These Three Remain (21 page)

“Elizabeth,” Darcy groaned, cradling his brow in his hands. She had given every appearance of receiving him in Kent. Her visits to Rosings had been lively and her behavior toward him amiable. Yes, she had teased him at times, but he knew that to be her way. His observation that she delighted in expressing opinions not strictly her own she had greeted with scandalized laughter but not denial. He had seen the acknowledgment of a “hit” in the knowing arch of her eyebrows. Their walks had been conducted almost formally. Little had been said, it was true; but it was his actions that he meant her to read, and she had given him no reason to believe himself mistaken in his advances.

Darcy fell back against the chair, rubbing at his eyes and raking a hand through his hair, his mind struggling to fit together all the pieces of this puzzle that was Elizabeth Bennet. At least she could no longer hold Wickham’s story against him. His letter
must
have laid those charges to rest. If she could not abide him, there was a degree of comfort and vindication to be found in that, was there not? He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked searchingly into the fire. If Elizabeth had known the truth about Wickham, had read aright his wordless apology for slighting her on their first meeting, would it have changed her belief that he was the last man in the world whom she could ever be prevailed on to marry? Good God, those words still cut him like a knife! To her, he was the
last
man; for him, she seemed the
only
woman. Could fate have fashioned a more perfect twist or held him in any more derision?

Darcy rose from the chair. The embers were dying as were the coals in the warming pan that heated the sheets. If he did not go to bed soon, he would not find sleep before the chill returned. Casting aside the dressing gown, he removed the pan and slid between the bedclothes. Would it have made any difference if Elizabeth had known the truth? Darcy closed his eyes against the question, only to see her there armed with her other accusation. No, it would have made no difference; for had he not “ruined the happiness” of the sister she loved? Darcy groaned and, turning on his side, grasped a pillow and buried his face in it. No more…no more tonight! His only relief lay in dreamless sleep, but a ragged night of fitful, dream-curst sleep was all Providence saw fit to give him.

When Fletcher came in the next morning to pull back the curtains, Darcy was torn between a desire to curse him roundly for awakening him and the urge to thank him for putting a point to the disturbing phantasmagoria that had plagued his night. Eschewing both for an uncharacteristic lack of resolve, he struggled upright and swung his legs out of bed, his eyes smarting from the morning light that poured in through the window. How could there be so much sun? He was in London, was he not? Grimacing, he looked at the devastation wrought upon his bedstead by his restless night. The chambermaids would have a fine time of it, for it looked as if he’d engaged in mortal combat. Darcy looked up to see Fletcher staring openmouthed at the upheaval.

“I-I beg your pardon, sir,” he stammered when he realized Darcy’s eyes were upon him. “Should you want your barbering now, sir?” He carefully looked away from the bed.

Darcy heaved a sigh. “Yes, I suppose…” His voice trailed off as he thought of the day ahead. The first test of his uncertain disposition would be breakfast with Georgiana. Supper the previous evening had been yet again an exceedingly uncomfortable exercise, his preoccupation interfering at every turn. Georgiana had sat very straight and still, casting him glances well seasoned with worry throughout a meal that he had barely tasted. Frankly, he did not care to repeat the performance. “Fletcher,” he recalled his valet from the dressing room, “send down for a tray. I shall breakfast in my chambers this morning.”

“Very good, sir” came the formal reply, but Darcy knew that his valet’s curiosity at this directive would be multiplied by every member in his household and received with dismay by his sister. Better, though, that he should disappoint her from a distance than chance hurting her feelings close at hand. He shambled into the dressing room and settled back in his shaving chair, determining that for the next quarter hour he would do nothing but surrender himself to Fletcher’s ministrations. The unvarying ritual required no thought, only submission to his valet’s murmured instructions. The soothing effects of warmed, fragrant towels on his newly shorn face would not be amiss, either. Lord, he felt absolutely terrible! Darcy closed his eyes awaiting Fletcher’s return. Unsettled, lethargic, disinterested — he felt a specter in his own house, drifting from room to room, unable to feel at home in any of them. He could not read, he could not write, he could not even enjoy his sister’s music without falling into fruitless reflection. “With what I most enjoy contented least,” he murmured to himself.

“Your pardon, Mr. Darcy?” Fletcher had returned. How could he have been so careless as to repeat the phrase aloud and within his valet’s hearing!

“Shakespeare, Fletcher. Surely you have heard of him,” Darcy drawled sardonically, raising his chin for the lathering brush.

“Yes, sir. The Twenty-ninth Sonnet, I believe,” Fletcher replied smoothly and began his expert application of shaving soap to his master’s face and neck. Darcy closed his eyes again, eager that the familiar motions should preoccupy Fletcher and lull himself into a state of thoughtless oblivion.

“ ‘Yet — ’ ” The single word hung in the air with no further support. Opening an eye, Darcy beheld his valet, razor in one hand, reaching for the strop.

“Yet?” he repeated curiously as Fletcher set the slide and snick of the razor into a rhythm upon the strop.

“ ‘Yet,’ ” Fletcher replied with feeling. “The next line, sir.” With a light touch, he lifted Darcy’s chin another fraction, turned it and made the first pass. “ ‘Yet!’ followed most auspiciously by ‘Haply.’ Taken together, they make all the difference, sir. Most comforting.”

Able to do no more than make a noncommittal grunt in answer to Fletcher’s enigmatic observation, Darcy looked at the ceiling. What should he do with himself today? Yesterday, Hinchcliffe had somberly directed his attention to a stack of correspondence that still remained discreetly ensconced in the portfolio on his desk. He had tried to deal with it several times in the past few days, but try as he might, he could not focus his mind on the facts contained therein, nor find it in himself to care overmuch about their contents. He could drop in at Boodle’s; he’d not shown his face there since before he’d left for — No, the effort to appear interested in the goings-on of his club was simply beyond him. What he really needed was a hard, bruising ride over challenging terrain that would take his mind and body to the brink of exhaustion. Then see if Miss Elizabeth Bennet haunted his dreams! But there was no such place in London, and Nelson — too much of a handful for Town — was enjoying his stable of mares in Derbyshire. That avenue for his temper, it seemed, was closed to him as well. Was there nothing he could put his hand to that would rid him of this, this — What? From what, exactly, was he suffering?

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes.
The words of the sonnet returned to revolve inside his brain.
I all alone beweep my outcast state…Disgrace?
he asked himself, testing the thought for a moment before hardening against it. Well may he have been in disgrace in Elizabeth’s eyes, but be it in hers or any man’s eyes, that did not make it so! There was, after all, an innumerable host of men in the world who were the greatest fools, and their opinion counted for nothing. Yet — Darcy paused at Fletcher’s word and flicked an eye toward his valet. Yet, Elizabeth’s charge lay heavy against his conscience. “Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.” To be in disgrace with one who mattered; further, with the woman with whom one had thought to spend one’s life; whether just or no,
such
disgrace was a crushing blow indeed.

Full apprehension of the next line came hard on the heels of his admission.
Outcast state…
Yes! that was how he felt: cast out, bereft of any prospect of contentment or joy, rejected by Fortune.
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope…
Nothing in the present was of interest to him; nothing in the future offered him hope that this situation would change. Darcy closed his eyes against the silent groan that began deep in his chest and traveled inexorably throughout his frame.
Hope
— the word, so rich and full, pregnant with sound and meaning — mocked him. From where was hope to come? His cousin had but to wait for the next pretty face to ease his disappointment. The idea of venturing out into the marriage mart for a replacement to install in his heart was, to Darcy, too appalling. Such an exercise could not possibly be done, not by him. Elizabeth was irreplaceable. He’d learned that quite well enough at Norwycke Castle.
More
rich in hope? He derided himself. He was destitute of it.

“The towel, sir?” Fletcher had finished shaving him.

Darcy nodded but arrested his valet as he turned, his curiosity at Fletcher’s words getting the better of his judgment. At this point, any straw would do. “ ‘Yet’? What did you mean by it, Fletcher?”

“ ‘Yet’
and
‘Haply,’ sir.” Fletcher carefully averted his eyes from Darcy’s and set about rearranging the shaving equipment on the tray. “ ‘Yet’ turns the point of the sonnet. All is hopeless before it; then, in the very midst of the poet’s self-abasement, ‘yet’ suddenly appears, a word suggesting that hope may still exist, that all is not truly lost.”

“Humph.” Darcy snorted his dissatisfaction. “Hope against hope: a poet’s romantic solution to what the rest of the world knows as the unyielding
nuda veritas
of life.”

“You would be entirely correct in that, sir,” Fletcher replied, “save for the presence of ‘haply.’ ”

“Haply? By chance?” Darcy frowned.

“By
Fortune
, if we follow the Bard’s metaphor,” Fletcher amended. “Hope reborn begins with no more than a thought; but that thought is able to move the poet from misery to joy. ‘Haply I think on thee,’ and then ‘bootless cries’ are turned into ‘hymns at heaven’s gate.’ ” His voice fell almost to a sigh.

“All this with a thought,” Darcy interrupted, discontent and skepticism hard-edging his words.

“No, sir, not
a
thought — Fortune’s thought. Would you like the towel now, sir?” Fletcher cocked his head toward the steamy article whose comforting fragrance was beginning to tickle Darcy’s nose. Nodding, he sat back again in the chair, closing his eyes against the towel’s imminent application. It landed suddenly in a hot and unceremonious heap upon his face as, in a shocked voice, his valet exclaimed, “Miss Darcy!”

In a single, swift movement, Darcy flung the towel from him and shot bolt upright. “Georgiana!” Never had his sister entered his chambers uninvited! He could not even think when her last visit had been; certainly, she had never seen its walls before he was properly dressed.

“I-I beg your pardon, Fitzwilliam,” she stuttered to his incredulous gaze. Although she was obviously nervous, she returned his regard steadily, breaking only to slide a glance at Fletcher, who had remained next to his chair in slack-mouthed surprise.

“Is, ah, is something the matter?” Darcy’s brain did not seem to be working at all properly.

“Breakfast” was her simple reply. The revelation of her purpose for appearing in his chambers was no less surprising than her actual presence there. He had known she would not receive the news with anything less than disappointment. Evidently, she had received it with a great deal more and had bravely determined to beard the recalcitrant lion in his den. Darcy passed a hand over his freshly shorn cheeks as he took in her straight, dignified carriage, yet softly tender eyes. Quite suddenly, he was put in mind of their mother.
So be it,
he sighed to himself. How could he refuse in the face of such a revealing glimpse at the woman that his sister was becoming?

“I shall be pleased to join you as soon as I am dressed,” he conceded. “Tell the servants to lay my place.”

“I would prefer to breakfast with you here, please…in your chambers.” She was clearly pressing the advantage of his surprise. Her voice had trembled a bit but had, in the end, held firm. Even so, she was not finished. “I have already instructed that both our breakfasts be brought up.”

“Indeed?” Darcy looked upon his sister with new appreciation. She was becoming something more than what she had been. Was this further evidence of Dy’s influence or proof of his contention that she was a girl no longer? If he was to discover which, Darcy would have to submit to her arrangements. He inclined his head in formal acquiescence to her wishes. “Then I shall be pleased to join you even sooner, as I am dressed.”

Her smile was a delight. “Thank you, Fitzwilliam.” She curtsied, and after glancing curiously once more at Fletcher, whose dazed attention had not abated during the entirety of the interview, she departed his dressing room, closing the door behind her. For a full minute, neither Darcy nor Fletcher moved or spoke, both of them caught up in a contemplation of the closed door.

Finally, Darcy cleared his throat. “Well, it appears that we have received our orders, Fletcher.”

Now properly attired, Darcy hesitantly emerged from behind his dressing room door. He had, throughout his valet’s ministrations, been occupied exclusively with the thought of what he would find on the other side of the door. As interesting as was this new confidence Georgiana exhibited, it did not bode well for his desire to tend to his wounds in private. She would want an accounting for his behavior. How would she approach the matter, he wondered, and how would he avoid it?

Georgiana stood behind one of two chairs drawn up to the small gateleg table, now opened to its fullest extent and laden with covered dishes. Even covered, the savory aromas of the viands tucked beneath were seeping into every corner of the room. Against his will, Darcy’s stomach growled.

“Oh, good, you
are
hungry then!” his sister greeted him. She signaled the servants to uncover the dishes, and as Darcy seated her, they bore the covers out the door.