The following afternoon, I was still dredging up the words of Marcus Aurelius, still intent upon mastering my thoughts because she…um, my thoughts…continued to loop around to where I had let them wander for too long at the squire’s party. Thus, inwardly consumed, I bounded blindly down the main stairs in search of Mr. Parker, the butler, to ask after—
“Miss Bennet!” I wheezed.
She stood below me in the foyer, an apparition of my inner thoughts conjured into flesh! Good God! Had she followed me to Derbyshire to attach me? My heart began to race, and I ushered her into the salon.
She held her head at that patrician angle she adopted when on her dignity and refused to sit without being urged to do so. Her cheeks were pink with cold, a curl had come loose and hung on the shoulder of a serviceable woolen dress, and her hems, she pointed out frostily, were covered in mud. I glossed over her remark with an assurance that the tea tray would arrive momentarily.
“Tea?” she asked in surprise, as though the prospect of partaking refreshments with me was ridiculous.
This could hardly be classed as the demeanor of a woman arriving upon some manufactured excuse to renew our acquaintance. I surreptitiously scoured her face for clues, and seeing the faint shadow of fatigue under her eyes, I came to the obvious conclusion that Mr. Bennet had died, left them in a state of penury, and she had come to beg for some assistance.
“Your family?” I blurted out with real concern. “Are they well?”
Incredibly, she stood abruptly and smiled warmly at Mrs. Reynolds, who had suddenly appeared in the room. With a distracted curtsey, she dismissed me simply by leaving the room with my housekeeper!
“Parker!” I roared after ten seconds of shocked silence.
“Sir?”
“What is Miss Bennet’s business with Mrs. Reynolds?”
“The young lady visited some days ago and took Mrs. Reynolds’s advice on a domestic matter, sir. She is staying with Mrs. Jennings in Lambton.”
“Who, pray tell, is Mrs. Jennings?” My tone was not unlike the snapping of an irritated dog.
“She inherited the Frye House after Mr. Jennings died. He was in some way associated with Lord Carlson’s enterprise with the lead mines, sir.”
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet came to Pemberley and did not ask for me?” I demanded. Egad, had I really voiced aloud my insulted feelings?
My butler pretended such a question was reasonable. “She asked for Mrs. Reynolds, who had given word that she would receive the young lady if she visited again.”
“Well for God’s sake, man! Send to the stables to have the carriage at the door when she finishes her errand.”
The sensation of discomposure was foreign to me. I had always kept my feelings under good regulation, shielded my thoughts from the prying curiosity of—well, everyone—and was generally master of my physical body.
Harassed as I was by those foreign feelings of both excitement and anxious dread, I began to pace the long hall down which the lady had disappeared. No good would come of her arrival in Lambton—none whatsoever! I was too susceptible to the hypnotic appeal of her eyes, the inexplicable allure of her incidental movements, the way she had of tilting her head when listening to someone speak, and the nonsensical way I interpreted the crook of her little finger over a teacup as a mark of her intelligence.
Pure and simple attraction, nothing more and nothing less, and I could not fall prey to it.
My father’s voice sternly urged retreat, suggesting I closet myself in the library until the danger passed. I, however, stood rooted to the spot, breathing too heavily to be seemly, unwilling to forego a second opportunity to see her if only to convince myself I had not just hallucinated in broad daylight.
Soon enough, she came toward me with an expression of civil confusion on her face. She tried to nod and brush past me but failed. I stood my ground and forced a conversation. She made noises of protest about being driven home that meant little to me. I shielded her from the rain, helped her into my coach, and sent her on her way as any gentleman would do.
Chapter Eighteen
Equilibrium returned to me only two hours later when I grasped upon the notion that we would hardly move in the same circles, that I rarely had occasion to go to Lambton, and that she could easily visit the neighborhood without ever meeting me again. This was a terribly comfortable thought that did nothing more than depress me.
I then spent an entire day cogitating upon the possibility that Miss Elizabeth Bennet harbored no interest in me at all. Perhaps this was the source of my oppressed feelings. I was merely confused by a rare instance of having been mistaken. That must have been the cause of my inability to sit still for ten minutes without going to the window to see whether she was walking toward the house.
Heretofore, I had considered the lady to be a touch flirtatious at times, purposefully provoking at other times—both in good measure and purely for the purpose of making me notice her. In consequence, I noticed her only too well, but I did not like being strung along by the nose. Her manner upon seeing me again, however, was neither flirtatious nor provocative. She gave off the impression of distraction, of indifference that was so foreign to me as to be both extremely flirtatious and provocative! If there was ever a strategy guaranteed to attract me, it would be to find me uninteresting.
I managed to restrain myself for days, and thinking I had conquered my fascination, confident that I could feel as greatly indifferent to Miss Bennet as she was to me, I went to Lambton for the purpose of asking the vicar, Mr. Wilkes, to dinner on Christmas Day. Certainly, I could have sent a note, but the weather had kept me indoors, and I thought an outing would be beneficial.
This was a marvelous piece of fiction that collapsed almost immediately upon my seeing her walking in weary drudgery up the high road. Clearly, I had come to Lambton for only one reason, and that was to meet her again.
I forced her to notice me and annoyed her in the process. Evidently, she would rather not sit in a closed carriage with me, even for the marginally decorous span of only three minutes.
I promptly worsened my standing with the lady by wondering aloud at her walking in such weather, and I was shown the indelicacy of my observation with a cold setdown.
