Mrs. Bingley went over to her husband and whispered something in his ear. Bingley then looked at Elizabeth, and then at Darcy, and then back to Elizabeth. “You are always welcome with me,” Bingley then said. “It shall cause no difficulties.”
Darcy began to think that he had rather underrated Mrs. Bingley’s perception and confidence in a stressful situation. He had thought her too much like Mr. Bingley, who he always thought a bit too much in the nature of a particularly youthful lad. To the extent that he had understood her at all, with her tendency to smile the same way at nearly everything.
“Am I hosting you both as well,” Bingley asked Hartley and Colonel Fitzwilliam. “I only have two guest rooms. I did not rent this house with the expectation of many guests.” He grinned at Darcy. “I’d been under the impression that my friends had their own London lodgings.”
“Ican help you, old fellow. I’ll wander over to my own place,” Hartley said. “I miss the house. I’ll be here not long after dawn, depend upon it.”
“I will depend on that,” Darcy said.
“You Fitzwilliam?” Bingley asked Darcy’s cousin.
“If you do not mind. But the couch here in the drawing room would be best. Yes, I’d decidedly prefer the couch—but no need to wake me early. You can manage thirty miles of carriage to Hertfordshire withoutmyescort. If you cannot, you are all doomed. I’ve business and friends enough in London.”
With the matter of the rooms settled, they all went upstairs.
Despite the lateness of the hour, Darcy found that sleep did not come to him easily. His mind was filled with the shocks of the day, worries for Elizabeth, and the question of whether he could ever convince her that he deserved a chance to prove to her that he loved her, when he had not made such an offer before her true birth was known.
Chapter Twenty
Elizabeth was shaken awake in an unfamiliar bed.
She screamed, with an echo of a nightmare still before her eyes.
The maid stepped back. “Apologies, Miss Elizabeth. The master was most insistent that you were to be awoken very early. You must be terribly tired. What is creating such a rush? You’ll head back to Longbourn without even waiting a day in London. I don’t know that you've ever been in the city before, while I’d been here some five times, even before Mrs. Bingley made me her lady’s maid when she married.”
Elizabeth rubbed her eyes and blinked at the very familiar face of Sarah Brown, who had served at Longbourn since she was thirteen.
“I’d like to be home,” Elizabeth said simply.
“Did you have an argument with Miss Mary? Mrs. Collins, I mean? I’d have not expected that. You both were always thick.”
“Nothing of that sort.” Elizabeth yawned and stretched her arms. She smiled at the guesses, wondering if Sarah would ever hit on the actual cause, even if given months to guess. Fleeing an earl, who was her father, in the company of his son, who was her brother, after she’d tried to shoot that earl, who was her father. At least by law and blood. This was not the sort of thing that even Elizabeth would guess.
“Be very mysterious. You shall if you enjoy it. But I think it is not fair to an old friend.”
“You will hear in good time. But the story is so remarkable that I very much doubt that you would believe me before I spent an hour explaining every aspect and offering proofs for the more remarkable points.Iwant a bite of breakfast; I had no dinner last night.”
As Elizabeth stepped out into the hallway, she ran into Mr. Darcy. Bouncing back from his chest she brightly smiled up at him.
His face had a rough covering of stubble that she’d never seen on it, and he looked tired. He still wore the clothes he’d been in the previous day. They stared at each other. She could smell his spicy and pleasant odor.
Darcy swallowed. “Lady Elizabeth, I apologize for my appearance.”
“No, no. Notyou—I feel too strange aboutthat. Do not call methat. We are too dear friends for me to become ‘her Ladyship’.”
He smiled at her. “Then what should I call you?”
“You managed a simple Elizabeth very well last night,” she said. “But I imagine eyebrows would be forcibly lifted if you continued that...simply Miss Elizabeth. But no ‘Lady’ from you.”
“As my Lady commands.”
She giggled, and he gave her his arm. He then frowned and looked away.
“What is on your mind?”
He shook her head, and did not reply.
That was something that she could not stophopingwith regard to him: Perhaps the change in her situation, at least once the legal aspects were proven and she gained a claim tosomedowry, would make it so thatmaybeMr. Darcy would think of marrying her.
