He blew out a long breath and watched the mist fade in the cold air. “Not any longer. I was wrong about Miss Bennet, wrongabout everything. Now I must show her and her family that I do not resent them and support the alliance if Bingley pursues her.”
“You must pay the piper. What an unfamiliar situation for you.”
He nodded, feeling the weight of his interference, his guilt. He remembered the look and tone in Elizabeth’s voice when she saw through his scheme and called him a selfish friend.
As they walked on, his cousin added, “The embarrassing family came to town with her? And you have to show them civility? Can I come to the Hursts’ dinner too? I want to see this.”
Darcy threw him a dark look. “Not the embarrassing ones, although I could show them civility, thank you very much.” At least, now he knew he ought to. Days ago he would have baulked at the idea of showing the Bennets any notice. “An aunt and uncle from Cheapside who seem perfectly proper will be there, and so will her sister,” he added in a low voice.
Fitzwilliam looked askance at him upon hearing his tone. “Is she not respectable?”
“What?” he cried. “No one could censure Miss Elizabeth. On the contrary. She is lovely, pretty, witty.”
After a beat of silence, his cousin said, “Rather like your correspondent.”
They had turned down Oxford Street and were now about to walk up Wimpole to Georgiana’s. By unspoken agreement, they ended their conversation. There was no need to discuss the subscription matchmaking business with his sister.
Dinner at the Hursts’ still pressed on his mind. His letter was sent, and although he hoped for a reply today, he would likely not receive one until Monday, after he saw Elizabeth tomorrow at dinner. He would show her that her criticism was correct, that he would now be a generous friend, and he now wished Miss Bennet and Bingley to be happy together.
But once that was settled, did he want to marry Elizabeth regardless of the unacceptable behaviour of her nearest relations, or did he want to consider the possibility of falling in love with L?
Elizabeth saton Jane’s bed, rereading F’s letter before they left for dinner in Grosvenor Street. She had felt a pang of sadness when she first read of F’s loneliness. He would never use the word, but she identified the feeling even if he would not put that name to it. She knew that sense of one’s friends moving toward something new while you stayed firmly in the past, of the solitude pressing a little harder than it did before. Although she had entered the subscription only to persuade Jane, shedidwant to marry. She wanted to find someone who loved her affectionately, someone who would speak the truth to her and listen to her opinions.
F evidently felt guilty about injuring his friend and the woman who admired him. And in his wondering about his friend’s love affair, he began to wonder if he would ever experience love of his own.
With Jane and Bingley likely to reconcile, it was a sentiment she could relate to. It showed a delicacy of emotion and mind she admired. F had a depth of feeling she had supposed most men did not acknowledge, or perhaps even feel at all, and she esteemed him all the more for it. She had felt a similar loneliness when Charlotte married and left Meryton, and she knew it would be worse when Jane married Bingley.
It saddened her that F—however briefly—wondered if he was capable of being loved. Her heart told her that he was deserving, and not only that, but he was capable of loving deeply in return.
“Are you pleased with your correspondent?” Jane asked.
Elizabeth heard the smile in her voice as she reread the letter. “Very much so.” It was too soon to say aloud that she thought she could fall in love with him.
The letter had come yesterday, and she had read it, considered it, read it again this afternoon, dressed for the evening out, and now had to read it again. On this examination, her notice was caught not by his feelings or his wish to be a better man, but by his attitude about women who tried to gain his notice. She was growing to like him immensely, but there was something alarmingly familiar about F disliking the intrusive attention of obsequious ladies.
“Lizzy, do you like this sash?”
She looked up from her letter. “You are lovely as always, and Bingley will think so too.”
Her sister blushed and turned away. Jane dressed with more than her usual care, and Elizabeth hoped that meant she was open to the possible conquest of all that remained unsubdued of her heart. If so, Jane ought to know that she should show Bingley more of what she felt for him. Hopefully, the disapproval of his sisters was not too much for Jane to overcome.
Jane asked, looking in the mirror, “Will you pursue an acquaintance with F in person?”
Elizabeth turned F’s sheets over to begin another perusal. A memory pressed on her mind as she read. “I am uncertain.” She felt Jane looking at her, expecting her to say more, but when she did not, Jane returned to her reflection.
F had written:I am sick of civility and deference, of women parroting my interests without sharing them, of women who stand at my elbow while I write a letter and compliment my handwriting and offer to mend my pen.
Any man of character would not enjoy being assiduously courted, but this exchange reminded her of what happenedbetween Mr Darcy and Miss Bingley at Netherfield. Elizabeth remembered being amused by what passed between them that evening. The perpetual commendations on his handwriting, on the evenness of his lines, on the length of his letter, and the perfect unconcern with which her praises were received formed a curious and memorable dialogue.
Elizabeth specifically remembered Miss Bingley offering to mend his pen and Mr Darcy thanking her but insisting he always mended his own. Her mind spun with the fear that her correspondent was Mr Darcy.
With this horrifying thought in mind, she reread the passage about how he had wronged a woman, and now longed to make it right and act better in the future. Could he have meant Jane and Bingley? Her heart pounded, and a sickening feeling settled in her stomach. She did not want to believe that her new friend, who seemed so likeable, so honest, so loyal, who was so often in her thoughts, was actually that proud and selfish man.
Although, if F was Mr Darcy, his regret and desire to improve was as plain as the ink on the page.
She felt restless, and begged Jane to excuse her as she paced the corridor and stairs, her hands shaking as she clutched F’s pages. She could not believe that, of all the gentlemen in and around London, she was writing to Mr Darcy. There was no way F could be Mr Darcy because shelikedF. His letters were direct, but she admired honesty. He seemed devoted to his family and friends. He was knowledgeable and curious. She wanted to know F better, she felt in time she could love him, so there was no way he could be that horrid Mr Darcy.
Mr Darcy would never subscribe. It is impossible, is it not?
