His countenance darkened. “It grieves me to hear this.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, do not become vexed about it now,” Elizabeth cried, returning to taking down her hair with still greater impatience than before. “There is even less advantage in allowing it to distress youafterthe fact!”
He looked affronted. “Let us both hope I am improved enough in character that the whisperings of a few imbeciles with pretentions to consequence can no longer distress me. I am grieved thatyouwere distressed by it and that I was too distracted to act as I ought to have done.”
“I was not distressed by it! I have told you many times I care nothing for the world’s opinion of my marriage.”
“Then might I enquire why the devil you are upbraiding me, woman?”
“Because I thoughtyouwere distressed by it—unreasonably so. You certainly made it seem that way with your insufferable brooding. You ignored us all—all evening!”
He stepped towards her abruptly. “Is not discovering that my wife has been intimate with another before me enough to consume my thoughts to the exclusion of all else?”
Elizabeth recoiled, unable to do aught but stare at him, no less bemused than incredulous. Her astonishment kept her silent too long.
“You do not deny it?” His anger did not entirely mask the note of panic in his voice.
“I am unsure of what precisely you are accusing me, sir. With whom am I supposed to have been intimate?”
Her words, or tone, or perhaps both gave him pause. Doubt flickered across his features, and he did not sound at all sure of himself as he answered. “Mr Craythorne.”
Her mouth fell open. Yet, even as her affront rallied itself to be unleashed in its fullest force, she recalled his strained observation that Mr Craythorne had seemed excessively pleased to see her. The insult of his absurd assumption notwithstanding, the burgeoning suspicion that her dear, sensible husband, paradigm of reason and man full grown, was suffering a jealous pique worthy of a stripling boy, tempered her indignation with more than a pinch of amusement.
“I understood you did not care for rumours?”
“Would that it were rumour and not your own aunt’s testimony.”
“My aunt? What had she to say on the matter?”
“That it was thanks to Mr Craythorne you knew far more about the marriage bed than a maiden ought to before she found herself in one!”
Elizabeth bit her lips together. In his defence, that did sound hideously damning. “Why on earth did she say that to you?”
“She said it to your uncle,” he mumbled, “while I was speaking to Mr Thatcher.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“It is not my habit to eavesdrop,” he said angrily, “but I heard Gardiner enquire of your aunt why you blushed so violently upon seeing Mr Craythorne, and since I wondered the same, I made a point of listening to her answer!”
Oh, dear Lord, how she loved him—her dear, foolish, jealous husband, so wild with envy that reason had quite deserted him. Nevertheless, in a long line of strong contenders, this was possibly the most offensive of all the charges he had ever laid at her door, and she would have him admit the injustice of it before absolving him.
“And from that answer, you took it that I had…what? Laid with another man out of wedlock? And this you thought me capable of concealing from you?”
After a moment’s silence, Darcy let out a harsh breath and lowered his head to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Had I felt less, I might have given it more thought, Elizabeth.”
“Or indeed any.”
He looked up at her then frowned, possibly at the grin she could no longer conceal and stiffened indignantly. “I beg you would trifle with me no longer. Tell me Mrs Gardiner’s meaning!”
With a quiet sigh, Elizabeth raised her hands to feel for the few remaining pins in her hair—as much to shield herself from her imminent mortification as to finish the much-interrupted task. “Mr Craythorne took a fancy to me some time ago when he lived near Meryton. He approached me in the garden one day and attempted to charm me with some pretty words—at least, I presume they were pretty. I have never been able to recall them, for it was not his speech that formed the memorable part of his address. His prevailing claim to affection was more inelegantly displayed in the distension of his breeches.”
Darcy’s appalled expression made her laugh a little. She set the last pin down and turned to face him fully. “I cannot say what his intentions were, for my aunt intervened almost immediately. But I later insisted she explain what I had seen. And after some persistence on my part, she consented to tell mefar more about the marriage bed than a maiden ought to know.”
Darcy stared at her for a moment then closed his eyes and shook his head. “My God, forgive me. I am a damned fool.”
Elizabeth well knew how he would now berate himself for accusing her thus, yet she could not be overly angry. In addition to the compliment of his possessiveness, reason had by then arrived to remind her of all the ways in which he had cared for her this evening that anger had prevented her admitting at the time—his concern for her fictitious headache, his having arranged for a hot brick to be placed in the footwell of the carriage home, his care for her wellbeing when she refused supper, his regret for not comforting her in the face of society’s derision—all of it done whilst struggling under a most heinous misapprehension.
“Yes, you are. But you know how I love to laugh at folly.” Unfastening her necklace, she turned to lay it carefully on her dressing table. “How fortunate for you that I am not so unreasonable about your previous lovers.”
