Elizabeth took her time reading and chewed her lip pensively as she did. The hand in which she held the note was rested on the bed, and close enough that Darcy had only to extend his forefinger to gently brush the back of it to gain her attention. She looked up to meet his gaze over the top of the page, and he raised an eyebrow in query as to her thoughts.
She let out a short sigh. “My good friend Charlotte Collins once said she thought your pride was justified because you had much of which to be proud. I think she may have been right. I mistook you when you defended your pride at Netherfield. I thought you meant to justify your hubris, which is avery different thing and not at all commendable. This”—she indicated what he had written with a glance—“is a very fine sort of pride indeed.”
Darcy frowned, and although aware that he was fixing on the wrong part of what she said, could not help but reply, “Charlotte Collins? Not Lucas?”
“Oh, yes. She has recently married.”
Darcy could hardly keep his countenance. “Not to your cousin?”
“Aye, to my cousin—and you may well pull that face. I did try to talk her out of it, for I know he will not make her happy, but she was convinced he—or at least the situation that comes with him—would do for her. She deserved so much better, though! To be partnered with such an obsequious, vain man forever—and knowing that his affection for her was the work of less than four-and-twenty hours and the result of a rejection from another—it was a wretched beginning!”
Feeling a frisson of wariness, Darcy picked up the pen and reached for a new sheet of paper.
By whom had he so recently been rejected?
She winced ruefully when he showed her, though her eyes danced with amusement, and she laughed lightly as she confessed, “Me.”
A gulf opened up in Darcy’s chest. He felt winded and tried to disguise it by drinking some water, though he suspected anybody with half a mind to look for it would have seen his discomposure.
“It is one of the reasons I decided to travel to London early,” Elizabeth went on. “I have not been much in my mother’s favour since I refused him. I have felt terribly guilty about it since, for he is the heir to Longbourn, and I have done myfamily a great disservice in not securing all our futures. Jane would have done it, I am sure. Indeed, I believe Mr Collins could not have chosen a more intractable Bennet sister on whom to pin his hopes, for I think even Lydia would have said yes, if only that it would have meant she was married before the rest of us.”
“Why did you say no?” Darcy asked, then held his breath.
“Because he is ridiculous, and I have too much respect for myself to submit to such a man.”
He let out his breath and almost gagged on the laugh that tried to escape with it, directed fully at himself for the absurd hope that her answer would amount to a confession of longing for him. “What did your father say?”
She smiled widely. “That if I married Mr Collins, he would never speak to me again.”
Darcy’s estimation of Mr Bennet increased tenfold in an instant. His opinion ofMrsBennet remained unchanged, for it was not the first time he had witnessed her attempt to push one of her daughters into a match to which the lady in question was not inclined.
Perhaps your being unaccounted for will better dispose your mother to forgiveness upon your return.
“I should think it will better dispose her to achieve her life’s ambition of depleting Hertfordshire’s entire supply of smelling salts, but one never knows.”
Darcy could not repress his laughter this time, or the horrible wet clack of his closing throat, or the pain that shot up to the roof of his mouth and curdled the contents of his stomach.
“My apologies,” Elizabeth said contritely. “It is ungenerous of me to make you laugh—and even more ungenerous totease my mother. Lord knows she can be a little hysterical on occasion, but she cares a great deal for all of us. She will be very worried about me.”
Darcy could have kicked himself for having returned her to worrying about the very thing from which he had been attempting to distract her. Doing his utmost to ignore the renewed pain in his neck, he wrote,
Their concern will be short-lived. It cannot be long before the snow begins to melt and we are able to go home.
He glanced at the window. Elizabeth followed his gaze then stood and crossed the room to look outside. She wrinkled her nose and shrugged inconclusively.
“It has stopped snowing. Any more than that is difficult to tell from up here.” She turned to face him. “I shall go down and fetch us something to eat and have a look outside. If it looks as though it has begun to melt, perhaps you could write a letter to your cousin for me to deliver.”
Darcy scowled and raised an extended finger in firm objection. “Not you.”
She tutted and rolled her eyes but conceded. “Very well, forsomebodyto deliver to the village.”
Relieved, Darcy held out his arms. “Would you help me sit up?”
She complied readily, though when she reached to add another pillow behind him, he pointed at the chair and explained, “I meant to sit there.”
She pulled back a little to look more squarely at him. “Are you sure? Forgive me for saying, but you still look very ill.”
“I am sure.”
