He left the table amid murmurs of concern and confusion, but he knew he simply could not remain another moment in that room, stifled by Hartham’sgloating and his own dismay. He did not stop even when Fitzwilliam called his name. When he arrived outside, the air was cooling but not nearly cool enough to calm the tempest within him.
Elizabeth. Lost to him forever, and to such a man! The cruellest cut of all was that Darcy knew exactly why Hartham had so precipitously proposed: his aunt’s inheritance. He would have staked everything he owned on that. Damn it, no such wager was necessary, for Lady Preston had told him the facts with her own lips! Yes, Elizabeth was comely and sweet, and yes,hewanted to marry her above all things. But Hartham wanted none of her feminine charm, he was certain of that. He wanted his inheritance and nothing more.
Was there anything to be done for it? He turned himself in the direction of her lodgings and took a few hesitant steps, then came to a halt. What he wanted to do was to go to her and demand answers, demand actions, but perhaps he had no just cause to do so.
For, no matter that he understoodwhyHartham had proposed, what he could not comprehend was why she had accepted. Was it because he left her? He had been certain she had sanctioned that when she bade him farewell with her warm smile and understanding eyes. Did she think herself ruined—that he was no better than Wickham? Did she despise him so much she wanted to remove herself from his touch forever?
Had he—God forbid!—had he forced himself on her? He had believed her willing, but what if she had not been anything of the sort? Had she laid her hand against his chest, or had she attempted to push him away?Dear God!Had he just chased her into Hartham’s arms with his brutishness? Or was it something worse—was she in love with Hartham?
‘Perhaps it is love after all.’
The vision of the pair of them laughing together comfortably on the sofa rose in his mind’s eye. It sickened him to think it, for she could not know Hartham’s true nature in that case, but…perhaps, in spite of everything, Elizabeth was in love.
And not with him.
21
Much later that same night, Darcy lay rigid upon his bed, the faint glow of the lamp he had not yet extinguished serving to illuminate the water-stained ceiling. He had remained at the house that night, first dining with Georgiana and taking her for a short promenade about the Steyne, and then reading with her until she declared that he looked as tired as she felt and suggested that they both retire early. He had not argued and had come to his bed directly, bringing brandy with him in hopes of deep slumber. Instead, he had got quite the opposite: wide-eyed wakefulness, long into the early hours.
Engaged.Even the word itself was a torment. Elizabeth Bennet—his Elizabeth, though she had never been his, not truly—bound to that insufferable fop, Hartham. What could she possibly see in such a creature? Try as he might, he still could not comprehend, after asking himself the same question for hours upon hours uponhours, why Elizabeth had accepted him.
And she had indeed accepted him. Hard on the heels of kissing him in the cupboard, she had very nearly run into Hartham’s arms. Miss Hawkridge had confirmed it when Fitzwilliam, in a valiant but ultimately vain attempt to allay Darcy’s worst fears, had called on her to ask how and when the proposal could possibly have happened in the short time since they left the house. She had explained how she came upon them in the vestibule, standing very close to one another, Elizabeth’s hands clasped in Hartham’s, and he boasting of their having been ‘speaking about their future’. She also reported that Elizabeth was dreamy-eyed and scarcely able to speak the entire drive back to Mrs Millhouse’s.
A small moan escaped him. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, as if he might physically push away the image of Elizabeth with Hartham.
The memory of her lips beneath his own, soft and yielding for one stolen moment, haunted him more cruelly than any spectre. Who knew where it would have ended had the trunk not toppled from its perch to curtail their passion. It had crossed his mind more than once—incessantly—in the hour immediately afterwards, that it would now be his privilege to discover the answer. Then Hartham had arrived to crush his hopes, and he was sick to his stomach with the knowledge that not even Elizabeth herself would ever discover where her passion might take her in a heated moment—not with a man like Hartham for a husband!
Saye had blamed Elizabeth, declaring that, “Any woman who fell to a fop like Hartham was not worth pining over.” Did she know? Had she fallen, was it love, or was it Darcy’s own folly that provoked her to acceptsuch an offer? Did she wish to permanently remove herself from his sphere? He could reach no satisfactory conclusion, the questions circling his mind round and round and never providing any solace or consolation. Perhaps he had no right to either.
He had promised to call on her, but he had not this day, nor did he any longer know whether he should. Was she secretly recoiling at the notion? He could not bear it if he came to her lodgings, only to be received in a polite manner, as though their kiss had never happened, as though the shape of her was not branded into his palms. If he was even received! Perhaps she had told the butler she was away from home to him! Worse yet, she might receive him with Hartham by her side, and he would be forced to give congratulations on a union he thought a travesty.
He had only just put out his lamp when, from somewhere deep within the bowels of the house came the tortured wail of a fiddle, each note scraped raw and discordant against the night. The unknown musician possessed neither skill nor mercy, sawing through what might once have been a melody with the determination of the truly tone-deaf. The sound seemed to emanate from the very walls themselves, as if the house itself were giving voice to its decay. The man would play awhile and then stop, just long enough to seem like it was over; then he would begin again.
And then came the sound of a dog, Saye’s dog, who evidently wished to howl and bark along. Against all miserable inclination, Darcy chuckled, already imagining his cousin’s pique.
He heard a commotion out on the landing as Saye—or so Darcy imagined—came to Fitzwilliam’s doorand rattled the handle. Evidently, it was locked, for moments later, he burst into Darcy’s bedchamber.
He had clearly fallen asleep in the attire of the previous evening. His coat had been discarded, but his cravat hung loose and his shirt was untucked. From the smell of him, the spirits had flowed freely at Raggett’s after Darcy left, and Saye was yet affected by it.
“What in the bloody hell is this?” he exclaimed.
“Saye?” Darcy tried to make it sound as though he had been roused from slumber. “What are you doing here? Go back to your own bed.”
“What am I doing here? Do you not hear that infernal racket? Doesnobody?”
“I heard your dog barking.” Darcy rolled onto his side as though he was about to go back to sleep. “You need to get a muzzle for him. I cannot be woken by his barking at every stray leaf that blows by.”
“Not Florizel! The music, if you could call it that. More like someone murdering cats.”
“Murdering cats?”
“Yes! Listen!”
Darcy made a show of listening as the continued screech of bow against unwilling strings continued to assault them both. At length, he shook his head and said, in an exaggeratedly placating manner, “The sea air can play tricks on the ears. No doubt the quantity of whatever you drank earlier is aiding in that.”
“Sea air? Tricks?” Saye lurched forwards, gripping the bedpost for support with one arm and flinging his other arm wide. “Someone is in this house, playing music.”
With a sigh, Darcy sat up. “You mean to tell me you think someone has broken into the house for the purpose of playing music for us?”
