“You did all that you could, for both of them. You loved them.”
“Georgiana is gone, not forgotten but gone, and I did not do enough for either of them.”
“No one believes that but you.” She gripped his upper arms and stared into his eyes. It was the truth as far as Mrs Darcy saw it, and when he nodded, she dropped her hands. He wished she had held him for a little while longer. The comfort of the gesture meant almost as much as did her words. Looking closer at her, he realised his wife was as bereft as he now felt.
Darcy placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders. When she did not pull away, he slowly put one arm and then the other behind her. He looked the question, and she nodded before closing the short distance between them. He wrapped his arms around her more tightly while Mrs Darcy brought her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest, pressing him just a little closer. He knew that a few tears escaped her eyes. He rested his chin atop her head, and they held one another for a long time.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He must have fallen asleep again after the maid folded back the shutters earlier this morning, which was rare for him; he generally rose before eight.It had been another late night with the whist club. It was Darcy’s third evening with the mixture of gentlemen and half gentlemen who played for the privilege of boasting that one had bested the other rather than for any pecuniary advantage.
They were a group who found a tolerably good living within the compass of a small income. Darcy suspected the members had lost and won the same half-crowns amongst one another for years. Fortunately, he did not need high stakes to make the competition interesting. He was a decent strategist and had a good memory for the cards played. For a man of slender means, as he was assumed to be, a glass of port or a good cup of coffee were the absolute necessaries of life along with equal society and a billiard table or a whist club. Yet he had gone thrice and was always amongst the last to leave.
He enjoyed the company of the other men, even the voluble, overly courteous Sir William Lucas. He missed his own friends, and since he could not pass an evening with Bingley or Fitzwilliam, he was happy to share a meal with the members of the whist club and discusspolitics, shooting, and horses, and play a contemplative and companionable game.
Darcy expected to talk over the evening with his wife. She would pretend to have no interest in who his partners were or how much he won or lost, but by the end of breakfast, Mrs Darcy knew every detail of what happened from dinner until the whist markers were put away. Her mourning, that fashionable ceremony for public view, kept her more at home than it did him, and he was glad to do what he could to broaden her sense of involvement with the world.
The idea that he was capable of providing her with more than he currently offered pressed uncomfortably on his conscience. He had not explicitly lied to her. And she had no love of money, after all. It was pleasanter to show her small kindnesses. That, and the dignity of a life away from Longbourn, was what mattered to her.
He could more easily cope with his guilt by making her happy. He found comfort in contributing to her contentment, in dispelling some of the grief that settled in her eyes. Their embrace after they received the mourning jewellery had served that purpose for both of them. He wondered what it would be like to see her striking eyes look at him in happiness—and not grief—while he held her close. Would feeling the tight embrace of his arms cause Mrs Darcy to look into his eyes with expressive delight or was the only attention she wanted from him companionship?
It hardly matters. Such things have no place in our arrangement.
He learnt that Mrs Darcy had already breakfasted. He had not seen her since yesterday when he left to dine with the whist club as she worked in the garden. Darcy passed the rest of the morning with a challenging ride on his spirited mount and then wrote more letters to manage his business affairs. After he had gone through four cut quills, having mended each one once, he realised how late it was. He did not see Mrs Darcy out his study window, and she was not in the dining room or the parlour. He checked her chamber, and with a sigh, he went to the kitchen to see what his wife had taken into her head to burn.
His cook was in constant motion as he raised his voice over the din to ask where her mistress was.
“I could not say, sir,” Cook called over her shoulder. “She had tea and toast, ordered the night’s dinner, and then was off!”
“Off? Mrs Darcy went visiting?” If she called on Lydia or Miss Lucas or Mrs Beverly, she ought to have been back by now to dress for dinner.
“I don’t know where the missus went. Patty, have you seen the missus?” The scullery maid shook her head.
An uneasy feeling settled into his stomach. Darcy left the hot kitchen to find the upstairs maid and asked the same question. “I don’t know, sir. I’ve not seen her since I helped her dress this morning.”
His man, who had been in and out of the house and stable all day, had not laid eyes on her since she walked down the lane at nine o’clock.
Mrs Darcy was an early riser. She had dressed, eaten a small breakfast, planned the day’s meal, and left the house, and no one had seen his wife since. She might have come home and then left again without anyone knowing, or she might have been gone for eight hours. If she called at Longbourn or Lucas Lodge, she would have returned by now. A walk to Oakham Mount and back would take only a few hours. Whatever errands she may have had in Meryton would not keep her from home the entire day.
He tried to repress the rising feeling of alarm that built up in his chest.
Rather than dressing for a dinner he could not imagine choking down, Darcy paced the tiny garden. If he sent a servant to Miss Lucas or Mrs Bennet, he would have to admit why he was concerned for her. Not even the most demanding husband would expect to know where his wife was at five o’clock simply because he had not seen her at breakfast. He could not say to those who loved her that he was afraid her heart had stopped beating and her body was in a meadow.
Mr Jones’s letter had said she would suddenly fall down in agony and die almost immediately. It could have happened while she was climbing a hill or while she was sitting in Longbourn’s drawing room. If she had taken ill—if she had died—in Meryton or at Longbourn, someone would have sent for him by now, would not they?
How am I to know if my wife is dead?
Not knowing and not acting was twisting his stomach in agony. He would send his man and the kitchen boy to Lucas Lodge and Longbourn while he rode along the meadows and fields between Meryton and Netherfield’s lodge. He was settling this point in his mind when he heard his own door shut.
Elizabeth had just enteredthe parlour when she heard the door wrench open. She turned in time to see Mr Darcy stride through it and stop short at the sight of her.
“I see you are as behind in dressing for dinner as I am,” she said ruefully.
Mr Darcy stared for a long moment, and then took three quick paces to clutch her against his chest. Her breath was crushed out of her before he roughly pushed her away and held her at arm’s length with a tight grip. Previously, they had only embraced out of grief, and before she could consider her feelings on being held by him again, he cried, “Where the hell have you been?”
She shook off his hands and stepped away. “Since when do I have to account for my whereabouts? Respect and fidelity were all that were required of me, and you have no reason to doubt me on either count.”
“You told no one where you intended to go, and it is unlike you to be absent from home for so many hours.” His words came out through gritted teeth. “I feared—I feared your heart...”
