An Assembly Such as This (14 page)

“Mr. Darcy, your —”

“Time and more that you should have made an appearance! Is my bath ready, or must I carry the water up myself?” he bellowed at his valet. The look on Fletcher’s face smote Darcy to the core, and for a space of a few breaths, master and servant beheld each other in frozen silence.

“Fletcher, would you be so kind as to forgive me my lamentable manners and totally unjust words? You have served me well and faithfully these seven years and do not deserve my bad temper.” The valet’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, and he bowed his glad compliance. “Good man,” Darcy responded gratefully, and got up from the chair. He walked past the valet into the dressing room, where the first buckets of hot water were being lowered into the bath. Fletcher reached over and carefully pulled his master’s coat off his shoulders and down his arms. The offending neckcloth was gently removed. Darcy sat down while a kitchen lad worked on his boots and his valet arranged his kit.

“That will do nicely, Fletcher. Give me, say, twenty minutes.”

“Very good, sir. Nothing else I can get for you, sir?” Darcy shook his head wearily. “I
did
hear a bit of news, sir.”

“Indeed? And what is your ‘bit of news,’ Fletcher?”

“The Misses Bennet will depart for their home tomorrow after Sunday services.” Fletcher opened the servants’ door to the dressing room. “But perhaps you already have heard.” Darcy looked up sharply at his valet, but Fletcher was already safely on the other side of the door.

The walls of Badajoz yet stood after a day of incessant artillery bombardment, and the command to withdraw had just been dispatched to the company commanders when Darcy heard the library door click open. He had come downstairs to find the public rooms empty of both the Bingleys and their guests. “Taking the air up at the folly, sir” had been a footman’s answer to his query of their whereabouts. So, with the house wonderfully serene, he had taken his book to the library and settled in for an hour of “following the drum” until his host returned.

The door was directly behind him, so at the sound he called over his shoulder, “Charles, this is indeed incredible! You must let me read it to —” A flash of yellow sprigged muslin at the corner of his eye immediately informed him that it was not Bingley with whom he shared the room. Darcy looked up to see a vision of loveliness before him, the sunlight glancing through the library window causing her gown to glow softly and highlight the auburn of her hair. He swallowed hard.
Steady on…not the slightest sign!

“Miss Elizabeth,” he said tonelessly as he rose from his chair. His perfunctory bow was answered with a curtsy its equal.

“Mr. Darcy, pray do not let me disturb you.”

“Madam.” Darcy bowed again and resumed his seat. Fumbling awkwardly, he opened his book to the passage he had been about to offer Bingley and stared hard at the page, all his senses on edge until she should either find her book and sit down or, please Heaven, quit the room. He forced himself to look no farther than his paragraph, but the soft tread of her slippers, the rustle of her gown, and the faint scent of lavender teased his resolve and kept him more aware than he wished of where she was in the room.

Finally, she chose a book. Darcy willed himself not to look up but instead, with slow deliberation, turned the page. The print danced before his eyes, forcing him to blink several times and draw the book closer. She floated past him then, her skirts brushing his shoes, and sat in the chair to his right, separated from him only by a small table that supported a brass lamp. Silence now reigned in the room, punctuated only by the sound of pages being turned and an occasional sigh from the recesses of the chair on his right.

Darcy commanded his body to relax into his chair, and when a sufficient obedience had been achieved, he returned his attention to his book, only to find that not a word from the previous page had registered in his brain. Annoyed with himself, he turned back to read it again. A delicate yawn followed by more distracting sighs arrested him in midpage, and it was some moments before he could recall himself to his study. His whole being was alive to her every action, requiring every ounce of his will to appear indifferent to her presence. He could quit the library, of course, take his book to any one of innumerable places, but an irascible stubbornness forbade him to retreat from this, his habitual refuge from the world, and surrender it into
her
keeping! He fixed his eyes on the top of the page again and forced himself to pay strict attention to each word.
There, now!
He turned the well-thumbed leaf.

Elizabeth rose from the chair and replaced her book on the shelf, but to Darcy’s agitation, rather than leaving, she commenced to search for another one. The agonies caused him by her first search repeated themselves with no less intensity. He was seriously considering retreat as his best option when a knock on the door startled both of them.

“Enter,” Darcy voiced hoarsely.

“Excuse me, sir…madam. Miss Elizabeth, ma’am. Miss Bennet has awakened and is asking for you,” Stevenson quietly informed her.

“Oh! Thank you, Stevenson. I shall be right up,” she responded, and, turning to Darcy, swept him a careless curtsy and hurried out of the room.

With the click of the heavy oak door once more reverberating through the room, Darcy let his book drop to his lap and closed his eyes, his fingers working strongly on the bridge between them.
This is intolerable!
Finding no relief for his jangled sensibilities, he sprang from the chair and proceeded to pace the length of the fine Aubusson carpet Bingley had laid down the day before.

Thank God she leaves tomorrow, before I am turned into the most pitiable mooncalf who ever pined for a lady’s favor! And for what do I daily become more the fool? She has caused a rift between Bingley and myself, set Miss Bingley’s tongue like a cat among the chickens, found fault with all I say, insulted me to my face, and while being thoroughly indifferent to my presence, cuts up
my
peace entirely!
His right shoe made contact with something as he paced, sending it skittering across the floor. He looked down to see
Badajoz
flying toward the shelves.

“No!” he shouted uselessly as it came to rest with a thump against the wall. Darcy strode over and picked up the prized volume, turning it over and over. No damage that a little oil would not set right. As he rubbed the leather cover against his trousers, he noticed a volume on the shelf before him that was not quite in line with its neighbors. Tucking his own book under his arm, he reached over to nudge it back but then stopped, recognizing it as the book Elizabeth had been sighing over. His hand fell to the shelf, his fingers tapping on it as he looked at the book’s spine.
What had she been reading?
His animus was quickly overpowered by his accursed fascination with her.
What kind of book does she enjoy?
He stood there in indecision, arguing against an invasion of her privacy on the one hand and for the satisfaction of his compelling curiosity on the other.

It is sure to be mere drivel,
he assured himself finally, and with a seeming will of its own, his hand closed swiftly on the book, drew it out, and flipped it open to the title page. The title,
Paradise Lost,
stared back into his astonished face. His eyes scanned down the page. “Being the work of John Milton.” Further examination revealed a bookmark composed of several embroidery threads marking the place where she had last read. Darcy turned there briefly. Then, closing the book carefully, he slowly replaced it on the shelf, his mind awhirl with questions as he examined the brightly colored threads lying in the palm of his hand.

Milton, of all poets, and
Paradise Lost
of all the dreary man’s works!
What is she about, reading such ponderous verse nearly a century and a half old? It is certainly not fashionable today. Good heavens, no one reads Milton!
No sooner had that last thought been silently uttered than a chill shook Darcy’s frame, and he remembered clearly the last time he had seen Milton’s work.
Paradise Regained,
bound in lovingly worn calfskin, had held an honored place among the books on the table beside his father’s bed during the last months of his life. Darcy’s brow furrowed darkly as a fierce stab of pain shook him at the remembrance of those days. He brought the hand cradling Elizabeth’s bookmark up to his chest and pressed it there, willing the pain away.

Voices and the sound of boots in the hall alerted Darcy that Bingley and his party had returned from the folly. Pocketing the threads, he quickly moved away from the bookshelf, his composure, or something like, reasserting itself, and was nearly to the library door when it opened to reveal Bingley’s flushed countenance.

“Darcy, at last! You have managed to elude us all morning, sir, and I simply won’t have you skulking about the library on a day such as today. We have visited the folly — a marvelous structure, by the by — and find ourselves in sore need of sustenance. I’ve ordered some refreshments in the conservatory so Miss Bennet may enjoy some of the sunshine, and I insist that you join us,” Bingley said. Darcy bowed his compliance. Bingley paused and then in an apologetic tone continued, “Ah, Darcy, good fellow, I know this is dashed impertinent of me, but would it be possible to, well…could you refrain from wrangling with Miss Bennet’s sister today? You may have heard they will be leaving tomorrow. I would not wish her to be overset.”

“Wrangle with Miss Elizabeth! My dear Charles, I do
not
‘wrangle’ with her or with anyone!”

“Debate, then. Darcy” — he paused and looked at his friend beseechingly — “I am exceedingly sorry that you and Miss Elizabeth do not get on, but —”

“Have no fear, Bingley. I believe I know how to behave in company,” Darcy cut him off, unable to quell an impulse to sarcasm. Bingley colored at his tone, causing Darcy to condemn his hasty words for an unprecedented second time in one day.

“Charles, I beg that you will overlook my graceless words and deplorable manners. I have not felt myself lately, a disagreeable sensation, I assure you, and have been so impolitic as to cause others to feel the effects of it. For the embarrassment this has caused you, I am heartily sorry.”

“Embarrassment…caused
me
?” Bingley sputtered. He threw back his head and laughed in his friend’s puzzled face. “Darcy, when I think of the situations from which you have rescued me, due entirely to my own stupidity! Well, I despaired of ever making it up to you. Paying me back in the same coin is
not
what I would have expected, and the installment is minute compared with my great balance.” He paused and swept Darcy a regal bow. “It is forgotten, sir, with pleasure. Now come along and rejoin the human race. We are really not such a bad lot, after all.”

Darcy smiled broadly in the face of such easy good nature and thanked God that He had provided him such a friend. Setting his book down on the desk, he followed Bingley out the door.

Although his words to Bingley had warranted his ability to conduct himself in company as a gentleman, Darcy did not view the gathering in the conservatory with equanimity. That any topic remotely interesting or entertaining enough to distract him from his awareness of Elizabeth would arise in the conversation was highly doubtful. Hurst, he dismissed immediately. Bingley would be dancing attendance upon Miss Jane Bennet. Miss Bingley, abetted by her sister, would in turn fawn upon him or attempt to confound the lady she so clearly regarded as her rival. The only hope of any lively discourse was centered in the very person to whom the danger of his paying attention was beyond calculation. If he was to be successful in crushing any suggestion that Elizabeth Bennet held the slightest material influence over his felicity, his behavior toward her now would either confirm or deny it.

The ladies and Hurst were before them, engaged in desultory admiration of the specimens of flora that still boasted blossoms. As Darcy anticipated, Bingley broke from him and strode over to the Bennet sisters, exclaiming as he did on how well Jane Bennet was looking. A delicate smile teased her lips at his salutation, and she serenely nodded her acceptance of the offer of his arm for her support. Her sister happily relinquished the lady’s arm into Bingley’s keeping and stepped away from them with a graciousness that Darcy would have liked to admire but resolutely denied to himself. Instead, he turned away from the gathering and examined the room.

Netherfield’s conservatory was a small one and stood in need of the services of an expert gardener, but the suggestion of wildness given by its unkempt appearance lent it some piquancy. Evidently, a previous inhabitant had indulged in a passion for the exotica of the plant kingdom, for rather than the staid groupings of most gardens under glass, this one pulsed with the energy of rampant, twining vines and lush foliage. The moist, earthy scent of the air reminded him of his own extensive gardens and the pleasures of the conservatory at Pemberley.

The appearance of servants laden with the tea tray and dishes of sweets and cakes drew the company to the wrought-iron table in the center of the room. The last to accept his cup, Bingley paused at Darcy’s side and motioned with a quirk of his chin to the vacant seats next to Elizabeth and her sister. Even as he silently declined the invitation, Darcy could not prevent or deny the bittersweet pull on his senses the opportunity presented. Determinedly, he took up a position somewhat apart from the others, from which he could safely bide his time.