One Thread Pulled: The Dance With Mr. Darcy (32 page)

“We have spoken,” Darcy said defensively. “I am full aware of her charms in conversation.” He spun on his heel to pace the other direction. “I do not
 
glare
 
at her!”

“You glared at her today.” Fitzwilliam countered.

“That is your fault, Fitzwilliam. How could I not be unhappy when you were at her side, enjoying her smiles and laughter? I was glaring at you!” Darcy retorted in frustration.

“My cousin is jealous!” Fitzwilliam roared with laughter. “Perhaps you will not be so when you learn what I have done for you.”

“What have you done?” Darcy stopped pacing. “I do not like the tenor of your voice, Fitzwilliam. What mischief have you been up to?”

“I have collected a token for you, something to give you courage, to inspire you to do better, for at present, I fear she will not have you, should you make an offer.” Fitzwilliam reached into his pocket and paused, raising his eyes to his cousin to be certain of the attention his gesture deserved.

“Fitzwilliam...,” Darcy growled impatiently.

With a flourish, Colonel Fitzwilliam extracted a lady's handkerchief from his pocket, a dainty, lacy one, pristine and white. He held it to his nose and sniffed. “It smells like her. Lavender and roses and a bit of something else, I think.”

“Give me that!” Darcy cried, as he forcefully took it from his cousin. He laid the cloth open in his hand, the fine lace edges dangling off the sides of his palm and fingers as he looked upon it in awe. “What devilish impulse caused you to take this?” He whispered in anger and gratitude.

“As much as you watched me speaking to your beloved, your eyes strayed to the kerchief even more. I thought you wanted it.” Fitzwilliam shrugged.

Darcy held it to his face and inhaled deeply. “It is true what you said. This cloth holds her fragrance. I could easily become intoxicated by it.” He spread it out on the table. “Look at it, Fitz. What do you see?”

Without leaving his chair, Colonel Fitzwilliam stretched his neck to study the cloth. “The lace looks familiar.”

“Does it?” Darcy looked again. “So it does, although I do not know why. Look at the pattern in the cloth, man.”

“It is simple, yet elegant. It shows a refined degree of taste.” Fitzwilliam commented.

“Why did you choose this moment to be both blind and obtuse? Darcy grumbled at him. Fitzwilliam looked again, closer.

“But ... that looks like...,” Fitzwilliam's eyes rounded in surprise, and he looked up at his cousin with a grin. “
She likes you
!”

“I cannot keep this.” Darcy sat wearily in an armchair. “She has certainly already noticed it is taken. What must she think?”

“She did not see me take it. She will hardly know what to think.” Fitzwilliam shrugged. “Any lady who has had an admirer has suffered the loss of some small article or another. I have a whole drawer full of gloves and handkerchiefs and fancy hairpins I have pilfered from ladies I was keen on.”

“I am sure they would have given them to you had you asked, and you would not have had to resort to petty thievery.” Darcy shot his cousin a dark look. “I am sure you meant well, but I would not wish Miss Bennet to think of me so. We must devise a way to return it.”

“Another great adventure at Longbourn!” Fitzwilliam smiled apologetically at his cousin. “We shall return it tomorrow, and your reputation shall be restored ... somehow.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Hostage Handkerchief

A
fter Richard quit the room, Darcy readied himself for bed but found himself not in the least fatigued. He stoked the fire and paced the floor, his mind agitated and troubled, yet not settled on any particular source of trouble; there was so much to dwell on.

Having been accustomed to maintaining strict regulation of all of his affairs, it was disturbing to have multiple aspects of his life so irretrievably beyond his firm control. He attempted to order his thoughts, but tonight they were stubborn, flighty thoughts, and did not yield to the mental discipline to which they were usually subject.

Eventually, he retrieved a paper and a quill and committed his list of troubles to written form, solidifying the concerns that had eluded his conscious mind. This exercise, in one regard, returned a sense of power. He could name them, write them, and solve them, as he had always done. On the other hand, the answers he sought were not readily apparent. The complex tapestry of his situation seemed ever more so with each addition to the list, where his adversities overlapped and interwove with his hopes and wishes in a frustrating interplay of circumstance.

It was ironic, Darcy thought, shaking his head with a wry grimace, that his aunt would likely come to Hertfordshire to confront Caroline Bingley rather than Elizabeth Bennet. He had a moment of self-reproach for this, but only a moment. Caroline Bingley clearly considered herself deserving of social interactions with not only the gentry but with the aristocracy as well. It would be a lesson she brought upon herself, to be brought low by his aunt, and he was loath to deny her the experience, painful though it might be. The thought of a similar confrontation between his aunt and Elizabeth Bennet filled him with abhorrence, but, fortunately, his aunt had no cause to suspect his attachment to Miss Bennet.

The mere thought of Elizabeth's name plunged Darcy into a tumult of raw emotion. Since he confided his attachment to Elizabeth to Richard, the concerns that had previously plagued him, those of family duty, position and status—all the worries that had prevented him from acting previously—seemed nothing at all.

Had these obstacles been removed even one day earlier, Darcy thought with bitter relief, he would be preparing to speak to her father, to declare to Elizabeth all that was in his heart, and to make an offer of marriage immediately. The possibility that she might refuse him had been so far from his mind that when Richard had told him of Elizabeth's belief in his contempt, he had been shocked and grieved at the knowledge. The tender feelings he had nurtured for her and the depth of his regard had belied any possibility that she did not requite his love or even recognize his admiration for her.

Fury raged at the understanding that he had wrestled so deeply with nearly uncontrollable passions over this woman and she was, the whole time he had suffered in violent torment over her, utterly indifferent to him.

His anger was quickly followed by disbelief. Women of the first circles, women of noble lineage—those who were infinitely more eligible than Elizabeth Bennet, had pursued him, to no avail. How was it that the only woman he had ever met who had ignited such a flame in his heart and mind did not see his worth? He knew that there was no defect in matters of status, connections and fortune, so what did he lack? His character was widely known to be above reproach; it was unthinkable that there could be any question of integrity. His mind went back to the morning at Netherfield when he had caught her admiring his figure. He was certain there was no lack of attraction to his appearance on her part and no lack of open admiration on his either. Had she really believed his silent gaze of admiration was one of contempt?

He pondered how, in the early conversations he had enjoyed with Miss Bennet, he had labored to hide any symptoms of obvious sentimentality despite the potent, passionate feelings she stirred in him. He replayed in his mind not only those moments of success in this control but also numerous interludes when his determination to conceal his affections had failed and he had been more open.
 
Had she noticed nothing?

His self-evaluation had been in vain. Upon reflection, there was only one logical conclusion. His manners, he knew were prone to be detached and aloof; his demeanor, at times, arrogant. His air must have reflected the assurance of his own superiority, for in all the ways he had ever believed mattered, he was, in point of fact, a superior man. It was only now, considering that his conduct was the source from which of her opinion of him had flowed, that he recognized any folly in behaving in a manner that was consistent with the actual order of the world. It was his own pride and conceit that had sabotaged him, had set Elizabeth's mind against him, and although he did not know how to begin to repair the damage wrought by his behavior, he convinced himself that it was possible. To think otherwise was not a consideration he would entertain.

Darcy wiped the ink from his hands, and after staring at it for several minutes, reverently picked up the handkerchief that lay spread on the table. The cloth told him that she had felt
 
something
. Stitched in her own hand was a tangible, prophetic symbol of her destiny joined with his. He held the cloth against his cheek, closing his eyes as he indulged in the feelings that swept over him in so doing. He shifted his hand, bringing the crumpled cloth to the center of his face. The motion was slow and deliberate, although his hand trembled with the rush of raw emotion engendered by the act. In one sense, the sweet token of the woman he adored calmed him, although his heart raced at the faint scent of her that lingered in it. He hardly realized that he had pressed his lips against it, his gentle kiss upon the cloth so unconsciously made that it was only as he released it that the thought occurred to him. Once returned to Elizabeth, the cloth that he had privately worshiped would be held against her face, and she would unwittingly receive the kiss he had secretly bestowed in the folds of white embroidery and lace.

The thought pleased him so well that a second and third kiss were impulsively added before he returned it to the table. He spread it out once more to see the pattern and reassure himself yet again that he had not imagined it. There was a part of him that did want to keep it, but he then looked back at the list he had penned and realized that nothing on the list was more urgent than restoring the handkerchief to Elizabeth and changing her opinion of him.

~*~

Elizabeth had been awake a good portion of the night, for although she lay still in the dark, thoughts of Mr. Darcy galloped wildly in her mind through the hours, in alarming bursts that alternated between clarity and confusion. The cascade had been triggered by Jane's suggestion that the theft of her handkerchief had been some sort of romantic gesture. Jane had not mentioned Mr. Darcy's name—that had been Elizabeth's conclusion alone, but, now, the weight of the idea pressed on her like a great stone.

Men like Mr. Darcy are not romantic about poor country maidens!
 
Elizabeth chastised herself for entertaining the thought at all, yet as soon as she denied it, she recalled that Mr. Darcy had looked at the folded handkerchief on the table frequently during the tea. His declaration to Jane and Bingley that he had seen heaven in the little cloth made him a suspect—except that she could recall no point in time when he was close enough to it to have picked it up.
 
There.
 
It could not have been Mr. Darcy.
 
Elizabeth reassured herself, the thought somehow comforting.
 
If not Darcy, who?
 
This echoing question was not explored, for even in her rebuttal of the theory, she harbored no doubt that Mr. Darcy was somehow responsible.
 
Perhaps he had an accomplice. Colonel Fitzwilliam?

'
I thought you were friends
.' Colonel Fitzwilliam's bold response to her assertion that Mr. Darcy did not like her crowded its way into her head.
 
'I believe you mistake my cousin.”
 
What could the colonel have meant by saying this if not to disclose that she suffered from a want of understanding of Mr. Darcy's opinion of her? He could not tell her more, he had said, without revealing a confidence. Had Mr. Darcy been the source of the confidence?

Recollections came to her mind of their encounter that morning. Mr. Darcy had teasingly accused her of being a “sprite.” Was there some romance in such a claim, she wondered. He had said it while looming above her on his great stallion, and it had not felt romantic at the time, but then she had called his dog her sweetheart. She blushed in the dark at how he may have taken it, when followed by her reference to his horse as a lover. This was followed by what seemed now in the darkness to be more than it had that morning.
 
He asked me to characterize him!
 
The conversation, in the hazy light of approaching dawn, had seemed a whimsical moment.
 
I said he was handsome
. Elizabeth, recalling how she had threatened to withdraw the compliment, felt one small chuckle bubble out of her throat in light of her own cheeky impertinence with the man.