“If Mr Darcy wishes it,” Miss Bingley replied, visibly pleased, and rewarding the compliment with her most winsome smile—if only towards him.
“I do,” he said. “In fact, let us roll up the carpets, if you would treat us to a reel.”
Enthusiastically, she began playing a lively Scotch air.
“Ah, but Mrs Collins’s condition is much too delicate for the exercise,” Bingley protested. However, Mrs Hurst—plainly feeling the praiseworthy effects of her virtuoso performance—pulled her husband, blinking blearily, from his nap. Mr Darcy held out his hand to Elizabeth.
“There is no one here to misunderstand or remark upon it,” he said softly.
Tentatively, almost disbelievingly, and for the first time in years, Elizabeth danced. Mr Darcy was the perfect partner, always exactly where he was supposed to be, even correcting for Mr Hurst’s occasional stumble. It was the happiest half an hour she had spent in more years than she wanted to remember.
10
’TIS FOLLY TO BE WISE
Darcy paced the dark terrace, well beyond the lights of the drawing room. He did not want to be spotted by its inhabitants, not now that Mrs Ashwood had gone up with her sister. He required time alone to cool his heated frame and heated desires, to shove them back into that cupboard inside himself where unacceptable yearnings lived.
The problem was, he did notwishto thrust them away, as he usually so easily could. He wanted to remember, to recall her wide, beguiling smile, her sparkling eyes, the pleasure she had taken in the simple dance. Neither had been gloved, and even those few brief touches had set a fire in his bones. It was terrible. It was astounding. It was glorious.
I am in danger, he thought.In true danger, for the first time in my life.
He strode more resolutely across the breadth of the terrace.Do not be an idiot, his brain lectured. Had she stillbeen a maiden daughter of Longbourn, it would have been foolish enough; only Mrs Collins’s children would have any inheritance of which to speak. According to the voluble Sir William Lucas, the two younger daughters still at home each had twenty-five hundred, and that not until their mother died. While that amount might get themsomesort of husband, he had every expectation of a great deal more than that. His father would have been appalled at anything less than thirty thousand.
But it was not simply money to which he was entitled. His father’s mother had been a peeress in her own right—Pemberley was, in fact, one of Grandmother Darcy’s father’s estates, and the blood of earls ran through his veins from both of his family lines. His father’s marriage to the youngest daughter of the Earl of Matlock had not raised a brow. His father and mother had been virtuous, honourable people; however, Darcy knew theirs had been no love match, but an arrangement made by their parents. There had never been passion, adoring looks, or anything even close to ardour between them. Nevertheless, his father had been a good husband to his wife, and his mother had been a good wife to her husband. The point was, generations before him had surrendered personal interest in order to build the legacy of which he was now the beneficiary. He could do no less for his own children, even while hoping for more feeling between him and his future spouse than his parents had experienced.
Besides, Elizabeth had made it plain that she was not interested in remarriage. And when had he begun thinking of her as ‘Elizabeth’ instead of ‘Mrs Ashwood’?
It would not do. She would depart within a couple of days, and he would forget her. He was almost certain of it.
Jane slept well that night; Elizabeth woke two or three times, rose from her bed, and went to her sister. Every time, she was sleeping peacefully. Her forehead and cheeks were cool.
However, the next morning, after eating a hearty breakfast, Jane lost it all, casting up her accounts most violently.
Elizabeth called for Molly, for broth, for clean linens, fretting all the while. “I knew you should not have gone downstairs last night.”
Jane was sanguine, however. “I did overdo yesterday,” she said. “But I am only sleepy now. I shall rest and feel better by noon, I am sure. Oh, but Lizzy?”
“Yes?”
She looked away. “If Mr Collins calls…I would prefer to…to not see him. Not yet.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank at the notion of trying to calm Jane’s husband, once again. “Oh, dear.”
“You do not understand, Lizzy! It is easy for you, who has her freedom now, who answers to no one! It seems little enough to ask.”
Jane’s assumption that Elizabeth’s life was a carefree, easy one because she no longer had a husband prompted a resentment that tried to flare into anger, but she quelled it. Janewasonly asking for a small respite from a husband who was, so often, so foolish. Still, that husband had sent over flowers from Longbourn’s small orangery, and written her two letters since yesterday’s visit that, as far as Elizabeth could tell, Jane had not yet read.
“It is not my place to decide anything regarding you and your husband, I know,” Elizabeth said quietly, her reluctanceclear. “But I do not relish the thought of being caught in the middle between you, either.”
“Please, just one more day?” Jane begged.
Elizabeth could do naught but agree.
By the time Mr Collins called and she went downstairs to greet him, she was so far past her own panic regarding Jane’s condition, she felt well able to deal with his. He was alone in the drawing room—she did not know where Miss Bingley or Mrs Hurst might be, and really did not much care. But she felt a quick, sharp stab of disappointment that neither was Mr Darcy present.It is only…he is such a help with overexcitable brothers-in-law, she justified the emotion.
But Mr Collins was not in his previous volatile state. Instead, he was slumped upon a frail, spindly-legged chair that did not look quite up to its burden. He stood, glancing up when she entered but quickly resumed his previous examination of his boots.
“Good morning, Mr Collins,” she said, taking the nearest seat. “You will, I am certain, be happy to hear that?—”
