She paused, studying his face as confusion warred with indignation. And still, that intense focus of his dark eyes stayed on her. What gave him the right to assess her the way a man shopped for a prized mare?
She returned his gaze, fierce and protective of her son whose thumb had gone back into his mouth. She would not back down despite his insistence that she was below his station. His deep dark eyes shifted, lowering to her lips, wavering until by some force of will he snapped his head away, waving his hand dismissively.
“Miss Bennet, you’ve collected your books.”
She would not be so summarily dismissed.
“Yes, I shall retreat, along with my son, but perhaps we might both benefit from… clearer understanding. I am not what you assume me to be, Mr. Darcy, any more than you are entirely what you seem.”
She paused with her hand on the door handle, her mind racing with thoughts of William and his future.
“My son,” she said without turning around, “is innocent of whatever sins you believe I have committed. Whatever your opinion of me, he deserves to be treated with basic kindness. He is only a child.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
UNSTEADY FOOTING
The next morning,Elizabeth stood at her bedchamber window, watching Darcy stride across the yard below with Graham. The stiff, cautious way he moved—like a man twenty years his senior—twisted something in her chest. His cane pressed into the gravel with each carefully measured step, and occasionally he would pause, his gaze turning vacant as if lost in the foggy landscape of his own mind.
Yesterday’s encounter in the library had left her with a curious mixture of triumph and shame. The satisfaction of having put him in his place had faded rapidly, replaced by an uncomfortable awareness of her own unkindness. The man below was not the same one who had dismissed her so casually at their first meeting in Hertfordshire, nor was he the one who had held her with such tenderness at the Red Lion. He was a man adrift, clinging to the familiar shores of prejudice and propriety simply to stay afloat.
“It was not entirely sporting of me,” she murmured to herself, “to fence with an opponent who does not even know we are engaged in combat.”
William’s babbling from his play area interrupted her self-recrimination. He had arranged his wooden blocks in a teeteringtower that, judging by his expression of intense concentration, represented an architectural achievement of considerable significance.
“Is that Pemberley you’re building, my love?” Elizabeth asked, kneeling beside him. “Your father’s grand estate?”
William swept his hands and knocked every block down with a loud commotion, laughing as he went.
Elizabeth couldn’t help laughing along with this son of hers, a combination of Bennet bustle and Darcy determination.
Graham had fashioned the blocks with charming animal figures—sheep, horses, and yes, the occasional dragon—that delighted William’s imagination. Elizabeth found herself wondering if Darcy had played with similar toys as a child, if he had built towers with the same look of intense concentration his son now displayed.
Only to knock them down.
That path of thought led too easily to memories of Darcy’s intensity focused on her—his dark eyes filled with desire and tenderness as they lay together in that small inn room. Elizabeth shook her head, dispelling the image. Such recollections served no purpose save to deepen her pain.
“We shall go down to the music room,” she announced, as much to herself as to William. “You may bang on the keys while I attempt to remember how young ladies are meant to occupy themselves when not building dragon-infested castles.”
William reached up to be carried, eager for a change of perspective. At thirteen months, he had already developed a keen appreciation for music, often sitting quietly beside Mary at the pianoforte for extended periods. Elizabeth suspected this was yet another inheritance from Darcy, whose sister had described his considerable appreciation for music, though he rarely performed himself.
As they descended the stairs, Elizabeth reminded herself to guard her expressions, particularly around Darcy. His parting comment in the library—that warning about how she looked at him—had struck uncomfortably close to home. Had she been staring? Had her longingbeen so transparent? The thought mortified her. She would not give him further cause to believe her some designing female intent on trapping a gentleman beyond her station.
The music room at Bellfield Grange was a pleasant chamber with tall windows that admitted ample light for reading music. The pianoforte was not as grand as the one at Pemberley, according to Georgiana, but it produced a warm, mellow tone that suited the intimate space. Elizabeth settled William on a small stool beside the instrument and opened the sheet music Mary had been practicing.
“There now, young master,” she said, playing a simple scale with her right hand. “Shall we make our fingers dance?”
William giggled, pounding his tiny fist on a key that produced a resonant bass note. He looked up at her, his dark eyes—so like his father’s—alight with pleasure at his accomplishment.
“Very impressive,” Elizabeth said solemnly. “Mozart himself would be envious.”
She began to play a simple folk tune, one she had practiced during her time at Longbourn when accomplishments were expected of young ladies seeking advantageous marriages. How strange to think of those days now—the constant pressure to secure a husband, her mother’s nerves, and her father’s detached amusement. That world seemed as distant and unreal as Darcy’s memories.
The door to the adjacent sitting room stood slightly ajar, and through it, Elizabeth heard voices—Mary’s precise tones and, to her surprise, Darcy’s deeper cadence. She had not realized he had completed his inspection of the estate with Graham.
Elizabeth stopped playing, her cheeks burning at her evident eavesdropping.
“I appreciate your candor, Miss Bennet,” Darcy was saying. “It cannot be easy to discuss such delicate family matters with a virtual stranger.”
