The Elizabeth Conspiracy Read online

  Undeterred, for all would be well once their engagement was announced, Darcy entered the parlor. He saw Elizabeth sitting in front of the window with a book beside her, the last of the afternoon's rays glowing softly around her. He had not believed himself capable of the tender emotion she stirred within his breast. Tendrils of mahogany curls framed the features he had grown to cherish — from her wide forehead and fine eyes to her curvy lips and pointed chin.

  She stood when she saw him, raising one hand to her temple and clutching her novel to her chest with the other.

  "Are you well from your headache?" he asked, recalling Mr. Collins' excuse for her absence. He ought to have known only an illness would keep her from him.

  She did not look at him when she replied, "I am well enough, thank you, Mr. Darcy," in a clipped tone suggesting she was not completely recovered.

  He did not wish for her to remain standing, and yet she neglected to offer him a seat — an oversight caused by her headache, no doubt.

  He sat down and was content to see her follow suit. When she made no indication of engaging him in conversation, his limbs grew too restless to remain in one attitude. He paced in front of the chimney, his heart pounding in his chest, the words he had practiced in his mind refusing to pass his tongue though he opened his mouth several times to speak.

  His palms, slick with sweat, betrayed his nerves in a way he had never before been unable to control.

  Taking a deep breath and straightening his shoulders, for he was certain of her reply, he began, "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed."

  He had her attention now. He had known she would appreciate heartfelt honesty above poetry for such a momentous declaration.

  With her brown eyes searching his, infusing him with courage, he said, "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

  He paused to calm his heart and gather his thoughts. She remained speechless, and it occurred to him that perhaps she required an explanation.

  The blush covering her cheeks was sufficient encouragement for him to continue.

  "It is many months now, almost since our first meeting, that I have admired you." It had been during her stay at Netherfield Park when he had first felt his heart was in danger. He had looked forward to her conversation, and her attentiveness to her ill sister had won his admiration.

  Elizabeth's gaze remained fixed on the floor, but he saw her brows furrow. Did she believe herself unworthy? He could reassure her on that point. "Despite the differences in our positions in society — the inferiority of your birth, the indifference of your father, the vulgarity of your mother, and the mockery of all things proper by your younger sisters… I am willing to overlook all of this because I recognize in you a lady who has risen above her circumstances, who has used the adversities presented to her as an opportunity to improve." They were well-matched in that regard. Just like himself, she would excel in any endeavor to which she put her mind.

  He complimented her freely, and yet she still did not look at him. Had he overwhelmed her with his declaration? He imagined she kept her face down to disguise her tears of joy.

  Finally, she spoke. Her voice was not clouded by tears as he had supposed. "In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments expressed … however unequally they may be returned."

  Darcy froze, the smile he wore feeling foolish now. Surely, he misunderstood her.

  She continued, "If I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot."

  His stomach sank to his toes, and he leaned against the mantelpiece, his eyes riveted on her in disbelief.

  When Elizabeth finally looked up at him to speak, her eyes were bright and her words snappy. "I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation."

  Darcy's breath caught in his throat. She rejected him? Her reply left no room for doubt, and yet, Darcy found it difficult to accept.

  He pinched his lips together, not trusting himself to speak a word until he had gained some measure of understanding and composure. She would repulse his offer without so much as an explanation when she ought to be flattered? She could not, by her own admission, even express gratitude for the honor bestowed upon her? He clenched his hands at his side.

  Elizabeth, the only lady he had opened his heart to in a declaration, had rejected his offer so coldly, the only warmth in the room was the anger rising within him.

  Chapter 5

  Forcing a calm Darcy did not feel, he said, "And this is all the reply which I am to have the honor of expecting? I wish to be informed why, with so little endeavor at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance," he shrugged. He would not allow her rejection to pain him any more than his father's constant indifference had. He was Fitzwilliam Darcy, an expert at concealing emotion. He was only ashamed he had been so mistaken in Elizabeth to expose his weakness.

  She stood, the familiar scent of her rosewater filling him with bitterness. This rose had thorns, but he did not back down. He stood like a wall before her, ready for the attack.

  And it came.

  "I might as well inquire, why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? If I was uncivil, is that not some excuse for incivility? But I have other provocations. You know I have." Her flushed cheeks and fiery eyes added fury to her accusation.

  If he knew of other provocations, did she believe him stupid enough to propose before addressing them? He had in every way acted like a perfect gentleman in her company.

  She continued, "Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent or had they even been favorable, do you think any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps forever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?"

  Elizabeth spoke of her sister as if she had loved Bingley, which was preposterous. Had Darcy not watched them together? Had he not observed how quiet her demeanor was toward all the gentlemen in the room, including Bingley? And when he had, on occasion, seen a becoming blush on her cheeks, it was more likely to have been caused by the heat in the room than from Bingley's attentions. Miss Bennet had not regarded his friend with any more interest than she had her ridiculous cousin, Mr. Collins, with whom she had also danced and smiled.

  Darcy's silence encouraged Elizabeth to continue, and he listened with one ear on her unjust accusations while justifying his own conduct in his mind.

  Her knuckles were white where she grasped her book like a shield over her heart. "But it is not merely this affair on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham."

  She paused, no doubt expecting a reaction. Darcy would not give her the satisfaction of one. Not for a lowly scoundrel such as Wickham.

  She pressed, "What can you have to say in your defense, Mr. Darcy? In what imaginary act of friendship can you defend yourself, or under what misrepresentation can you impose further on others?"

  Misrepresentation? Impose? Darcy despised disguise of any sort, and he resented the imposition of others in affairs which need not concern them. That Elizabeth Bennet would dare mention Wickham, depicting him as the victim against Darcy's villainous abuse, made his blood boil. "You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns."

  "Who that knows what his misfortunes have been can help feeling interest in him?" she asked defiantly, ignorantly championing a man wholly undeserving of her sympathy and defense.

  Darcy scoffed. "His misfortunes! Yes,
his misfortunes have been great indeed." And each of them the consequence of Wickham's own foolish actions and irresponsibility.

  Elizabeth huffed. "And of your infliction," she exclaimed. "You have reduced him to his present state of poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him by your own father. You have deprived him of the best years of his life, of that independence which was no less his due than his dessert. All this you have done, and yet you treat his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule."

  Darcy was not ignorant of Wickham's ability to garner the support of whomever he chose. He had successfully fooled Darcy's own father, who had chosen to believe him over his own son time and again despite the proof Darcy offered. But that Elizabeth, the woman he had been foolish enough to trust, chose to give credit to Wickham's slanderous story of woe and thus believe himself capable of the wrongs of which she accused him, burned his soul.

  Stepping toward her, he ignored the pull of her closeness, taking comfort in the rigid control he exercised over himself. Nothing she said now could hurt him. His defenses were firmly in place, and he knew them to be impenetrable. He had only to blame himself for letting his guard down when experience had taught him to know better.

  "And this is your opinion of me? I thank you for explaining it fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed. But perhaps these offenses might have been overlooked had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed had I with greater policy concealed my struggles and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, genuine inclination — by reason, by reflection, by everything." Just as Wickham had successfully done.

  Darcy's stomach twisted in disgust toward the man who had been given every advantage and had thrust it in Darcy's face with derision and mockery.

  He hated that he had spoken from his heart only to have his words used against him unfavorably. Perhaps he had not spoken as eloquently as he should have, but he had been honest. Unlike Wickham.

  Continuing, he said, "Disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?" Did she not recognize what he was willing to give up and endure for her? Why should she punish him for speaking the truth?

  Elizabeth's eyes shot daggers at him, and her voice cracked like a rifle. "You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner."

  Her words struck him to the core. He was nothing if not a gentleman.

  She continued, and Darcy heard through the fracture in his carefully placed armor, "You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would tempt me to accept it. From the very beginning — from the first moment I may almost say — of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike. I had not known you a month before I felt you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry." Her chest heaved violently with the emotion she let loose on him.

  In Darcy's mind, his voice trembled as badly as she had shaken everything on which he based his confidence. Nonetheless, his training did him credit. A cold, detached tone he would sooner credit to a stranger than to himself said, "You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness."

  He had meant to have the last word and leave with his dignity intact. He had not meant to apologize nor express any remorse in his feelings toward her. He had been reprimanded in the worst way for his honesty and vilified by a man unworthy of Elizabeth's friendship.

  He let himself out, walking past the wide-eyed maid with no destination in mind.

  Chapter 6

  Darcy walked until he had to rub his arms against the cold night air. It was with blessed relief that he heard his aunt's carriage rumble down her gravel drive toward Hunsford parsonage, conveying her callers away from Rosings.

  Not wishing to see or be seen by anybody, he made his way quietly across the entrance hall and up the carpeted stairs to his uncle Lewis' study. It was a room that had been left alone since his death ten years before, and it still contained the best stash of brandy in the house.

  Richard was already there, sitting in front of the fireplace with a glass in his hand.

  He greeted Darcy. "Where in the devil did you run off to?"

  Darcy stood in front of the fire, holding his hands out to soak in its warmth. "Nowhere in particular," he answered, rubbing his chest and turning.

  "From the looks of you, you would have been better off staying with our aunt's guests."

  Darcy could not bring himself to agree with his cousin, although Richard was correct in his assumption. The thought of her refusal warmed him more than the drink Richard offered. How dare she misunderstand him so completely! And to believe Wickham's word over his own? She could not have insulted him more thoroughly. She had called his conduct ungentlemanly.

  Richard watched Darcy through narrowed eyes, inspecting him as closely as he did a horse for auction at Tattersall's. Darcy did not care for his scrutiny, so he turned toward the fire. His stiff fingers now wrapped more comfortably around his glass.

  "I do not suppose you chanced upon Miss Elizabeth?" Richard asked.

  A storm rose in Darcy's chest at the mention of her. He cast his bothersome cousin a glare over his shoulder. "Why do you ask?"

  Try as he might, he could not return her hatred as vehemently as she had bestowed it upon him. That she did not understand his character, that she chose to believe the worst of him, had struck him harder than any blow.

  His buffoon of a cousin struggled not to smile as he watched Darcy's discomfort. Darcy could never tell him where he had gone and what he had done, or he would never hear the end of it.

  "No reason," Richard said, rubbing his chin. "Miss Elizabeth enjoys long walks in the park, and I thought she would wish to take in the fresh air before nightfall to ease her headache. I only thought it very likely your paths should naturally cross."

  Darcy fell silent and his limbs went numb. What had he done? If it became known he had called on Miss Elizabeth unattended, the consequences would be disastrous. He squeezed his eyes shut and kept his back to Richard. The last time he had felt like such a fool, Wickham had nearly managed to elope with Georgiana.

  Fortunately, Richard did not press for conversation. Unfortunately, he seemed content to hear himself postulate on Elizabeth's finer qualities. "Miss Elizabeth would be quite the catch for any man."

  You try it, then, thought Darcy ungraciously.

  Richard continued, "Aside from her amicable humor, I find her conversation engaging and her manners pleasant."

  Her rebuke of Darcy's character had been so thorough, he had difficulty remembering her smile.

  Richard did not know when to stop extolling the virtues of the last lady in the world of whom Darcy wished to hear. He continued, "Aunt Catherine's inability to intimidate her speaks well of how she would manage in high society."

  If Richard thought she was such an exemplary lady, he could have her. Perhaps Miss Elizabeth would spare Richard's pride when she refused his offer too. What did she seek? What could another gentleman offer that he could not?

  When Darcy said nothing, Richard continued, "I hope you do not mind, but I took advantage of the opportunity to make her aware of your finer
points when I saw her earlier today."

  Darcy scoffed. According to her, he had no redeeming qualities. "What did you say?" he asked, suspecting she had twisted Richard's compliments into faults.

  "I gave her food for thought and, given how pensive she became upon my revealing your kind act toward a good friend, I have no doubt she will draw a favorable conclusion."

  Darcy's stomach sank. His heart vibrated in his ears. "What did you tell her?"

  "I didn't mention names outright, but I suggested how you used your influence over Bingley to separate him from an unworthy lady with too many objections against her, thus saving him from an uneven match and a life of unhappiness."

  Clearly pleased with himself, Richard's smile quickly turned to consternation when Darcy groaned. "I wish you had not interfered on my behalf. I assure you, the lady does not think well of me." Her name, which he had pronounced tenderly to himself numerous times before now refused to pass his lips.

  Richard blustered, "Nonsense! She would be very fortunate indeed to win the heart of a man such as yourself. As you would be to win her. You may consider it an interference, but you will soon thank me for it."

  The irony of the situation struck Darcy a bittersweet blow. It was his own resentment of Aunt Catherine's interference that had carried him with a purpose to Hunsford parsonage, and now his meddling cousin had it in his mind to match him with the one lady who would not have him due, in large part, to his interference in her beloved sister's future hopes.

  A new sensation made him shift his weight from one foot to the other as his justifications tottered without the conviction he had given them before. Had he been wrong to give his opinion when Bingley had asked it of him?

  No, surely not! How was he to know Bingley would give more weight to Darcy's counsel than to his own?

  Only, Darcy had known Bingley was not as decisive as he needed to be in matters of the heart. Darcy had known his gullible friend would trust his judgment and act in accord with his opinion. Darcy had known what would happen and had given little thought as to how it would affect Miss Bennet, believing her indifferent. Had he been wrong to … interfere? He felt uncertain, and he quickly decided to stifle the unpleasant emotion with action.