“And this belongs to Mr Darcy.” She held out the bundle of cloth in her arms, which turned out to be one of the master’s finely tailored coats, scrunched into a soggy ball.
Mrs Reynolds shook it out disdainfully and made a point of draping it carefully over her arm. “I shall see that he gets it.”
Miss Bennet did not move, which might have worked, for Mrs Reynolds had neither the strength nor the gall to physically evict her. But then she attempted, surreptitiously, to crane her neck and peer into the house for a glimpse of her quarry, and Mrs Reynolds made up her mind. Though it opposed every ounce of her training and every principle of her position, she shut the front door in Miss Bennet’s face. The young woman’s eyes widened in disbelief, then she shook, as though she were sobbing, and turned and ran to her uncle’s carriage.
Mrs Reynolds clutched her shaking hands together. There was no way of dressing up what she had just done as acceptable. The business with the younger Miss Bennet was one thing—that merely required George to finish what he had already begun. This was different. This was deliberate and officious interference in the master’s private affairs—and in direct opposition to what she knew would have been his wishes.
The weight of self-reproach reminded all her limbs of that fatigue which resentment had earlier made them forget. Feeling every one of her sixty years, she crossed the hall, expecting with every step that Mr Matthis would appear and demand an explanation. No one came. Neither the butler, nor the footman, nor any of the girls cleaning up the spilt coal dust. The steward was off, dealing with the poacher. Most of the guests were in the saloon on the other side of the house. If any had seen the carriage from their bedrooms, she would discover it soon enough, but for now, it seemed there had been no witnesses to her aberration. And Miss Bennet was gone.
She checked on progress in the Stag Parlour, assured the maids there was not a murderer hammering at the door, then retreated unsteadily to her sitting room. Her hands still shook as she unfolded the note for Miss Darcy. She made no attempt to excuse it to herself—it was a despicable invasion of privacy. Yet having come this far in her endeavours to evade all cunning, she had no intention of overlooking any more.
The note appeared entirely innocuous—merely a repetition of Miss Bennet’s apologies for her precipitate departure and a hope that they would see each other again. Mrs Reynolds threw it on the fire. After several deep breaths to allay a wave of nausea, she pulled the master’s coat onto her lap and checked its pockets for hidden communications. There were none, which surprised her again. Queasiness and misgivings bubbled back up to haunt her.
It would not do. She must not allow the ugliness of the last few minutes to cloud her purpose. She opened the drawer of her writing desk and pulled out Eleanor’s most recent letter.
I have not forgot your philippic for that other friend of his, Mrs Younge, nor your regret for not detecting her treachery in time to obviate it.
As always, Eleanor’s words steadied her.Thiswas why she had acted. Yes, it sat badly with her; yes, she felt sullied by the underhandedness of it, but when her time came, sooner rather than later, she would die knowing the master would not be ill-used.
“A servant just brought this over from Lambton,” she said as she handed Mr Darcy’s coat to Mr Vaughan. Then she returned to her duties and hoped nobody would notice her still-shaking hands.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
GONE
The months following Elizabeth’s rejection had been some of the most wretched of Darcy’s life. He had wasted many months prior to that moment, tormenting himself with all the reasons he ought not to marry her. In the end, when his feelings had grown too strong to master, he had allowed himself to imagine what it would be like were Elizabeth his wife.
Desire had already left its mark on his nocturnal dreams, but his waking imagination centred on their happiness in marriage, teasing him with the hope of replacing solitude with solicitude. It was not something he had known he wanted until he met Elizabeth. He had not comprehended how desperately he needed it until she denied it to him.
Exacerbating that most painful of forfeitures had been the coinciding bereavement for the man he once believed himself to be. That he might have won her affections had he troubled himself to be more modest, more forbearing, more considerate—moregentlemanlike—was a regret that tortured him still. He could not, he would not, repeat his mistakes.
The ground was a quagmire after yesterday’s storm, forcing him to ride slowly. A good thing, for it gave him time to consider what he would say—and a very bad thing for the same reason. He could not conceive of a worse method of declaring himself than his previous attempt, and that had been the product of altogether too much deliberation. But he would try and find the right words, for speak to her he must. He was uncertain of his reception—what man who had already been rejected once would not be? Yet by the end of the previous day, he had committed to his purpose.
Elizabeth had driven him almost to distraction at the picnic, scarcely taking her eyes off him the entire day. More than once he had convinced himself he could feel the heat of her gaze and chided himself for such foolishness, only to turn around and find himself looking directly into her eyes. It had stirred his blood more each time, and he longed to know what she had been thinking, though he could not believe she observed him with disapprobation. He had seen what displeasure looked like on her, and this was as far from it as was possible.
By the time she came to be standing toe-to-toe with him, soaking wet, wrapped in his coat, and staring up at him with naked admiration, he had been ablaze with desire. Never had he wished to kiss anyone as much as he wanted to kiss her in that moment. He had not allowed his thoughts to go further; nevertheless, it had still been necessary for him to retreat into privacy to regain his equanimity when he returned to Pemberley, proving what he already knew—that if he never succeeded in winning Elizabeth’s hand, he would be utterly useless to the rest of the world.
As he had climbed into his bed that night, desire had been replaced with a different but equally intense longing. He had missed dinner, making do with a light supper in his room, for his evening had not gone at all to plan. The first part of it was passed in the gamekeeper’s cold, damp cabin, along with his steward and an exceedingly disgruntled magistrate, deciding what was to be done with a poacher Sheldon had apprehended. After that came Ferguson’s grim report of the fiasco at the dig, a brewing disagreement with the stone mason over rates, and the difficulty of finding suitably secure storage for the contents of the library.
Such was ever the way. There were always problems to solve, always decisions to be made. He no longer wanted to make them alone. He wanted Elizabeth there to reassure him with kind words or to comfort him with her touch. He wanted, instead of climbing into an empty bed after a difficult night such as that, to climb into her arms. He had resolved, before he closed his eyes, that he would not allow her to leave Derbyshire without knowing his affections and wishes were unchanged. As he turned his horse onto Lambton’s main thoroughfare that morning, he hoped to God it would be enough.
* * *
“What do you meangone?”
“They left yesterday, early evening.”
“Are they coming back?”
“They did not say so. Mr Gardiner settled his account in full.”
It required every ounce of Darcy’s self-control to keep his voice steady. “I understood they were not planning to leave until tomorrow. Was there some emergency?”
“None they deigned to tell me about, sir.”
“Did they seem distressed?”
“They were keen to be gone, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
