Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (19 page)

The vastness of the crowd precluded any intimacy betwixt them beyond an inconspicuous holding of hands. That chance alone was enough to keep Elizabeth near to her husband, but that he ran his thumb across her knuckles whilst they did was added inducement. When she was not at his side, giddy as a schoolgirl, she searched the room for sight of him. For her reward was sweet. Inevitably, as he had before they married, he would be looking upon her as well.

One of the greatest delights the evening held for her was the pleasure of seeing her husband take her Aunt Gardiner’s hand and lead her out onto the floor. Her aunt, for all her life, had admired Pemberley from afar, and to see such a deserving lady honoured in such a manner was a true delight.

In her right as hostess, Elizabeth danced twice with Bingley, although he was kept quite busy chasing down dance partners for both his sisters and Jane’s like coursing hares. Darcy even stood up with Maria Lucas. That her husband bespoke a dance with one who was neither an in-law nor of his station demonstrated that, now safely married, he had not forsaken his new-found (if only by a few degrees) humility.

Indeed, he danced more than society at large had ever known of him. He stood up not only with Jane (not at all a punishment for him), but also Kitty (who was). Although Fitzwilliam bespoke a dance with Elizabeth, he honoured Kitty and Maria once each as well. If it was thought particularly kind of Darcy for favouring Kitty and Maria with a dance, of Fitzwilliam it was not. His propitious temperament instructed him to choose a partner not by rank, but to avail himself as a single man to those most slighted. It was upon the conclusion of their dance when Elizabeth remarked upon that to him.

“Colonel, for a man who has little volition in whom he marries, you could serve yourself better by selecting your dancing partner by fortune rather than need. I believe the reverse is good enough for lesser young men.”

Elizabeth was unafraid her comment was overly frank, for Fitzwilliam had often addressed his misfortune of being a second son. She was not unwitting that his prospects were limited to how well he married. Thus, her observation was a compliment, not a -criticism. In recognition of that, he bowed formally. As he did, Elizabeth admired both his grace and goodness. Fervently, she wished Kitty were older. Less flighty. Not so silly. Possessed of a fortune. Colonel Fitzwilliam would be a kind and agreeable husband.

Elizabeth’s little matchmaking reverie was interrupted by espying Jane, hence she forsook Fitzwilliam’s company. In the tumult of travel and preparations, Elizabeth had scarcely had time to exchange words with her aunt or Jane. However, no sooner did the new Mrs. Darcy and the new Mrs. Bingley converge than they were besieged by a bevy of veteran wives, who, weary of their own company, had awaited opportunity to take the novices in as members of their privileged tribe.

Their initiation was inaugurated by the time-honoured tradition of exchanging articles of mostly unfounded news. Although gossip in and of itself was not unknown to Elizabeth and Jane, they were taken aback by the level of intrigue they had become privy to by reason of their elevation to wifedom.

One lady, pursy either from dancing, her corpulence, or the lascivious nature of her information, told the newly devirginated sisters that her middle-aged houseman evidently held dual duty as husband to their cook and lover to the second floor chambermaid. Perhaps incredulousness crossed Elizabeth’s countenance when this information was proffered, for the lady offered a hasty reassurance.

“There have been no children by either encounter.”

Not actually having leapt to that enquiry, Elizabeth could find no other comment than, “I see.”

Upon this declaration, Elizabeth looked at Jane. Her eyes, not surprisingly, had widened to a precipitous degree. (Their office of maiden so recently discarded, it was clear they would both have to practise a more inscrutable expression.)

Elizabeth’s own jaw very nearly rested upon the floor when further discussion disclosed that a lady, unrepresented in the conversing group, had barely found enthusiasm to attend the ball, so dissipated was she by the birthing of her ninth offspring. The happenstance of her predicament was not without sympathetic voice.

“I should think she might consider locking the door to her bedroom.”

“Yes, if she is to find any peace at all.”

Immediate upon this postulation, it was offered (behind the back of a hand) that the oft-engaged woman’s husband had also impregnated any number of their servants.

A chorus of “tsks, tsks” was accorded. (It seemed that particular house’s chief evil was fecundity.)

“And she has no idea it was her husband who had handled the maids?” asked one woman.

“He told her it was the gardener! That poor man suffered cruelly from the wife’s displeasure, for the lord would not allow the man let go.”

“And lose the seducer of record? Never!”

Tittering all about.

Much to Elizabeth’s bemused disappointment, this conversation was quieted, for “maidens” approached their group (and maiden ears must be protected at all costs). As Mrs. Hurst and the maidens, Georgiana Darcy and Caroline Bingley, joined them, talk immediately turned to the more universally benign topics of matches and matrimony.

Miss Bingley, in her unceasing promotion of herself, said she understood that a baronet attended that night. Titles always piqued Caroline’s interest, but it was the information that the baronet was two years into widowerhood that propelled him from diversion into outright quarry. Indisputably, such a man was in want of a wife. Thus, Caroline bade him pointed out to her.

“I dare say you could not do better if dullness is the true proprietor of distinction,” declared a firm voice from the edge of the group.

Lady Winifred Millhouse had stood inconspicuously amidst them until she broke her silence with that observation. Caroline looked as if she wanted to huff, but apparently thought better of it.

Candidly, Elizabeth soon determined, was the only way Lady Millhouse knew how to speak. Of Derbyshire society in general, and Pemberley friends more specifically, Elizabeth thought she would like the Millhouses. The lord was interested in little but riding to hunt. His lady, a sturdy woman of middle age whose demeanour said she did not suffer fools gladly, was similarly inclined. As Elizabeth found considerable amusement in her remark about the baronet, Lady Millhouse clearly approved of her. Ignoring Caroline’s petulance, she addressed the only issue of any import to her by asking Elizabeth when they would next ride to hounds at Pemberley.

“I fancy my husband would be the one to answer that question,” Elizabeth told her.

Lady Millhouse found this not only a reasonable response, but a perfectly good excuse to leave the little enclave of prattlers. She abruptly took hold of Elizabeth’s hand and set out to find good Mr. Darcy and inquire. They ventured not far before spying him talking amongst a group of gentlemen. Elizabeth would never have dared walk the distance of the room to join them. But Lady Millhouse’s grip upon her was tenacious and she had little choice but to follow in her wake as she parted the crowd.

Darcy did not seem confounded that Lady Millhouse suddenly appeared in the midst of the coterie of men, nor that his wife was in tow.

“Darcy,” Lady Millhouse said, forgoing Elizabeth’s arm for his, “you have not told your sweet wife here when we will next have a hunt at Pemberley? Shame upon you. We must remedy this situation at once.”

“We will within the month. I will send my cards around directly, Lady Millhouse.”

As he spoke, he bore an expression of amusement that astonished Elizabeth. Lady Millhouse obviously had a position of friendship with Darcy that did not require the level of obsequious decorum of others. Quite probably, the lady was unlikely to offer it. This liberty was certainly not due to her station. Elizabeth surmised it something more significant. Indeed, Lady Millhouse enthusiastically took the reins of the conversation in a pertinacious detailing of their most recent ride to covert. Darcy seemed amused at this as well. But as the story became increasingly lengthy and convoluted, Elizabeth let her attention wander to the doings of the other guests.

The son of Mr. Howgrave’s housekeeper passed by. Surreptitiously, Elizabeth watched him cross the floor. Darcy, who she had thought was in rapt attention to Mrs. Millhouse’s recitation glanced at, then affixed a rancorous glare upon young Howgrave as he stopped before Georgiana. He spoke to her but a moment, then moved away. Upon his retreat, Darcy apparently quitted him as well.

Forthwith of the overture to the next promenade, Howgrave returned to Georgiana, apparently having bespoken the next dance. Obviously, Darcy had not quite let the young man out of his eye. For by the time Howgrave returned to claim his dance, Darcy had stridden halfway across the floor toward them.

Lady Millhouse stopped mid-sentence at the distraction. She looked at Elizabeth quizzically. Then they both watched Darcy as he advanced upon the couple. He spoke to his sister, took her hand, and walked her onto the dance floor, leaving young Howgrave standing rather flatfooted. The cut was not unapparent to the guests nearest, and even from a distance, Elizabeth could see the young man’s face redden. That the young man’s history was known to Lady Millhouse was betrayed when she spoke, not of him, but of Darcy, for there was the drama.

“Because he has never forgiven himself any fault, he can forgive no one else’s,” she sighed.

The remark was bestowed with affectionate understanding from someone who knew Darcy well. That the observation rode with such accuracy upon him made it all the more unsettling for his wife to hear. She had little time to ponder it, for just then Lord Millhouse took her attention, perhaps at his wife’s silent instruction, and asked Elizabeth to dance. Of this she was most grateful, happy to have reason to move about. The air had suddenly become a little stale where she stood.

After a rowdy gallop across the dance floor with the blustery Lord Millhouse, Elizabeth excused herself to catch her breath in a corner of the room. From her vantage she could gaze upon her husband, who had bade Jane to dance again. It was a pleasant inevitability to know Bingley would seek her out in polite return; still she endeavoured to hide herself. This, only partly because she chose not to dance, but foremost because she did not want to have to beg off from sweet-tempered Bingley. Her earlier unease forgotten, she wanted to savour the sight of her husband from afar.

It was obvious the ladies of Derbyshire thought likewise. For of the female gazes that followed him (and there were many), all did not merely betoken respectful admiration of rank. Indeed, a few looks were positively unchaste. Elizabeth did not fault their acumen, for they were more sensible than she had been. It was she who, upon first meeting him, had concluded that a man of such beauty and wealth must, of course, harbour some ill-trait of character. She laughed at her own prejudice. For now that he was her Darcy, she knew him to be quite perfect.

The theatrical whisper of one who wanted to be heard broke her solitude. A woman’s voice rose from the other side of a fan leaf palm. Elizabeth peered between the leaves and spied two women, one whose years had abused the better part of four decades, the other younger and a bit squat.

“Why, ’tis so good to have our Mr. Darcy back in Derbyshire, for he has been sorely missed.”

Elizabeth recognised neither of them. That they knew who she was, and where she was, was of little doubt.

“Yes, manhood has suffered in his absence. Sport is never so attractive without him in the county. He has such strength of leg, he can stay a-mount long after lesser men fade.”

They tittered behind their fans. The younger doxy closed hers and tapped her friend with it upon the shoulder whilst applying further euphemistic grandiloquence.

“He has a most impressive blade and knows quite well how to wield it!”

Taken with their own wit, they tittered again not unlike two exceedingly rude magpies. Elizabeth’s face burned with indignation. How to respond? The Mistress of Pemberley should not acknowledge such defamatory utterances, she reminded herself. She would sacrifice her spirit to propriety and suffer, as those two vilifying…trollops undoubtedly knew she must. This most considered and correct decision made, she immediately cast it aside. She did not walk away but took one step that brought her purposely under the women’s immediate gazes, which, if they were not quite at a level of alarm, at least spoke high alert.

Elizabeth saw she had chosen correctly. Clearly, the women did not expect confrontation from a naïve country lass. As she looked at first one and then the other, she summarily determined they both had more hair than sense. And, obviously, they had more sense than integrity.

Hence, it bedevilled Elizabeth not one dash to quietly, but quite deliberately, say, “I could not help but overhear your kind words about Mr. Darcy. You shall, no doubt, agree I am most fortunate to have so magnificent a lover for a husband.”

She smiled brilliantly, turned, and walked away. That the two women’s countenances held at first confusion then confounded incredulity, was not known to her. But as she strode off, she pictured it, and found considerable pleasure in the imagining alone.

Not surprising of such a grand evening, it was quite late when the last of the guests had betaken themselves home, allowing Elizabeth and Darcy wearily to ascend the stairs. They entered their bedchamber together, finally alone, but still dressed from the evening. Falling in fatigue back across their bed, she listened as he told her how well the evening had gone and how many remarks were made to him upon the beauty of his wife’s countenance and amiability of her nature.

“I would think it unlikely for any of your guests to offer that they found your new wife held much queerness of temper and little pretension to beauty,” she reminded him.

“Of course not. But one would have to have a great understanding of, say, Mr. Collins’s ability to flatter to invent such compliments.”

She laughed. “Yes, your guests will say the music was superb, the decorations outstanding. The only criticism one shall offer is that nothing scandalous occurred. No one fell drunkenly into the punch bowl; no young man’s face was slapped. For that is the only true way to gauge an evening’s success.” (That his wife spoke without caution to the two female guests might have met the criteria of scandalous, but Elizabeth discounted it by reason of an audience of only two.)