she was in a tumult over more than just a little lost sleep. Since the announcement of their engagement, his observation of her in public society was even more acute and was remarked upon by others. In mixed society, friends and neighbours said he looked at her with a most charming affection, and was in every way improved. But in the confines of female conversation, the old married hens warned her that he appeared to be a very passionate man with designs to be “at her all of the time” once their vows were said. “At her,” like in her dream? She shivered again, wondering whether it was a frisson—
no, what I feel is not pleasurable. I am most decidedly uncomfortable.
She shook her head to vanquish the vision of his leering smile from between her legs.

Before long, they came to a wayside where a generous soul had cleverly carved a fallen oak into a bench. “Elizabeth, you should rest.” They sat.

“You are unwell. You have been doing too much, and we have been too much in company. I shall return you to Longbourn.” Darcy started to rise and take her arm to assist her.

“No, Fitzwilliam, no.” She remained firmly seated. “I know I am slow at confiding what disquiets me, but I do intend to do so.”

He sat again. “It is unlike you to be at such a loss for words.”

“The topic is one having a vocabulary with which I am utterly unfamiliar. You may laugh at me, and I daresay in a year or even a few months, I will laugh at myself, but at this moment, I can only rely upon your forbearance.”

“You are one of the most thoroughly educated women I know, Elizabeth. I find it hard to imagine a topic to puzzle you.”

She was bemused, and smiled briefly before catching the corner of her lower lip under her upper teeth, silent and considering. Finally, she looked at him and gave a determined nod. “It seems
all
the married women of Jane’s and my acquaintance are bidding us consider, to the exclusion of everything else, a subject of which she and I have no practical knowledge. Do you take my meaning?”

She looked most earnestly into his eyes, and he returned her gaze quizzically at first. Then she saw his eyes narrow and his face become rigid. Darcy angry was indeed a fearsome thing, as Bingley had warned her once in jest, but she now knew him well enough to know she was not the source of his pronounced disapproval.

Darcy stood abruptly and began pacing before her
. Damn them all! The old tabbies have been at her.
“God’s blood, Elizabeth!” he cursed in a low tense voice. “Jane, too?” Elizabeth nodded. “How I wish I had thought to spare you this.”
All my work of gaining her confidence, ruined. Now she will expect herself to be like every other meek wife…

“But how could you? You cannot be always with me. And you do not know what ladies can be.”

Oh yes, I do!
He tossed his head back, losing his hat. “Ladies! Ha! Ladies you call them. I could easily, aye and joyfully, wring the neck of every one of them.”

This conjured a mental picture for Elizabeth that she found deeply gratifying, and she smiled. Then she started giggling, and finally she laughed at the image of Fitzwilliam Darcy, in evening clothes for some reason, throttling her Aunt Phillips.
Oh, yes, a scenario devoutly to be wished.
Her eyes were dancing with merriment, and she shared
this
vision with him when he turned to look at her as if she had lost what little was left of her wits.

“I am heartily glad to see you smile, but I assure you, I am serious. Who has been telling you these strange tales?”

“Honestly, Fitzwilliam, every one of the married ladies I know has importuned me in some way. Jane was at Netherfield yesterday, so goodness only knows what she has been privy to that I have not.”

“Surely Louisa would not speak so in front of both her sister
and
Jane?”

“Fitzwilliam, think on it. Does Caroline not appear to know more than she ought? I think so, and I lay it at Louisa’s door. Then there is Charlotte Collins, from whom I had a letter yesterday, stating she and my cousin will be here in a few days to stay with the Lucases until our wedding. You may well imagine my trepidation about
her
advice.”

“God in heaven,” Darcy swore again, shaking his head.

“Last night, Jane and I conferred, and as you know us well, you may imagine we have decided on differing strategies to see us through until the wedding.”

“Dare I ask?”

“Jane’s strategy is to try to avoid the old hens, not read any letters we might receive from Lydia”—here Darcy interrupted with a louder, meatier oath — “and in general, she means to attempt, through her natural serenity and trust in Charles, to meet her wedding day with some measure of equanimity.”

“Sadly, this is entirely too passive a plan for my Elizabeth.” Darcy smiled and sat down again. “I both love and fear that you are so inquisitive.”

“Yes, sir, you may depend upon it. I am bent on such research as I can manage and yet maintain my—our—dignity.” She nodded her head, determined.

“Elizabeth, I truly do shudder to think…” He took her hand, removed its glove, and held it in his. “I pray you, dearest Elizabeth, do not pursue this. It is for you and me to find our way. That is what is proper.”

“If I am to judge from what I have already heard, I comprehend this is not an unimportant part of married life. I have received so much conflicting information that I am not able to ignore it. Like you, I find it unpleasant to be made sport of when I am at such a disadvantage. And I am not without resources.” She lifted her chin.

Darcy was filled with foreboding. “You are not?”

“I plan to write to my Aunt Gardiner. She has a happy marriage and shall not seek to jest at my expense. What she is unwilling to commit to writing, I shall ask her to say to me in private conference when she and my uncle arrive in a week.”

Darcy sighed in relief. Mrs. Gardiner was indeed the most sensible woman he knew in Elizabeth’s family— or in his own, for that matter. Perhaps not too much harm could come of this.

“And then there are Papa’s books.”

“What?” Darcy was incredulous. “Your father keeps…” He nearly sputtered “erotica,” but stopped himself. “Your father keeps such books in his library?”

“Yes, there are two books secreted in his desk where we daughters are forbidden.”

“For all the good forbidding has done…”

“Oh, I found them years ago.”

He saw she was ineffectively attempting nonchalance and nodded for her to proceed.

“And have not looked at them since. But after last night, the evening party at Lucas Lodge—it was uncommonly arduous and provoked a most disquieting dream.”

Aha! She has admitted it!

Elizabeth paused and drew in a deep breath. “When I awoke in the night, I sought the books. Jane followed me. It is
my
intention to make a study of them, but she will not.”

“Dear God, Elizabeth, is there anything I can say to dissuade you?”

“I imagine not.”

“What can you tell me about the books?”

She offered with a shrug, “One is French and quite silly, but there may be some facts buried within the cartoons. The other is more foreign. The language is nothing I have the means to translate, but it has many drawings.”

Darcy was blushing.
This gets worse and worse; nothing good can come of it
. “If you will not obey your father and leave them alone, is there anything I can say,
anything
, to halt your research?”

Her chin lifted further, defiant. She blurted, “Am I correct that you are not a virgin, Mr. Darcy?”

There it was, the question he dreaded most. And worse, he was Mr. Darcy again. She was asking him the most intimate question he could imagine as if it were an accusation.

The silence was heavy between them, and Elizabeth could barely breathe. She had inferred from overheard snippets of conversations with his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam and with Bingley—many things were said in a billiard room that a woman with keen hearing might find useful—that Darcy experienced some adventures of a carnal nature during his grand tour of the continent after his university years. She prayed he would not lie.

“I shall answer your question, but first I must say this. Our experiences, relative to each other, ought not to be a source of competition. It would be an unpropitious foundation for a marriage.”