After a heavy silence, his cousin pulled a letter from his pocket. “This came for you in the four o’clock post. Your footman gave it to me when I said I was seeing you.”
Darcy read it silently and winced. “Mrs Hurst invited me to dinner tomorrow. Bingley must forgive me for interfering in his love affair. I cannot go. Markle’s man will follow me.”
He had already explained to his cousin how he had convinced Bingley not to marry Jane Bennet and had then admitted all the ways his interference had been wrong. A red-faced Fitzwilliam then confessed to boasting to Elizabeth the day before the abduction of Darcy’s saving a friend from an unfortunate marriage.
As though Elizabeth needed another reason to refuse him last Thursday. It was not even a full week since he had proposed. Many incredible things had happened in a short time. Most of them were horrible, but if he could make things right with Elizabeth, then perhaps some of their suffering would have been worth it.
So long as Kirby and Georgiana were also kept safe.
“You might go to dinner,” his cousin said. “Miss Bennet and her family may not be invited.”
“Oh, I think they are. Bingley has called in Cheapside. I bet that this invitation to ‘an intimate dinner of Charles’s friends’ is his sisters’ penance for their role last winter. And if I go, Markle’s man will follow me. They will see Elizabeth entering or leaving and abduct her, or follow her home and take her from there.”
When he looked up from hanging his head, Fitzwilliam gave him a confused look. “Missing a dinner with the Hursts and Miss Bingley should make you happy. Why are you cast down over missing a dinner?”
“Because I want to see Elizabeth, and now I cannot,” he cried, losing all patience.
Fitzwilliam studied him over the rim of his glass. “They said she was healthy when I called on Monday, glad to be with her sister and aunt.” Darcy must have had some expression on his face that his cousin did not like because he cried, “What is really troubling you? Georgiana is hidden, and once this boy and Miss Elizabeth Bennet are out of London, all will be well.”
“Unless Markle realises Georgiana, Kirby, and Elizabeth are gone and kills me out of spite like he did with his colleague.” He had his own personal knowledge of how savage Markle could be, but to know that he murdered his friend in a fit of rage made the matter far more alarming.
His cousin drained his glass. “If you are clever enough, Markle won’t be able to trace Kirby out of London, and he won’t soon find Georgiana. Once Master Kirby and Miss Elizabeth are gone, Markle will go back to smuggling.”
Darcy doubted very much Markle would let this go. “He might eventually find my sister, and I cannot see Elizabeth until Markle is dead or in shackles,” he said with a sigh.
“The abduction was a sad business,” Fitzwilliam said. “And Miss Bennet has suffered horribly—as have you. What happened must naturally lead to a bond, not unlike between soldiers who have faced battle together, who depended on one another.”
“No, our connexion is sincere.”
“Not that your friendship is not a real one”—Fitzwilliam held out his hand—“but you do not need to see Miss Bennet as much as you think you do. You can move past this horrid event without her by your side.”
He had to believe that they meant ever so much more to one another than the abduction that had bound them together. “Ineedto talk to her,” Darcy murmured.
His cousin looked at him for a long while. “What do you need to tell her?” he asked just as quietly.
Under pain of wounding his own feelings all over again, he said, “I asked her to marry me last Thursday, and she said no because she did not respect me and believed Wickham’s lies about me.” Darcy gave a sad little laugh. “I had assumed she had been expecting my addresses. But you can imagine that time in each other’s exclusive company led to insightful and fortuitous conversations for both of us.”
Fitzwilliam’s expression did not change. He blinked and then gestured to the waiter for drinks.
Darcy shook his head. “I have already had two.”
“We are going to be here for a while.” They were silent until their glasses were refilled. “You have been calling her Elizabeth,” Fitzwilliam said. “I am not certain you realised it. I thought it merely because you had been alone together.”
“Well, that is part of it.”
“When she left Dartford, I thought her frantic because she was still afraid and she believed she needed you to be safe.”
“We kept one another safe,” Darcy corrected.
Fitzwilliam shrugged. “But the way she looked at you, it was as if she had been waiting a lifetime for you.” Darcy’s heart seized. “I did not know there might have been a deeper emotion behind it all.”
“And how did I look at her?” he asked, not meeting his cousin’s eye. “Like I felt betrayed because I thought that she still trusted Wickham? That I was angry, even though it only meant she was not as discerning as she could have been?”
“That is how you felt?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly, “but it did not last.” If Kirby had not been in the corridor, he would have paced around, calmed his mind, and gone back to their chamber. Elizabeth would have read the letter, and they would have eventually come to an understanding. They were reasonable people with generous natures. “Did I look it?”
“You did not look bitter. You had your usual reserved expression that convinces everyone that you are steady and above any minor concern.” Fitzwilliam took a drink. “I saw something more, though.”
