Duty and Desire Page 12

  He had caressed the threads delicately between his thumb and forefinger as he then turned his mind to her other attractions. For the intelligence he had seen mirrored in those enigmatic eyes he had found testimony in a wit that had engaged his own sharply, substantially, in a manner that pierced him to the bone and left him tingling. Her bold ability to rise to his every challenge and meet him with acuity that was feminine in its contours yet unsullied with coquetry answered his ideas of what true companionship might be between a man and a woman. Further, she was all soft compassion to those she loved. Time and again he had been witness to it. Even, though he hated to admit it, in the interest she showed in that blackguard Wickham it was quite evident that in Elizabeth Bennet there dwelt no pretense, no artifice or deceit. She was herself, as she met the world, as she met him. As she came to him…

  He had closed his hand tightly around the silken strands at the realization of what he was doing to himself. Elizabeth Bennet was not coming to him. What was he thinking? He’d risen from his seat by the hearth in his bedchamber and paced the length of the room. Nothing had changed in her situation. Her place in society, her connections, the deplorable state of her immediate family all remained insuperable barriers to the contemplation of a union. He had imagined the reactions of his relations and friends.

  The Bennets of Hertfordshire? Who are they that the name of Darcy should be so degraded, its interests so diverted to loss? Think not only of the interest not acquired through a proper marriage. Would you lose all that your family has achieved in the course of generations? Further, shall such a mistress of Pemberley be received? Will you not, in time, regret the confined society such a wife would impose? And what of any issue of this misalliance? Who will they wed — the daughters and sons of your tenants?

  He’d stopped his pacing before the fire and stared unwaveringly into its flames. It must end. The fantasy that he had allowed to beguile him must be put away and his duty attended to. Surely there was a woman of his own station as beautiful and blessed with wit as Elizabeth Bennet, whose charms would banish her from his mind and displace her in his heart. It was time he found her! The Darcy name required an heir, Pemberley required a mistress, Georgiana required a guiding sister, and he required…His eyes had closed then, his brow contorted from a pain located where he supposed his heart rested. He was required to do his duty.

  Darcy had opened his fist and looked down at the token, glinting softly in his palm. He had looked back to the fire. He knew he should consign it to oblivion in the flames. He’d stretched out his hand to the fire, the strands dangling between his fingers. Duty and desire warred within his breast. It must be duty. He knew it must! But before they could slide between his fingers, his hand had tightened convulsively over the threads, and he’d turned away from the hearth. Wrapping them around his finger, he had opened his jewel case, laid them there in a tight coil, and latched the lid. Then, striding purposefully to the small table by the fire, he had poured himself a finger of brandy, tossed it back, and let his mind roam until it settled on Lord Sayre’s invitation. His attention to his duty would begin there. It was as good a place as any! He had poured himself another and, lifting his glass to the unknown woman whom Duty would take to wife, taken a sip and hurled glass and all into the flames.

  “Mr. Darcy!” The hand was finished, and Bingley, Hurst, and the others had repaired to the refreshments recently laid down by the staff, giving Miss Bingley an opportunity to whisper to him under her breath. “I am to pay a call upon Miss Bennet on Saturday! What is your advice, sir?”

  Darcy lifted the port to his lips and slowly drained the glass. Then, rising, he looked down upon his supplicant, his face expressionless. “Do as you think best about Miss Bennet. I do not wish to hear the name again.”

  By the time James, the coachman, brought the ill-matched team they had been forced to engage at the last inn to a respectfully attentive halt under the portico at Norwycke Castle, Darcy was desperately weary and inclined to regret his impetuous decision to attend Sayre’s house party. The journey had been fraught with incident, not the least being the acquiring of an ominous crack in the coach’s rear axle. Snow-drifted roads had added inconvenience as well as time to the journey; the lamps were already lit at the portico and in the castle’s old Great Hall, where Sayre was called from supper to greet him.

  “Darcy, my dear fellow!” his friend had expostulated upon his entrance. “What a dashed unpleasant journey you must have endured! And this your first visit to Norwycke Castle! You must allow me to make amends!”

  Darcy bowed to his host. “Sayre, it is I who must apologize for interrupting your supper and taking you away —”

  “Tush-tush, Darcy, say no more. Old hall fellows need not stand on such ceremony! I am certain you are ravenous, and the table is laid. Let my man show you to your rooms, and please, join us as you are able,” Sayre assured him with a smile as he motioned to a servant.

  With Fletcher in his wake, Darcy followed the footman to an opulently appointed suite overlooking a small, walled garden now buried beneath a pall of snow. Beyond the garden the shadows of night reigned, but Darcy expected that the moat he had crossed flowed from there to the east. They had barely time to take in the amenities of his accommodations when the sound of trunks hitting the dressing room floor called Fletcher away to his duties. Soon hot water and warm towels appeared, a testimony to Fletcher’s quiet efficiency, and hope arose in Darcy’s breast that he was now in a fair way to shedding the discomforts and turmoil of the last several days and putting them into their proper perspective.

  Proper perspective! Darcy mused as he sat back to allow Fletcher to begin divesting him of his travel day’s stubble. His fingers unconsciously sought his waistcoat pocket but encountered nothing there. What? He started to sit up and then caught himself, but not before Fletcher’s blade nicked his jaw.

  “Oh, sir!” the valet cried in dismay as he hastily put a cloth to the cut.

  “The devil!” Darcy exclaimed, spattering shaving lather in all directions as he shooed his valet away and grabbed the cloth. He looked down at the bright red splotch. Pressing the cloth once more to his jaw, he sighed and fell back into the chair. “A fitting end for this day!” For a moment he just looked at the ceiling over his head, then turned to his man. “Can anything be done for this, Fletcher?”

  Fletcher dabbed at the cut and applied a sticking plaster, his face a study of concern. “It is not deep, sir, and should heal quickly, but I cannot say yet whether the plaster may be removed before you go down to supper.”

  Darcy grimaced. “I must go down, arriving so late as we did. It would be an affront to Sayre and his other guests to refuse to join them.” He resumed his former position. “Finish the job, Fletcher. If the plaster must remain a testimony to my folly, then so be it.” His valet shot him a curious glance as he retrieved the soap cup and the boar’s hair lathering brush but offered no comment. Folly, he had called it, and folly it was. Of course, the threads were no longer in his pocket! They reposed in his jewel case, where he had put them away from him. How could he have allowed them to become almost a talisman, a blasted lucky rabbit’s foot! Good God, save me from becoming any more a fool!

  Perspective. Darcy disciplined his thoughts, this time casting them back to his departure from Town the previous day and his strained farewell to his sister. Georgiana had been discomfited by his sudden announcement that he would leave her for a week for the company of people they barely knew. From the day of his telling her to that of his leaving, she had struggled nobly with her disappointment, bestowing upon him determined smiles, which made him feel all the more guilty for his desertion. Perhaps that was why he had begun a recital of the plans their aunt had for her amusement, ending with Brougham’s promise to look in on her. It was then that Georgiana had lost her composure.

  “My Lord Brougham?” she had repeated. “Why would His Lordship promise such a thing?” She had looked up at him with an expression he could not read. “Brother, you
did not ask him to watch over me! Say you did not!”

  “No, dearest, he offered to do so when I told him of my plans to attend Sayre’s house party. He was a hall fellow as well, you know, and had received an invitation as I had.”

  She had turned away from him then, saying in a low, tight voice, “I am astonished that His Lordship does not attend. Such gatherings are, I understand, quite necessary to his natural amiability.”

  “Georgiana!” Surprised at her tone, he had rebuked her. “Lord Brougham has long been my good friend, and although I cannot approve of the manner in which he has conducted his life, no man would suggest him guilty of more than the waste of a considerable intellect. That you should take him into dislike when he has condescended to protect your interests is unworthy of you.”

  “Protect my interests?” she had replied, her fair cheeks aflame at his correction. “I cannot pretend to understand your meaning.”

  “As a gently bred female, there is no reason you should,” he had snapped back at her from an irritation arising more from his own guilty conscience than from fault in his sister. The stricken look she had returned him then had cut him to the quick, and he had cursed himself. “Georgiana, forgive me, I did not mean —”

  “He knows?” she had whispered as he gathered her hands in his.

  “No, not that!”

  “What then?” She had dared to look at him, but he had not known what to reply and only looked down grimly at their entwined fingers. “Fitzwilliam, you must tell me what you mean. How is Lord Brougham protecting my interests?”

  “For reasons I can only assume arise from our long friendship,” he had confessed haltingly, “he has refrained from exposing your ‘enthusiasm’ to Polite Society.”

  “My ‘enthusiasm,’” she had repeated faintly, withdrawing her hands from his grasp. “I see.” She had risen from the divan and walked to the pianoforte. “How is it that His Lordship knows of my ‘enthusiasm’? Have you discussed it with him?”

  “No, the subject has never arisen between us.” He, too, had come to his feet but kept between them the distance Georgiana seemed to desire.

  “Then how —”

  “Your book! Do you not remember the first day he came? I had thought he had forgotten it, but while you played for us, he very discreetly brought it out. His reaction was quite revealing.”

  She had turned away from him then, running her fingers lightly over the gleaming wood of the pianoforte in a fearful silence. “You are ashamed of me, then, Brother?” she had finally spoken. “What my willful folly and Wickham’s deceit could not do, my religious affections have accomplished! And my Lord Brougham conspires with you to hide my oddity from the world.”

  “No, Georgiana…. Dearest, not ashamed.” He had groped for the words. “Uncomfortable, concerned with what this may lead to…Oh, I do not know,” he had finished in frustration, knowing his words were not repairing the hurt he had inflicted. He had tried again, injecting all the sincerity he possessed into his voice. “You must believe me when I tell you that I know the world in which we move, and it has no tolerance for those who step outside the accepted bounds. One day, soon, you will take your place in that world, as is your duty. I would not be fulfilling my promise to our father or demonstrating my love for you if I did not do all to ensure that your duty and happiness should coincide.” The depth of her tremulous sigh at his words had shaken her whole frame, and his heart had ached at the sight, but he had stood firm, utterly convinced of the rectitude of his words.

  “I think I understand you, Fitzwilliam, and you must know, I appreciate your concern for me,” she had whispered when she finally turned back to him, her eyes bright with tears. He had gone to her, then, and gathered her to him, kissing her brow. “But Lord Brougham, Brother!” she had persisted into the folds of his neckcloth. “He is so frivolous, and his conversation is all elaborate nothings.”

  “So it is, and yet at times, so it may only seem,” he had cautioned her. “There is more to Dy than the polite world knows, and hidden in his ‘nothings,’ I have learned, are often valuable ‘somethings.’” He had chucked her under her chin. “Do not undervalue him, sweetling. If nothing else, his approval will open doors through which you may one day wish to pass.” She had not been able to hide her doubt of his last assertion from creasing her brow but had said no more.

  As Fletcher’s smooth, practiced movements with brush and blade removed the day’s shadow from his face, Darcy considered again his sister’s tears. Her accusation that he was ashamed of her had, no less than the reasons for which he was making the journey, haunted his travel north. For despite his words to Miss Bingley and his brandy-sworn vow to himself, Elizabeth Bennet’s face and voice still pervaded his thoughts. He had rid his person of her token as a step toward bringing himself to order, but he still reached for it in unguarded moments, as just now. Since the night of his decision to seek a wife, he had comforted himself with the thought, perfectly reasonable in its logic, that his inability to put Miss Elizabeth Bennet away was only because the Woman had not yet been encountered. Once she was met, the other would fade, perhaps be eclipsed altogether. But it had been, as the Bard had put in wily old King John’s mouth, “cold comfort.” This weakness of will, this lack of control over his own faculties, seemed a torment sent straight from Hades to a man who had always prided himself on his self-regulation.

  Now Georgiana’s troubled regard joined with Elizabeth’s pensive one to further erode his confidence. Surely he was correct in his assessment! Fletcher had finished and handed him a fresh, warm cloth. Darcy pressed it to his face, slowly removing the remaining traces of lather as he tested the thought. He rose from the chair, discarding his waistcoat and shirt as he went to the ewer of steaming water to complete his ablutions. Did Georgiana see into his heart more readily than he did himself? Was his embarrassment by her devotion due more to its social consequences or to his own disquieting suspicions that such devotion was naïvely misplaced?

  Darcy cupped his hands and, bending over the ewer, splashed his face and chest. The shock of the water’s heat was stimulating, as was the vigorous application of the towel Fletcher had laid close at hand. He had been too much in thought, and it clearly was dangerous! Action, activity was what his mind and body required, not these spiraling reflections, these wheels within wheels. He had come here to find a suitable wife, or at least begin a serious search, and to enjoy himself. On with it, then!

  Fletcher held out a fine, crisp lawn shirt that he slipped up Darcy’s arms and over his shoulders. “Mr. Darcy, sir,” he murmured, showing him the evening clothes he had selected for his approval.

  “Yes,” he assented. “Fletcher, what about this plaster?” The valet looked at it carefully and, reaching for it, gave it a delicate twitch. His master grimaced.

  “There is still some seepage, sir. I would not like to see your neckcloth spotted with blood while you are entertaining young ladies. Thank goodness the cut was at the back of your jaw. The collar and knot will hide the plaster quite nicely, I’m thinking.”

  “The knot?” Darcy queried his valet. “What do you have in mind for me tonight, Fletcher?”

  “Oh, tonight it will be rather a simple one, sir. I…that is, you would not wish to begin grandly and then have nothing to show later in your visit.”

  “Undoubtedly!” Darcy’s lips twitched as Fletcher, outlining his campaign, helped him into his evening dress.

  “I regret my inability to be more specific, sir, but we have only just arrived,” he apologized. “When I have discovered your host’s plans for your stay and the identity of his other guests, I shall know exactly how to proceed.”

  His valet’s meticulous approach to his duties and pride in his employment deserved, Darcy decided, like candor on his part. “There is one other factor of which you should be aware, Fletcher.”

  “Sir?” Fletcher’s expression clearly betrayed his belief that nothing important could have escaped his notice.

  “I have l
ately decided that it is time I took a wife.”

  “A wife, sir? Truly, Mr. Darcy, a wife?” A peculiar grin came over Fletcher’s face. “They are here, then, sir?”

  “Who is here? I have not the pleasure of knowing Lord Sayre’s entire guest list. Whom do you mean?” Darcy demanded of his man’s strange response.

  The valet looked back at him in confusion. “Then, why are we here, sir?”

  “Why? To look for a suitable candidate — that should be obvious! Where else should we be?”

  Darcy observed his man in wonder as Fletcher’s mouth opened to give him reply, then shut before more than an indistinguishable syllable had escaped. His face turned pink as he choked out, “Nowhere, sir! That is…here, I suppose, sir! Pardon me, Mr. Darcy!” and turned to rummage through a drawer he had just arranged.

  Darcy continued with his dressing, one eye upon the antic movements of his valet, until all that was left was the knot of his neckcloth. “Fletcher!” he was forced to call to him, “I am ready for you.”

  “Yes, sir.” The valet approached him with a regiment of cloths over one of his arms, a signal indication of his perturbation.

  “I thought it was to be simple tonight?” Darcy indicated Fletcher’s burden.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Darcy, but I am feeling unwell suddenly. These are only a precaution.” He eased the first around his master’s neck and under the moderate collar and began the fold.