That was how Darcy discovered that Elizabeth knew he had ruined her sister’s life, and what had finally put paid to any pretensions to winning her heart.
He let his shoulders slump. Whom was he deceiving? Elizabeth would not wish to speak to him, and it would be an egregious imposition to compel her to do so by accosting herin public. He absolutely must leave before she saw him. With a deep breath, which he let out very slowly, he turned to go. The very first thing he saw when he lifted his eyes to the room was Elizabeth’s aunt, Mrs Gardiner, meandering about between the exhibits, just inside the large double doors.
Bloody hell!
He whipped back around, intending to leave via the smaller door instead. Only, upon turning inthatdirection, he saw, now seated upon the couch directly behind him, Elizabeth and her companion. Elizabeth began to lift her head, and in a blind panic, Darcy stepped behind one of two large, marble pillars flanking the couch, stubbing his toe as he did so. The pillar made a hollow sound and swayed, revealing itself to be made of plaster and possessing a distinctly inferior equilibrium than its marble counterpart would have had. He grabbed it with both hands to steady it, and thus it was that the master of Pemberley, who abhorred disguise of every sort, found himself hugging a fake Grecian column whilst inadvertently eavesdropping on a most alarming conversation.
“He spends more time than is good for him in gambling dens and gin houses and worse,” the unknown woman was saying, “but none of us has ever been able to persuade him against it.”
Elizabeth’s quiet, “My goodness,” prevented Darcy from leaving immediately. She sounded distrustful, and it drove a spike of alarm into his chest.
“Quite! Still, better the devil you know, and a titled cad is a vast improvement on your nameless adversary. I shall tell him to meet you here tomorrow and parade you about the place a bit. He will like that, for you are very pretty—and it will doyougood to be seen with him.”
“How so?”
“It will stop people whispering that you arepersona non grata.”
“But none of these people will be here tomorrow. I cannot see how it will help to have a hundreddifferentpeople see me with Lord Rutherford.”
“People talk, no matter where they are, Miss Bennet. It is up to us to make sure they talk about the right thing. Do not look so worried; I am not proposing that you pledge your troth to him here and now. You only need to hang off his arm for a bit until the gossip dies down. But if he did take a shine to you, I am sure you could overlook his faults. If only to please your mother.”
“I…I am really not sure?—”
“Fie! I have made him sound ten times worse than he is! He is a great favourite, really. You must not allow his more tedious habits to put you off.”
Who is this woman?Darcy had not recognised her face, and he was certain he did not know her voice, but he knew he did not like her. She was as officious as Lady Catherine and seemed equally assured of herself. He wished he had paid more attention to what she looked like, for he might at least have been able to describe her to someone else, but his attention had been fixed solely on her companion.
He did not hear Elizabeth’s reply, but she must have given her consent to the meeting, for the obnoxious woman said, “Excellent. You will not regret it. I shall tell him to meet you here at noon.”
In a resigned voice, Elizabeth agreed, after which both ladies stood up and moved away into the crowd. Without hesitation, Darcy dashed in front of the couch and out of the door in the opposite corner. After getting lost in a warren of passages and empty rooms, he eventually exited the Institution onto a side alley, and found his way back to where his carriage and his sister awaited him at the front of the building.
Georgiana peered at him expectantly. “Did you?—”
“Drive on!” he called to the coachman.
His sister made no further comment, perhaps discouraged by the furious scowl he was directing out of the window, but he could scarcely spare the thought to care. Elizabeth had just been coerced into agreeing to an exceedingly ill-advised meeting with a man who had been described as a cad, who inhabited places ‘worse than gambling dens’—which could only mean brothels—and who would take pleasure in parading her about like a trinket on his arm. A man whose name was sitting just out of reach of recognition in the back of Darcy’s mind, taunting him with its potential significance.
It was enough for Darcy to know he must act. He had not protected Elizabeth or her sisters from Wickham, and the result had been disastrous. He would not make the same mistake again. Yet, having moments before concluded that she could not possibly wish to speak to him, he knew not how he was to help her.
CHAPTER TWO
“You have been very quiet since we left the gallery, Lizzy. Is anything the matter?”
Elizabeth looked at her aunt and away again, quickly. Somethingwasthe matter—the same thing that had made her almost stumble and trip outside the gallery. The same thing that had caused her heart to race. The same thing that had given her a palpable jolt of happiness whilst simultaneously filling her eyes with unshed tears. She had no wish to talk about it, though. She had lost count of the number of times her aunt Gardiner, or her sister Jane, or her friend Charlotte had told her it was time to cease dwelling on missed opportunities and allow her heart to heal. She did not want to hear it again.
They were walking past the newly completed Somerset House, and she pretended to admire its vast frontage to conceal her disquiet as she answered, “No, nothing. I am a little tired, that is all.”
“I see,” Mrs Gardiner replied. They walked a little farther in silence before she added, slyly, “It had nothing to do with us almost running into Mr Darcy, then?”
Elizabeth gasped, looking around so quickly she almost tripped a second time, making a mockery of her attempt tofeign composure. It had been the most fleeting of glimpses—Mr Darcy had been stepping into his carriage in front of the British Institution at precisely the moment she and her aunt exited, and he had seemed in a rush—but she would recognise him anywhere, and it had most assuredly been him. Such a sighting would, even in ordinary circumstances, have exposed wounds that lay unhealed and unforgotten beneath the thin veneer of her equanimity. In the context of the encounter just compassed inside the gallery, it was even more distressing.
Her aunt nodded. “I thought as much.”
“Before you say anything, I was not going to mention it, so there is no need to tell me again all the reasons I must not talk about him.”
“Nobody has told you not to talk about him. We would only see you happy again—is that so terrible?”
“Mama would see me married. Whether or not I am happy is by the bye.”
