I was relieved to see the expression of anger which overspread his features. “I shall thrash him!”
“I wish you might,” I agreed heatedly. “As though I should ever accept such a degrading situation.”
He took my hand in his and spoke in gentle tones. “I sometimes forget how provincial your upbringing has been. You cannot have been at all prepared for London Society. But of course you shall accept an unconventional relationship—what else is there for you? It would be a waste of your wit and beauty to dwindle into a country spinster, or to be always a dependent in some relation’s home. Even your incomparable sister has done no better than a tradesman’s son. But I knew from our earliest acquaintance that you would be a bright light among the ‘fashionable impure’, and I mean to be the one who opens the world to you.”
I stared at him in horror, my mouth agape, my mind entirely blank as all my dreams fell to ashes at my feet. “No,” I managed to gasp, stepping back and trying to pull my hand from his grasp.
“Come now, sweetheart,” Sir John cajoled, tightening his clasp and drawing me back towards him, then gripping my upper arms to keep me there. “Let me give you a taste of the delights which shall be yours.” He bent his head toward mine, intent upon a kiss and I hardly knew what else, as I shook my head frantically, repeating my denial over and over.
“Hatton!” An angry voice broke into our struggle. “Unhand the lady.”
CHAPTER14
FITZWILLIAM DARCY
I had been with Deane, half-listening to his litany of evidence that his heir’s intelligence was far greater than is usually met with, when I saw Miss Elizabeth Bennet remove herself to the terrace. She seemed upset, though I could not have articulated why I thought so. Moments later, I saw Sir John Hatton follow her, and my concern increased. If it were a planned assignation, would she not have seemed happier? I excused myself to Deane—I think I excused myself, at any rate—and followed as nonchalantly as I could. It would not do for me to blunder into causing more difficulties for her by being indiscreet in assuring myself of her welfare. The door was very slightly open, just enough to admit a bit of cooling air and to allow a person to slip through if they wished. I looked out, and what I saw fired my blood with rage.
Sir John held Miss Elizabeth by the arms, attempting to press a kiss upon her while she struggled, protesting, “No, no, no, no, no!” I was moving towards them before I knew it, and called upon him to cease. In his surprise, he did. Miss Elizabeth tore herself from his grasp and, with one wild look at me, ran back inside.
“Damn it all, Darcy, that was none of your concern,” he berated me.
“It is the concern of every gentleman when a lady is importuned—I might even say, assaulted.” I may have been shouting; I shook with fury. “You should thank me. Had you succeeded in forcing an embrace, it would not have advanced your suit.”
“My suit?” Suddenly, the man was laughing. “If you thought I meant to wed her, you are as foolish as she. I would not take a leg shackle for a pound less than fifteen thousand. One does not marry pretty articles from the backwaters, Darcy.”
I was shocked into silence by this speech. Low connexions and a smallish dowry she might have, but the girl was respectable. She was a gentleman’s daughter and the niece of a baronet, and there had been nothing in her demeanour or behaviour to suggest any inclination towards immorality. But this man seemed to think that any girl outside the ‘ten thousand’ was fair game for debauchery.
A hand fell onto my shoulder. Deane’s face was set into grim lines, and unlike me he had not lost the facility of speech. “I saw you come out here, and Miss Elizabeth Bennet exit shortly thereafter. I came to find out if you had offended her again, but I see something worse has occurred.” He glared at the baronet, who smiled insouciantly.
He held up his hands, shrugging his shoulders. “I shan’t trouble her again. She is outraged by my offer, the silly cow, and I am in no charitable frame of mind towards her—I have wasted weeks cultivating her acquaintance and affection, all for naught. I expect that if I were to try to make it up to her, the two of you would interfere. You may congratulate yourselves on saving her from a life of luxury and intellectual stimulation—I am sure she will thank you both when she is an ageing spinster in someone else’s home.”
My fist wiped the smirk off of his loathsome face before my cousin’s could.
We left him there, cursing and mopping up his own blood with a handkerchief, and returned to the warmth of the ballroom. A few people saw us come in, but there is nothing unusual in a pair of gentlemen taking the air, and perhaps a cigar, in the middle of a ball, and no one seemed at all curious.
“I’ve a partner for the set about to form,” my cousin murmured to me. “You will have to tell me all later.” I nodded and he went in search of the lady, while my eyes sought Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
I found her near the refreshment table, clutching a cup of punch and largely concealed behind a particularly ugly piece of statuary. I made my way towards her casually, nodding to my acquaintances and presenting what I hoped was an air of idle boredom. I fetched up next to her at last and, looking out over the dancers, murmured, “Miss Bennet, are you well?”
She nodded once, jerkily. I ascertained that we were unobserved before I quickly related, “Be assured that I will not speak of what has occurred. But please, if he should approach you again, inform me or Deane.” I glanced at her, only to find her intently studying the contents of her cup. “I sense you would prefer a moment alone. Good evening, Miss Bennet.” With that, I moved away, though I would continue to observe her discreetly for the rest of the evening. She spent a while longer in hiding, then emerged to join her friends in their corner. She appeared entirely at ease, though I knew she could not be so, and I greatly admired her fortitude.
CHAPTER15
ELIZABETH BENNET
I had not dissembled when I told my relations, on the road to London, that I truly did not expect to marry. I had little dowry, no great connexions, and middling accomplishments. If my sister’s extraordinary beauty had not yet garnered her a serious suitor, then what chance had my own more common charms to evince such an improbable result as the affection and hand of an estimable man?
And yet, though I hardly acknowledged it even to myself, the dream persisted. Hope is a base and feral creature, slinking through the darkness to devour any scrap that may sustain it. It will survive the most dreadful calamities, and its claws deal sharper wounds than reality ever could.
Even when I was relegated to the fringes of society it had not seemed quite impossible that some good man might see past the disdain of one insufferable fellow and his many eager hangers-on and say to himself, “There is a woman I could love. There is the lady with whom I would most wish to spend my life.” But I now felt that it was impossible, that it had always been nearly so, and that slim chance had been quite banished.
I hated Mr Darcy and Sir John Hatton with every fibre of my being. I hated the former for pulling that cracked door so firmly shut, and the latter for tearing that vicious, mauling hope away and leaving me bleeding inside. And I hated more than anything that I must feel grateful to the insufferable Mr Darcy for coming to my aid. It was particularly galling to recollect that he had not only warned me about Sir John, but had been witness to the results of my refusal to heed that warning. My humiliation was complete indeed.
I do not recall how I got through the remainder of that interminable evening. I must have put on quite a convincing display, else my aunt and sister would have been swiftly at my side enquiring after the cause of my distress. But once within the sheltering darkness of the carriage, I could feign contentment no longer.
“I wish to return to Longbourn,” I said. “Tomorrow, if at all possible.”
My relations could not be content with merely knowing my wish, of course. They must understand why I wished it. Eventually, when we were safely returned to my uncle’s home and the servants had been excused from the parlour and the door closed, I reluctantly told them, learning several interesting phrases from my uncle in the moments following these revelations. Jane was too occupied with weeping to take in his profanities, but my aunt hushed him and, once convinced that he had himself under good regulation, undertook to see my sister to our chamber, leaving us alone.
