“MyMiss Bennet? Did…what?” Darcy asked.
Fitzwilliam peered at him closely. “Liven up, Darcy. She told him about our little hijinks.”
Saye tutted. “He is in a funk because I said that I saw Miss Bennet with Hartham, and that she was very happy and asked me to pass on her warmest regards.”
Darcy whipped his gaze back to look at him. “You said nothing of her regards.”
“Oh, did I miss that bit out? Apologies. I must have forgot.”
Darcy stared at his cousin. Saye was quite plainly wishing to avenge the bit of trickery they had perpetrated on him. With Saye, it was always an eye for an eye, and he had listed three things that had been done to him. Therefore, he would withhold three bits of information to avenge himself. The lease was one, Elizabeth’s regards were another.
“What else?” he demanded.
Saye shrugged and turned to his brother. “Did you think Mother looked a trifle peaked when you saw her?”
“No,” Darcy interrupted. “There is more, and I know it. What more did you speak of with Miss Bennet? What have you left out? Or what have you said that was untrue?”
“I said nothing that was not true. Shedidsay her family arein raptures about her engagement.” A slight smirk tried to break free on Saye’s countenance.
Darcy levelled a hard stare at him. “What else?”
“And she said she is not looking forward to telling them that it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
Darcy’s breath left him and he sank into the nearest chair. “What?”
“They were never engaged,” Saye said blithely. “Miss Bennet refused his offer. Said something about her being excessively conscious of having refused a previous suitor with vehemence she regrets and not wishing to repeat her mistake. Regrettably, Hartham is clearly the sort of bottlehead who requires a more direct approach. He mistook her entirely and announced an engagement that did not exist.”
Darcy sat still, remembering that afternoon. He had left Elizabeth looking thoroughly kissed—lips red, cheeks flushed, and eyes fixed on him with something like wonder—and thought his future had just been written in stone. An hour later, it had seemed as though it was crushed to dust; that he had imagined her pleasure; that he had lost her again and this time forever.
Now, he was at liberty to dwell on that memory, knowing that their kiss had meant every bit as much to her as it had to him. And dwell he meant to do, at least until he got to Brighton and gave them both fresher remembrances to reflect upon.
He felt a slow smile spread across his face. “You did squeal like a stuck pig when those bones fell out of your chimney though, did you not?”
Fitzwilliam hooted with laughter, which only made Saye pout harder. “Youlookedlike astuffedpig after you ate your body weight in cream ices the last time Miss Bennet refused an offer from you,” he grumbled. “Benjamin and Gerald will be praying she says no again.”
Darcy paid him no mind; he had it on excellent authority that Elizabeth liked his physique perfectly well as it was. He continued grinning as he promised, “I shall be sure to send Hartham their way.”
32
Elizabeth arrived at her house with her heart in her mouth. Mr Tucker had called her there to ask her about the collapsed wall—something to do with re-erecting it in a slightly different place to accommodate a proposed change to the library’s layout. She was intrigued by the suggestion, but scarcely able to concentrate on it when the possibility of seeing Darcy was before her. She knew not when or whether he meant to return to Brighton, but she was desperate to have it confirmed one way or the other whether he could ever return her affections—the agony of suspense had become unbearable.
Her disappointment upon discovering that neither he nor his cousins had yet returned to the house was sharp. So much so that it took her a moment to compose herself, and most of what Mr Tucker said as he led her up the stairs to the library was lost on her. When they arrived, the room looked very different to the last time she had stood in it—airy and welcoming, with not a hint of dust or destruction to be seen. Shelistened with patience as Mr Tucker explained his idea, agreeing readily with the suggestion that would make it an even more welcoming room at the cost of very little space from the bedroom.
“It is fortunate that all the other bedrooms were finished before this happened and Lord Saye was able to move to another,” Elizabeth said. With a wry smirk, she added, “He was rather unimpressed by the inconvenience.”
Mr Tucker smiled. “Nothing that provides Lord Saye with a good story to tell is truly an inconvenience to him. Shock is his preferred currency.”
“Then he chose the right house to lease.”
The words felt less burdensome than she was used to. The endless stream of difficulties with the renovation that had plagued her all summer, making her reconsider her decision to keep the house and her own ability to manage such a project, had finally begun to peter out. Even the loss of the library wall looked set to become a blessing in disguise. She turned slowly on the spot. It was an exceedingly balmy day, and the windows had been opened, filling the space with the salty tang of sea air and a hot, sticky warmth. Outside, the sun glared from behind a dark cloud, haloing it brightly and glinting off the vast expanse of sea. Elizabeth was struck with the conviction thatthis—this house, this view, this feeling—was what her aunt Bennet had wanted for her.
“Thank you, Mr Tucker,” she said as they walked back down the stairs. “For everything you have done here.”
“’Tis is a fine house, Miss Bennet. You will never want for tenants.”
She thanked him but could not easily imagineanother family living here. The house seemed too full of other memories for there to be room for anyone else’s. Darcy, standing with his arms crossed, the slight frown on his countenance not doing as good a job as he thought it was of containing his amusement as he watched his cousin scratch silly ghostly messages on the dining room windowsill. Lord Saye, bursting out of his bedroom in the middle of the night, Darcy looming over his shoulder in the doorway, both men befuddled to discover her on the landing and the dirt from a potted plant sprayed down the stair carpet. Being stuck on the balcony in the rain with Darcy looking at her as though she were a dangerous drug that he dared not try. Being trapped with him in a cupboard and kissed as though he were addicted to her.
A loud rumble of thunder made her jump. She wished she had brought her fan. Whether the heat of the day or the nature of her reflections was to blame, she was hot and in need of relief. “If that is all, Mr Tucker, I shall go now.”
