“That is fair,” I said distantly, for I had momentarily lost myself in examining her face, and I could not quite recall of whom or what we had just been speaking. Only Keller’s impatient cough brought me back from a truly dreamlike other world to the commonplace scene of a posting house yard that reeked of manure.
After begging Jane Bennet’s forgiveness for our tardiness, we were soon heading into London proper.
Chapter Forty-Seven
We arrived in Brighton at perhaps an auspicious time for a courtship. The preponderance of fashionable Londoners were already taken up with their social ambitions in the metropolis, and the weather was typical of April: chilly, wet, and often windy. This would have disappointed most visitors in pursuit of a holiday, but it meant for us that the streets were almost deserted.
Queenie had no taste for wet paws and stepped out but briefly and only upon necessity. But Elizabeth, impervious to these deterrents, was eager to go walking, and we struck out from my rented townhouse on an elegant side street and circled around the King’s Circus to the park or anywhere else our feet took us. In truth, the place was of little consequence, for we were in our private world, often in deep conversation or immersed in a pleasurable silence that did not need to be broken.
This was a proper courtship, I realized, and far superior to snatching whispers between the sets at a ball or the agony of sitting in a parlor unable to speak together without an audience. I was perversely happy we were undistracted by a beautiful view or sunlit gardens. Instead, we were pressed close beneath my umbrella for shelter with nothing to rob our attention from one another.
“I have written to my cousin Richard of our engagement,” I said on our first such outing, “and I have asked him to stand up with me.”
“And what was his reply to your shocking news that you have selected a bride without reference to your noble relations?”
“Hewasshocked,” I said with a chuckle, “and he is on his way from Kent to look you over and perhaps to rescue me from an impending disaster by offering you a large sum of money to break our contract.”
“Tempting…” she mused. “How large of a sum, do you think?”
We were in the midst of laughing when the rain began to pelt down in sheets, forcing us to run to the nearest shuttered shop and shelter in the doorway. I brought my umbrella down far enough to shield us from view and kissed her at my leisure.
“I believe your cousin will need a very, very large sum,” she said dreamily when I paused for breath. We were both weak from passion and pressed against the bricks of the building. And then she spoke in a different tone. “Do you think he will like me?”
“Richard?” I asked. “He will fall directly in love with you, and I shall have to ask him to leave, for he is a personable man and may steal you from me.”
“Do not suddenly become a flatterer, sir,” she chided. “I would rather hear the truth.”
“Thatisthe truth,” I said, and then I paused perhaps overlong, for she perceived my hesitation.
“What are you not saying, Mr. Darcy?”
“I do not want to ruin our happiness at this moment by speaking of it. Will there not be time enough for the world to intrude?”
“I would be happiest if I could rely upon you always to speak your mind and more comfortable if I knew what obstacles I shall face. What better time or place, standing under an eave as we are with no one to pass judgment on what we say to one another? Does your family’s opinion daunt you so?”
“They will not like the match and may well snub you.”
“Is that all?” she asked lightly. “I would be greatly relieved if they wouldnotcome to Hertfordshire to witness our vows, Mr. Darcy, for Mama can be counted on to fawn over a titled person, and Lydia is likely to be in the sulks.”
“And if they come for the sake of being perverse and to look down their noses at you? What then, my darling? I do not want to be enraged on my wedding day!”
“Nor will you be, for I shall not be the least bit offended. Let them be entertained by their disapproval. You know, persons who have been married for a long time need something to say to one another, and since they will have hours and hours of disparaging remarks to share in consequence, we shall have done them a service.”
“You are brave as always. Very well, we shall mark the Earl and Countess of Matlock off the list of our concerns. But Lady Catherine will be much harder to manage. You will have stolen me from her daughter, Anne.”
“Oh yes. I recall, the cousin to whom you were betrothed at the age of two in the style of our medieval forebears. I suppose Lady Catherine will call me Usurper? But how elevating for my consequence, for then I shall have something in common with King Henry.”
Her ease, natural humor, and resistance to the opinions of others allowed me to release a great sigh and divest myself of the totality of my misgivings.
“Lord, Elizabeth, if it were only that simple. Lady Catherine, you understand, is just the sort of person who would travel to Meryton and arrive at church to publicly protest the union, and I suspect your mother is just the sort of person who would knock her to the ground if she dared to do so. Forgive me, my love, for I dread a spectacle more than anything, and I am not yet at your father’s capacity to enjoy the ridiculous.” I fervently took both her hands and added, “Do you see? On the one hand, my family threatens to ruin your wedding by their objections, and on the other, they will blight the day by their refusal to notice you! Either way, I do not like it.”
She became very quiet for half a minute before asking in a small voice, “Will they always refuse to notice me?”
“Do not entertain any misgivings that your marriage will be akin to a banishment, my love. They are none of them capable of thinking of anyone save themselves for longer than a month, and in half a year, they will have forgotten about us altogether. A year from now, they will begin to take credit for my happiness and claim to all their acquaintance that they selected you for your charm alone.”
The rain had slowed to a light mist, and we began to walk again, this time, retracing our steps and heading toward the warmth of a blazing hearth and a strong pot of tea.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I sounded like a wilting petunia just now, did I not? I cannot abide someone who begs for reassurance. I should have remembered what Aurelius once said:‘How soon will time cover all things, and how many it has covered already.’”
