A Required Engagement Page 3
“A nice change from London, without the sounds-“
“Or the scents,” Darcy muttered darkly. Fitzwilliam let out a laugh as they entered into the drawing room. There Miss Bingley sat, lounged on a divan in a precisely studied pose that Darcy had observed her take when she might be chanced upon by an eligible gentleman. He had seen her pose in such a manner in London, to the best display her figure and form, and Bingley had once privately joked that she had learnt it while at the school for girls and other of society’s young women. Apparently the school had placed a greater importance upon posing and preening, than the great arts of language and the study of poetry.
Mrs. Hurst sat by the fire, Mr. Hurst ranging to and fro in front of it as he discussed some matter of politics that fell on Mrs. Hurst’s deaf ears.
Immediately, Miss Bingley got to her feet and gave an elegant curtsey, the skirts of her blood-red dress rustling in a pool around her. She did look quite the picture, if Darcy had to admit, the rich color of the silk she wore setting off her luminously pale skin, and the golden tones in her hair.
She would make someone, not him, a handsome wife, if the man could get around her petty scheming to enjoy her. For his part, Darcy found Miss Bingley was all too eager to cut her fellows in private conversation when she would emerge to appear their better, and he was not fond of such a cruelty.
In his estimation, a friend was a friend, and one did not cut the legs out from under them when they were out of hearing. Even those who had wronged him merely were to be excluded from his life, not gossiped about in the smoking rooms of the club. But then most women were like Miss Bingley, short-sighted and small-minded in their attacks on their fellow ladies, and on any man who dared ignore the flutter of their fans at a ball. He inclined himself to her before turning away from her with a sigh and his cousin sent him a meaningful look before bowing to the lady as well. Mr. Hurst and Mrs. Hurst exchanged the same niceties with them and then Bingley threw himself down on one side of a chess set, indicating that Darcy should take the other seat.
“Come on, old man,” Bingley teased with a good natured smile. Darcy felt an itch in his spine and wasn’t particularly in the mood to be playing a game of chess just then, and it must have shown in his face. Fitzwilliam clapped him on the shoulder.
“Leave our Darce alone, I will take you on, Mr. Bingley, and trounce you solidly as we English trounce the French in battle.” Fitzwilliam walked over and sat himself down across from Bingley, who grinned despite the change in opponent.
“I welcome any lessons in military strategy you might have to teach me, Colonel Fitzwilliam,” Bingley said. They began playing and Darcy tuned them out, in favor for taking in the well appointed drawing room.
“It is lovely, is it not?” Miss Bingley had come to his side as he regarded a well hung piece of art. He glanced at her and she afford him a smile, dipping her chin in a maidenly show of modesty. He cleared his throat.
“Yes, I am rather fond of Wilson’s work,” he said, and she just nodded. He assumed she was unfamiliar with Wilson, but he was not so unkind as to point it out.
“So I heard that your Season was not so successful as mine?” she commented with a sly little smile. He raised an eyebrow at her, for as far as he had been aware, there had been no offers for her.
“Oh, and should I be offering congratulations to you then, Miss Bingley?” he asked. She laughed, a delicate little noise that hung in the air.
“Oh not quite yet, although I have it under good authority that there is a gentleman who finds me quite charming, to say the least.” She smiled at him, her eyelashes fluttering, and he wondered for a moment why she was setting her cap for him when she already had a man waiting in the wings.
“Ah, then I will reserve my congratulations for when the banns are read, but I wish you luck in the interim,” he said politely.
“Darcy!” Fitzwilliam called, a happy interruption. He looked up at his cousin, who was scowling at Bingley. “Come settle this play, for I insist it is against the rules.”
“You only say that because I have you in check,” Bingley retorted with good cheer.
“You best sort it before they are reduced to brawling,” Miss Bingley commented with a smirk as she flipped open her fan. He sighed and settled his shoulders, before walking to where his friends sat.
Chapter 7
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Netherfield, Hertfordshire
The next two days had been an exercise in dodging Caroline Bingley, something that Darcy was becoming very adept at doing. Fitzwilliam had been amused at the woman’s dogged determination, “I swear, Darcy, she’d drag you to the altar if she thought she might get away with it”, and Bingley himself had been somewhat embarrassed at her rather enthusiastic and forward nature. Bingley had even offered to talk to her, and make it clear that Darcy was to be left alone, but Darcy didn’t want the woman to feel uncomfortable.
It wasn’t her fault that he was already practically promised to one of four unknown women. Not, he admitted privately to himself, that he would have been interested in the possibility of having her for a wife if he was not already otherwise committed. Caroline Bingley was not for him, even if he had not been facing down the prospect of marrying imminently.
And so, it came to pass that he had escaped Netherfield for a morning ride and upon his return had just missed a calling neighbor.
“Kind man, that Mr. Bennet,” Bingley remarked as Darcy entered the library, where Bingley and Fitzwilliam were locked, head-to-head, in what looked to be an intense game of chess.
“Mr. Bennet?” Darcy asked as he approached them. Fitzwilliam had been tugging at his cravat, for it was nearly undone around his neck, showing the nature of how Bingley’s playing was vexing him.
“Yes, he came to call,” Fitzwilliam said with a frown as he captured one pawn. It was a hollow victory, Darcy could see, as Bingley was beginning to take the lead. Bingley hopped one of his pieces and took Fitzwilliam’s knight. “Dash it, Bingley,” Fitzwilliam said, and then looked about to see if a lady was nearby.
“At ease, Sir,” Darcy said, allowing himself a smile at his cousin’s concern that the womenfolk would overhear his curse. Fitzwilliam glowered at him.
“If you are so calm, then you take the man on. Looks as if he hasn’t a thought in the world between those two ears, but that thatch of ginger hair hides a wicked mind for strategy,” Fitzwilliam said as he pushed back from the table. Bingley just grinned at them both and motioned towards Fitzwilliam’s side.
“Sit, play me a set, and I’ll tell you all about Mr. Bennet,” Bingley encouraged. As Fitzwilliam got up with a mutter and walked to stir up the logs and encourage the fire, Darcy sat as ordered and reset the board.
“So tell me of this Mr. Bennet.” He frowned down, playing the white pieces, he had first move. He selected a pawn and moved forward one square. He felt restless and as if he had no patience for game at that very moment. Bingley seemed to sense his weakness of spirit and gave Darcy a gimlet smile before moving forward one of his own pawns.
“Seems a jolly sort,” Fitzwilliam commented with his usual cheerful tone. “Jolly and slightly inappropriate, but my kind of fellow.”
“He has four daughters out,” Bingley added as they traded moves back and forth, Darcy taking his time while Bingley’s own decision making was rapid-fast.
“Aye, a lower gentleman’s daughter won’t sniff at a Colonel and turn her nose up, I don’t think,” Fitzwilliam said with feeling and Darcy shot a look at his cousin. He was of noble birth enough, although as a second son, perhaps there and been more than one lady who’d not looked twice at him. Was his cousin looking for a wife? He had not mentioned it. Darcy filed that thought away for considering later.
“As well they should not,” Bingley said with indignation. “You are a fine fellow, of great character and family connections-“
“Ah, but not all tender ladies wish to look past the red coat,” Fitzwilliam interrupted. Bingley scoffed,
“The more fool they are,” he said, “you would make any woman a fine husband.” He doffed an imaginary hat to Fitzwilliam, who smiled and bowed in return.
“Thank you, Sir, for your charitable assessment of me in the matter of what makes excellent husband material.”
Darcy had to suppress the smile on his face at his friends’ playful banter. They certainly were in high spirits, and it was doing his weary soul some good to be in their cheering company.
“I should say, as well, he mentioned an Assembly, and I told him we would attend,” Bingley said after a particularly vicious move on the chessboard. Darcy scowled at his fallen pieces and then jerked his head up.
“Pardon? An Assembly and you gave note we would attend?”
“Yes,” Bingley said, a wicked glint in his eye. The man may have been a cheerful, affable fellow, but he was also cunning in his own way. “Is there something the matter, Darcy?”
“I will not go,” Darcy insisted. How could he attend such an Assembly, when one and all would press their daughters upon him, under the expectation that he might take interest in them?
“I think you will,” Bingley shot back, “for it would be bad company to remain behind when all your fellows attend without you.”
“Here’s a thought,” Fitzwilliam interrupted before Darcy could sputter out another word, “you win that there game, and we won’t force you to attend with us. What do you say?”
Darcy looked at the board and growled.
“We must reset, to make the match fair,” he said under his breath. Bingley gave a small noise that sounded like a snicker.
“As my friend requests,” Bingley replied, and cleared the board, resetting it quickly with practiced hands. Darcy stared hard at his compatriot.
“Fine. If I should lose this round, then I will attend the Assembly. Where is it?”
“Meryton, close enough that we won’t get out hats wet riding there in an open carriage. Prepare for your demise, dear Darce,” Bingley said, looking entirely too confident for Mr. Darcy’s nerves. He held his breath, and prayed as they began the match.
Chapter 8
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Netherfield, Hertfordshire
Really, he thought, he must attend to better strategies in the matter of chess, if he was to avoid these painful scenarios in the future. Losing to Bingley had not been half so embarrassing as being forced into his second-best suit of clothes and nearly frogmarched out of Netherfield and into the carriage.
As it was, he stood at the back of their group, holding his breath against what would happen when they entered into the Meryton Assembly. It would be filled with the local color, he was sure, and his cravat was ever so tight around his neck. He resisted the urge to tug at it and loosen the hold it had on him. He felt as if he could barely breathe.
Besides him, Fitzwilliam gave him a grin and a wink.
“How are we holding up there, old boy?” he asked. Darcy glowered at his cousin and best friend.
“I am well, if you keep your tongue in your head where it belongs,” Darcy shot back, and Fitzwilliam laughed, clapping Darcy across the back of his shoulders.
“Truly, this will be a night to remember,” the jovial Colonel said without a hint of regret. He was clearly enjoying his cousin’s discomfort. Darcy planned to get him back, with some trick or prank. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do, but there had to be some means of paying his cousin back for all the chortles and side-long looks of amusement. Bingley, too, although the man was feigning ignorance of Darcy’s discomfort. At least the Colonel had Miss Bingley on his arm, and he wasn’t being forced to escort her in. That would have been a great difficulty.
Darcy heard the rap of a staff on the floor, and was surprised at the level of formality given that it was a country assembly, and the ringing sound of them being announced across the room. The noise of the assembly was cut off for a moment, and then surged around them again as they entered. He felt at the center of hundreds of staring eyes. In front of him, Miss Bingley fluttered a fan against her cheek, the feathers of her hairpiece waving in the moving air of it.
He froze, for a moment, when he glanced between the wavering feathers to set his eyes upon the glowing, upturned face of a young lady. Her cheeks were flushed, lips bitten to the red of raspberries, and her gleaming brown hair was pulled and curled up, a tempting tendril coiling against her neck.
He felt his heart stop in his chest for a breath, and then another. Mr. Hurst jostled his arm from behind.
“Move on, Mr. Darcy,” Mr. Hurst muttered into his ear and Darcy tore his eyes away from the maiden to look at the other man. From the sight of an angel to the more earthly vision of the grumpy and discomfited Mr. Hurst, Darcy felt his mouth go dry. He turned back to look for the girl, but she was gone, lost amongst the crowds of the assembly.
“Ah, Lord Lucus,” Darcy heard Mr. Bingley say, and they were being introduced to the gentleman’s family. Mr. Bingley was then bowing to another gentleman, who by the state of his dress and the unkempt manner of his hair, was one of the local, lower, gentried men. He refused to crane his neck around to look for the girl, but the image of her, smiling wide, sparkling eyes, were all burnt into his mind’s vision. He blinked and saw her in front of him, but it was only the illusion of her. She was very much not there, instead an older woman, accompanied by three girls, stood there.
“You’ve met my husband, Mr. Bennet, and now then my daughters, at least the three I could find, for Elizabeth is currently engaged in a dance, but here now, this is my eldest, Jane, and quite the beauty if the local word is to be believed,” Mrs. Bennet’s voice was grating, and Darcy almost felt compelled to step away, and back into the shadows. She was glancing between him and Mr. Bingley, her smile broad and almost hungry. He had seen that look before, on mothers with too many girls to marry off and not enough prospects. Jane, the eldest, curtsied mostly to Bingley, and favored Mr. Darcy’s friend with a shy, if very beautiful smile.
Grating voice or not, Mrs. Bennet was not wrong in espousing the qualities of her eldest, for she was beautiful in that natural way that girls might be if they are unaware of the fact or at least humble on it. The other two daughters, he barely glanced over, for he was certain neither of them should have been out, as young in age as they were.
Fitzwilliam was leading Miss Bingley to the floor, already promising to dance with her and keep her away from the flat footed soldiers that peppered the room, and Bingley had abandoned him to dance with the eldest Bennet girl.
Darcy was alone. He backed up against one wall, watching the proceedings, wondering to what awful Fate he had to thank that had caused his awful failure at chess and left him to molder in an assembly which he did not wish to attend.
He was a promised man, given already to a woman he did not know, and he did his best not to meet eyes with any young lady at the assembly and give her a false sense of hope. Already he had heard the whisper of his pounds, of the size of his estates, for that sort of news traveled faster than the wind through a churchyard, and with the same howling loudness. The time ticked by so slowly he was surprised to find Bingley at his elbow, looking flushed in the cheek and pleased with himself.
“Come now, Darcy, there’s plenty a fine young lady going wanting for a partner. Why do you stand here against the wall, as if hell were empty and all the demons were here?” Bingley asked with an arch eyebrow and a quirk to his mouth that was more smirk than smile.
“You know why,” Darcy groused, letting his irritation and discomfort show in his tone. Bingley understood him almost better than Fitzwilliam did, and would not take offense.
“Well, regardless, I won’t have you standing about in a stupid manner all evening. Pick a girl, and I shall have you be introduced to her.”
Darcy cast his eye about and felt his tongue turn to stone in his mouth as he saw her again, just having finished a dance, laughter in her eyes and at the corners of her lips. She seemed to sense he was looking at her, for she rai
sed her head and looked at him, a question in her gaze. He glanced away, back at Bingley.
“You’ve had the most handsome woman on your arm for half the evening,” Darcy said, ignoring the deliberate pull his heart seemed to perform, tugging him spiritually towards the girl.
“Her sister is just as handsome, and I had the pleasure of having her for a dance as well, you would like her Darcy, look, over there, Miss Elizabeth,” Bingley motioned as he spoke and Darcy glanced back.
It was her. Miss Elizabeth Bennet. The tender curls of want inside him latched onto her name, echoing it in his mind.
He was taken, as good as married and he knew, without a doubt, that were he to take her hand in dance he would want ever so much more. He had never been more certain in his life of anything. As sure as he’d been that up until that very night, every woman he had ever met had not been for him, she was an exception to the wall around his heart.
“Hardly handsome enough to tempt me,” he said, brushing her off and his own desire in one swoop. Bingley scowled.
“Really, Darcy-“
“Really, Bingley, she is barely tolerable, a half-adequate partner for you, and not nearly adequate for me,” Darcy said, cutting Bingley off with a jerk of his hand through the air. He turned to storm outside for some air, and nearly ran into a slight figure, her face upturned, her sparkling eyes dull, her cheeks flushed from anger as opposed to passion and entertainment.
“Mr. Darcy, might I introduce you to my second eldest,” Mrs. Bennet emerged, like a fog from the ground, a broad smile on her face. “Miss Elizabeth, and quite a match for my Jane in everything but hair color, don’t you think?”
As Miss Elizabeth glared at him, making it quite clear she had heard his every dismissive comment as to her charms, Mr. Darcy wished that the assembly room floor might shatter apart and swallow him whole.
“It is a pleasure, Miss Elizabeth,” he managed to get out. She lifted her chin, and he saw a spark of defiance in her eyes. Her beautiful, soulful eyes. Curse his impetuous words. Curse them to the darkest of fates.