Twixt Two Equal Armies (17 page)

She threw her covers aside, jumped off the bed and wrapped herself in her dressing gown, pulling on some thick socks. She picked up her still lighted candle and traipsed hurriedly across the hall and gently knocked at her cousin’s door. She was right; Elizabeth was nowhere near sleep either.

“I was hoping you’d come,” she smiled. “Get in here, you must be freezing.”

Holly skipped over to Elizabeth’s bed and dug her legs and feet in under the warm blankets.

“I need to apologise,” she said.

“Not again, Holly!” her cousin smiled and prodded her with her elbow. “It seems all we do these days is apologise and I think we should stop before we are afraid to do anything to provoke reaction from the other anymore.”

Holly smiled back. “Well, perhaps. But just this once though. Then I will stop.”

“Only if you let me do it once more too after you’ve finished.”

Holly could not help but laugh. “Very well. Me first though. I apologise for tea. I was very rude to you and I let my emotions get the better of me when I should have kept my peace and stood by you calmly. I don’t know what got into me! At the very least, I could have made better use of my rudeness to shield you from Mr Darcy rather than to irritate his friend.”

Elizabeth reached over and took Holly’s cold hand in hers, dragging it under the sheets.

“Yes, that was highly curious, I must admit. But please don’t worry about Mr Darcy on my behalf. I think I did very well not speaking to him
at all
.”

“He never said anything!” Holly said. Oh, how she had waited to be able to say that! “He just looked at you and never said a thing! To anyone!”

Elizabeth looked at her cousin. “Holly,” she said quietly, “my turn. Let me say that when Mr Darcy does speak — which is, I grant you, a rare occurrence — he speaks very well.”

Holly was puzzled and showed it.

“I talked to him earlier today; we met while I was out this morning. I don’t doubt he had been looking out for me, hoping to catch me walking. He said as much and he has done so before: once, in Kent. The morning after . . . well, that was when he gave me that letter explaining his actions and I am glad to say he did nothing of the sort this time. But he asked if he might accompany me and I had no objections so we walked. We said perhaps ten words all together. Most of them concerned whether it was convenient for him and his friend to call. I said yes.”

“You said yes . . . ” Holly repeated slowly, “and by ‘yes’, did you mean ‘
yes, if you must’
or
‘yes, please do’?”

Elizabeth was quiet. “Neither,” she finally answered. “I meant, ‘
come if you will and I will see what you are about’.”

She sat up and tenderly adjusted Holly’s dressing gown to cover her properly. “Holly,” she said, “I apologise for not telling you earlier.”

“You are forgiven, of course. But Eliza, did you feel that you wanted, or needed, to keep it from me?”

“Neither, again. That is why I owe you an apology. It is no secret — I could never keep it a secret from you. I have none but childish and cowardly reasons for not waiting to tell you. Had you asked me what I thought of that walk, what happened, and if I had been sure of myself right away, I could not have told you anything that could have satisfied even myself. So I kept quiet and hoped if the gentlemen should call, you could see a little more for yourself and then perhaps not need me to tell you things that only make me more uncertain and unsure of myself.”

Holly sighed and thought back over the strange visit of the afternoon.

“I wish I could say that I had seen something, but his behaviour today was just as mysterious as all your descriptions of him in Hertfordshire. Did
you
see anything; are you any closer to satisfaction as to his feelings? Why does he seek you out only to remain aloof?”

“Why do you think I am still awake? I went to bed two hours ago, Holly!”

Holly smiled and pulled her cousin’s head onto her shoulder and stroked her hair.

“Don’t worry Elizabeth, we are intelligent and resourceful women and we won’t let this man disturb our time together. And that friend of his!”

Elizabeth sighed. “Lord Baugham. What a curious man! And what a curious man for Mr Darcy to have as a friend! Could there be two more diverse men claiming friendship? Except . . . ” and here she laughed. “I wish you knew Mr Bingley! Now what does that say about Mr Darcy, I wonder, having friends like that?”

“Something like ‘tell me who your friends are and I shall tell you who you are’?” smiled Holly. “If Mr Bingley is as agreeable as you say, I think it only one more puzzling contradiction about Mr Darcy. This friend was not so agreeable at all!”

Elizabeth raised her head and looked at her cousin thoughtfully. “Do you really think so, Holly? Once again, I think we owe him a great debt for keeping our little party somewhere near ordinary, polite discourse.”

Holly snorted. “He was so . . . smug!” she said violently. The idea of being indebted for anything to a man like Lord Baugham disgusted her. “Very well,” she conceded, “but he was so annoying. And quite full of himself and his own sparkling wit. And so eager to impress Maman and flash that smile and play the gentleman, when all he really wanted was to expose you and find something to ridicule us about!”

But Elizabeth was frowning and was obviously worlds away from Holly’s long-awaited outburst about her ‘practical’ neighbour.

“Really?” she said absentmindedly. “Well, perhaps.”

T
HE HOUSE WAS QUIET AGAIN
and Lord Baugham felt a great sense of peace come over him. It was true he had been more confused by his introduction and conversation with Miss Bennet than he at first expected. The biggest fault with that lay with his inability to fit her into the picture he had formed of her. Of course, he rationalised, that was partly Darcy’s fault. How was one to successfully envision the woman Darcy confessed such violent feelings for? There was no precedent, only sketchy figures of youthful admiration, never discussed and quickly exchanged by Darcy for new pursuits or peace.

Baugham did not believe in love. It was not that he did not believe in its existence, he rather did not believe in it as a goal worth striving for or as a means to achieving happiness. He had not needed love for the twenty-eight years of his life and when it had been given to him it had been complicated, tinged with tragedy and sorrow. Love was a thin veneer over selfishness, desperation and helplessness; it took more than it gave and what it did give was more aptly called by other, less noble, names.

The truth was that if Darcy confessed to love for a woman, Baugham was caught in territory he knew nothing about and viewed with suspicion. That in itself was cause enough for him to be curious. Who was Elizabeth Bennet? And more to the point, what was she? Why did Darcy love her enough to propose marriage despite her obvious reluctance and then keep returning to her when she so clearly had denied him? And why had she denied him? It still made no sense at all. What kind of woman was she?

He looked around the hall after leaving the bright, warm drawing room. There was still the whiskey bottle and perhaps Darcy could be persuaded to come back to the library. Baugham had a vague feeling he perhaps owed his friend something akin to an apology — or sympathy.

According to Mrs McLaughlin, Miss Bennet was fleeing from a disappointment. But what sort of disappointment? Had she set her sights on someone even higher than Darcy and that was why . . . but no, that was so far-fetched an idea that Baugham dismissed it immediately. Whatever it was, his lordship thought, it must be
gunk,
indeed
.
Shaking his head, he abandoned the idea of further conversation about this confusing matter and took to his chamber instead. The fire was burning, but there was no sign of Riemann except in the form of his laid out nightclothes on the bed and the perfect arrangement of a glass of wine and the volume of Donne’s poems he had left open in the library yesterday. Baugham’s amusement was evident when he discovered that his valet had marked the exact spot of his interrupted reading and inscribed the piece of paper with the date. He was certain this was Riemann’s subtle comment on his habit of reading several works at once and leaving them open upside down all over the house. Then his lordship disturbed the perfect picture of order and took them both to bed with him.

Since so, my mind
Shall not desire what no man else can find;
I’ll no more dote and run
To pursue things which had endamaged me;
And when I come where moving beauties be,
As men do when the summer’s sun
Grows great,
Though I admire their greatness, shun their heat.

A wise sentiment, and very aptly put. He could certainly live with that and be very comfortable. Very comfortable, indeed.

Chapter 7

Friends and Family Keep Abreast of the Developing Friendship of Miss Bennet and Mr Darcy

Holly sat at her worktable amid a jumble of manuscript pages, half completed sketches, tubes and pots of paint and pastels as she tried to decide just exactly how she wanted to organise and portray Sir John’s air pump experiments. There was not much evidence of progress to show for her long day’s work excepting for a growing list of discarded or unworkable ideas, but however much her brow was wrinkled in thought, it was work she enjoyed and found much more fulfilling than her attempts to educate the spoiled daughters of Scotland’s elite.

The sound of Elizabeth’s book snapping shut, therefore, startled her from her concentration.

“Holly,” said Elizabeth, “I have something both to tell you and to ask you.”

Welcoming the opportunity to drop her pencils and stretch her tight shoulders, Holly slid her chair back and lifted her arms above her head.

“Perfect timing,” she yawned. “I am just ready for a break.”

“I have been doing a great deal of thinking, as you might imagine, last night and today,” Elizabeth began, “and I think I must go for another walk.”

“Well, of course, I can be ready — ”

“No, Holly,
that
is what I had to tell you. What I ask of you is this: I would like to go alone. There is a chance I may run across Mr Darcy again; indeed, I think there is a very good chance of it, and I have thought of a few things that we might talk of somewhat easily. I can ask him about his sister, or Mr Bingley, or his plans for staying or leaving, simple things — Holly, please do not give me that dark look. I have thought this over carefully, and I would like to have the opportunity, just me, to talk with him again now that these first uncomfortable meetings are over with, to see how he acts toward me. If I can but watch him in a relaxed or unguarded moment, I might discover some inkling as to his feelings and then might be able to be clearer as to my own.”

It was not hard to understand Elizabeth’s need, but that did not make Holly any more apt to like it. For the hundredth time since her cousin’s arrival, she silently cursed the name ‘Mr Darcy’; fervently wishing she had never heard it. Elizabeth looked at her, silently asking for understanding, so she put on a mild face, declared that her plan made perfect sense, and wished her a nice outing.

“Go!” she smiled.

“I will,” Elizabeth answered and jumped off her seat.

It was not until after the door closed behind her that she let out an explosive sigh and flopped gracelessly down on the sofa.

“Ahhhhh!” she yelled out to the ceiling, childishly kicking at the arm of the sofa. “
Why
did he have to come here? Stupid man! Stupid, stupid man!”

When her outburst was over, she jumped up and looked around hurriedly, hoping her mother had not heard. She tried to settle down to her work again, but soon discovered that it was impossible. Her mind kept wandering outside to where Elizabeth walked, wondering if or where she might meet up with that man. What if her initial fears were right and Mr Darcy’s motives were not honourable? What if he had followed her to Scotland in anger and frustration? He had already admitted on more than one occasion to purposefully seeking her out, looking to find her when she was alone.

The more Holly pondered these questions, the more concerned she became. Even as she told herself she was being ridiculous, that despite his faults Mr Darcy appeared to be an honest and respectable man, the doubts persisted. Elizabeth herself trusted him and believed him to be good; there was no cause for her to worry. But then again, Elizabeth had believed that same thing of Mr Wickham, and had admitted how mistaken she continually felt regarding Mr Darcy.

Holly was pacing now. Elizabeth was out there somewhere — looking to speak to this man alone. Night fell fast this time of year . . . what if . . . what if . . .

“Enough!” Holly declared before grabbing her cloak and heading out the door herself. It was nothing, she was sure, but she would not be easy in her mind until she found her cousin and made sure she was safe again at Rosefarm.

M
RS
M
C
L
AUGHLIN GLANCED AT THE
door. All was quiet.