“We should finish our walk and then return. I believe the footmen are setting out the sweets as we speak,” Darcy said,making the children squeal with delight. To Darcy’s satisfaction, the others resumed their pace, allowing him to fall a few paces back — an ideal opportunity to continue his conversation with Elizabeth.
“I thank you for coming to my aid,” Darcy said softly. Perhaps it was ungentlemanly to mention her comment again, but the temptation was overwhelming. Darcy indulged himself. “So, a knight, am I?”
She looked into his eyes for the first time since they had rejoined the party. After only a moment, she looked away, her cheeks once again slightly pink. “I suppose I do feel that way. You saved my family and I from a very arduous few months. I had already grown very, very tired of that lodging house.”
His need to protect her rose all the more at her words. “It was only what anyone would have done,” Darcy replied. He would have done anything to keep her safe, to ensure that she was happy and well provided for.
“No,” she said softly. Their eyes met, and his heart raced as they looked deeply into each other’s eyes. “It was much more.”
∞∞∞
Having finally left the disgusting muddy outdoors behind and reached the privacy of her guest room, Caroline Bingley dismissed her maid, stalked over to the bed, snatched up a pillow, and screamed into it. Her feelings a little relieved by the indulgence, she tossed it away and called back the maid.
By the time she had exchanged her torn and muddied dress for a fresh one and had her hair rearranged, her angerhad not cooled. She had worked too hard for too long to win Mr Darcy over, and Elizabeth Bennet had ruined the last chance she had. Moving with icy, deliberate grace, she walked up the steps toward the drawing room door. She was not sure how, but Miss Bennet would pay for interrupting her moment with Mr Darcy.
Caroline hesitated. Perhaps this was her opportunity, after all. Everyone would still be out, finishing their revoltingly uncivilised picnic. Rather than going to the drawing room, she would seize this chance.
Returning to the guest rooms on the second floor, Caroline walked past her own door and on to the one she knew to be Elizabeth’s. She knocked, then cracked open the door and called for Miss Bennet, in case a servant was inside. When no one answered, she slipped through the door and closed it softly. Caroline snuck over to the writing desk. Surely Elizabeth Bennet did more writing than simply penning letters to her family. Her fingers were too smudged with ink stains to be explained solely by correspondence. No one was that clumsy. Perhaps she kept a diary. And if she found it, surely it must contain something to damage her in Mr Darcy’s eyes. Even a written record of too-great ambitions might be enough to sink her forever.
She went to the writing desk and started rummaging around. There were two full inkwells, along with a dozen quills. Caroline raised a brow at this. The young woman was certainly taking liberties with Mr Darcy’s generosity. It was a terrible extravagance, although Mr Darcy could well afford it.
Caroline opened one drawer after another, looking for anything that might serve as a weapon against her rival. Surely there must be a diary hidden somewhere. Even the purported letters might prove useful.
Yet there was nothing. Whatever letters Miss Bennet had written had already been sent, and if there was a diary, Caroline saw no sign of it. She gave a huff of frustration, but just as she was on the point of giving up, her eyes alighted on a stack of papers that she had taken for blank sheets of paper. Upon further inspection, words were written on a sheet several pages down. She took the entire stack up, discarding the blank pages until she reached the first with writing.
There were only a few words scribbled across the middle of the page. “Kentworth Abbey, a novel,” Caroline read aloud, barely above a whisper. “By Mrs Laurence…”
Glee suddenly warmed her heart. Her mind raced as she started to put the puzzle together. “Elizabeth Bennet is the infamous Mrs Laurence?” She laughed aloud and began thumbing through the partial manuscript. “Oh, Eliza, you are a sly one.” She took what looked like several pages of notes from the top of the manuscript, folded them, and slipped them into her reticule. Perhaps if she required leverage or proof, they would come in handy.
Quickly, she put the rest of the manuscript back where she had found it, with the blank sheets of paper on top. Caroline snuck out of the room, opened the door a crack to see if anyone was in the hall, then hurried out and closed the door. She went to her room to change into a formal ensemble for supper. And although her immediate plans for a picnic compromise had failed, she could not have been happier. She had found the leverage she needed — even better than she had hoped for!
When she told Mr Darcy of Elizabeth Bennet’s true identity, he would never look at her the same way again. Surely, she would be disgraced in his eyes. And Caroline would bewaiting in the wings, ready to comfort him over the shocking betrayal and mend his broken heart.
Then again, such a plan might have disadvantages. The bringer of bad news is often punished for it. There might be another way…a way to convince Elizabeth to remove herself from the field, without the inconvenience and risk of a public scene. In fact, it might be simplicity itself.
At the thought of what she would do, Caroline laughed silently in delight.
Chapter 19
Elizabeth sat at her writing desk, trying to concentrate on the words that ought to flow next from her quill. They seemed oddly stuck at a blockade between her mind and hand. No matter what she did, her hero had turned strangely recalcitrant. Despite her best efforts to make her imagination behave and continue in the description she had first set down of the heroic colonel, his golden hairwouldturn dark, and his light-hearted jokeswouldbecome a sly wit. And before she knew it, there she had him — the very portrait of Mr Darcy.
Perhaps it was not entirely surprising. Mr Darcy was far superior to the man she had dreamed up in her mind. But while she could not deny that she was falling more deeply in love with him with each passing day, it would not do to leave any evidence of her foolish infatuation for other eyes to see. There was little chance of his reading her book. After all, he had refused Miss Darcy’s entreaties several times. Even so, Miss Darcy would surely read her third novel. Clever as she was, she might well see the similarities between Mrs Laurence’s hero and her own brother, all the more easily putting the pieces of Elizabeth’s secret together.
Elizabeth ran a great scratch of ink down the few paragraphs that she had written and went back to reread herwords, to see if there was anything she might salvage. Looking through the stack of notes she had taken, she gave a huff of frustration. The page she was seeking seemed to have vanished. Ever since the day of the picnic, it had been missing. Had she thrown it away by accident? It might be so. She burned the papers she no longer needed in the hearth to avoid any risk of the servants finding them in her room while they cleaned.
After several minutes, she decided that there was nothing to be done. She would have to start over with the section she had been writing. Crumpling the page, Elizabeth let it fall to the floor, pulling out a new sheet. She glanced at the manuscript beside her, laid face down so she might keep the pages in order. Not that there was much of an order yet. Mr Tilney would be horrified if he were to see how her manuscript was shaping up. Elizabeth had already missed the original deadline handily, thanks to the fire.
Of course, Mr Tilney knew that losing everything she owned, including the manuscript itself, could not help but delay her. He had merely said gently that the sooner she could complete the book and submit it to her editors, the better. But she still felt rushed, knowing that he would want to start marketing the new book as soon as possible, and getting his contracts ready with the distributors.
Elizabeth let out a sigh of frustration. These worries were not helping the ideas to flow. She despaired of ever finishing the manuscript at this rate. “Come on, Elizabeth,” she whispered. “You must focus.”
She propped her head in her hands and looked at the blank page. She started to scribble away, but once again, Mr Darcy rose before her in her mind’s eye. From his dry wit to the kindness that seemed as much a part of him as the colourof his eyes, he was unlike any man she had ever met. Surely her readers would love him just as much as she was beginning to. Perhaps she should not resist the temptation to make him a part of her book. Even if Miss Darcy recognised certain aspects that reminded her of her brother, surely she would not make the connection between Elizabeth and Mrs Laurence? But therein lay the rub. It could not help but add to the risk of her secret being discovered.
Any risk was unacceptable. Elizabeth did not think she could bear the look of betrayal she would surely see on her young friend’s face if she found out Elizabeth had lied to her, nor the disappointment in Mr Darcy’s face.
Suddenly, someone burst into her room without even knocking. Elizabeth jumped a little in her surprise. She turned in her seat, thinking it was her little cousins. “Boys! My goodness, you frightened me —”
Elizabeth halted upon seeing Caroline Bingley standing in her doorway. She stood hurriedly, nearly upending the edge of the little writing desk. “Miss Bingley. I was just finishing a letter to one of my sisters. If you would be so good as to wait, I will be with you directly.” She tried to step in front of her manuscript, which was out for all to see. She silently berated herself now for not locking the door. But how was she to know Miss Bingley would come bursting through it without knocking?
