Chasing Elizabeth Read online

  Darcy recognized Richard’s sound reasoning in Bingley’s argument.

  Miss Bingley pouted. “You are too easily persuaded. I daresay you will fall head over heels for the first country maiden to show herself agreeable, and you will be worse off than you were before we left London. I should like to see you insist on learning estate management when you are distracted by a pretty face. It is a good thing Mr. Darcy is here to keep you in check, for you seem intent on paying neither me nor Louisa any heed.”

  Contrary to Miss Bingley’s claim, Darcy had no intention of interfering with his friend’s amorous objectives. His focus must be solely on his mission: Gain Sir William’s confidence and let him lead Darcy to The Four Horsemen.

  Fortunately for Bingley, Mrs. Louisa Hurst had seen fit to ride more comfortably in the other carriage with her husband. Otherwise, she would certainly have added to her sister’s assault against their brother.

  “And what of it?” Bingley lifted his chin. “I should be so fortunate to fall for a young lady as pure and gentle of heart as she is handsome of face.”

  Miss Bingley huffed. “Precisely the sort of lady from which you ought to keep your distance! You do not know how ladies truly are, having been raised with Louisa and myself as your most intimate examples. You think all ladies are as accomplished, well-mannered, and full of grace as we are, but pray allow me to warn you that most are meanly deceptive.”

  Self-aggrandizing, pretentious, and conceited were more suitable adjectives, Darcy thought.

  She added in a huff, “They think nothing of condescending to conniving arts to capture a gentleman’s affection. Especially those who consider themselves beauties.”

  As if she had not tried every artful device apart from a manipulated compromise to capture his attention. Darcy tried to ignore her.

  Bingley, however, rose in the defense of his unknown future bride. “Must all handsome young ladies be accused of malicious, artful designs? Can they not, too, be as sincere as a lady without fair features? You are too harsh on your sex, Caroline.”

  “If managing an estate is as involved as you imply, what makes you think you will have time to court a young lady? You would do better to remain unmarried until your affairs are in order, as Mr. Darcy has done.”

  “I am not like Darcy. I would soon become lonely at an estate without a wife to keep me company.”

  Darcy held his peace. Bingley clearly had no idea of the soothing effect an oasis brimming with pleasant memories could have on a disquieted heart, but he refused to take sides with Miss Bingley. She flattered herself enough without any assistance from him.

  The brother and sister’s conversation faded along with the creaking and squishing of the carriage wheels along the miry road. As much as he wished for Bingley to attain his aims and be happy, Darcy had more urgent matters to ponder. Who was Sir William? Darcy wished to be better prepared before he met the man, but the little he had learned only added to his caution and fueled the image of a cunning adversary. The Four Horsemen did not associate with ordinary men.

  Sir William would be a powerful foe — one who gave the impression of an inoffensive, obliging fellow with excellent manners, well-liked by his neighbors and, as such, immune to suspicion.

  Bingley had already been misled about the gentleman’s character. When Darcy had asked his opinion of Sir William, he had nothing but compliments to utter. Never had he met a man more courteous. But Bingley saw everyone in a favorable light and, therefore, was not a reliable source of information.

  Sir William’s ability to mask his deviousness so thoroughly made him a powerful rival. Darcy would have to exercise extreme caution. He could not make any mistakes tonight.

  If only he could find someone intimately acquainted with the Lucases — someone who understood the true nature beneath Sir William’s carefully maintained façade. An ally to point Darcy in the right direction, someone already in the family’s confidence.

  “…do you not agree, Mr. Darcy?” Miss Bingley said yet again.

  Darcy clenched his jaw. Her assumed intimacy and frequent interruptions were growing tiresome.

  Rubbing his finger over the monogrammed compass attached to his fob, Darcy reminded himself of his goal. He would not allow his growing irritation at Miss Bingley to distract him from his purpose.

  Narrowed focus sharpened his senses and restored his impassivity. By the time the carriage stopped in front of the assembly room, he was ready — eager — to face his enemy.

  Nothing could have prepared Darcy for the rotund man with merry red cheeks who greeted them in his role as the Master of Ceremonies. At first appearance, Sir William was precisely as Bingley had described him to be: friendly, obliging, courteous, and all attention to everybody. There was a good amount of pride in his manners, but not of the offensive kind. He wore his rank with the same self-satisfaction with which an officer donned his first red coat. And while he spoke eagerly and often of St. James, his rise in status had rendered him courteous rather than supercilious.

  Had Darcy not known better, he would have been inclined to like the gentleman. Sir William’s garrulous speech and the sincerity he achieved in his engaging manner marked him as one of the most accomplished spies Darcy had ever met … and he had met more than his fair share over the past few years. Most men in Sir William’s position were quiet, secretive. Not he. He lived large, so committed to the success of his act, he was not afraid of drawing attention to himself.

  Darcy understood now why Leo had sent him. Sir William was like no other villain he had ever met.

  “If you need an introduction at St. James, I would be honored to oblige,” the older gentleman offered with a bow and an accommodating smile.

  Miss Bingley scoffed at his offer, her face in high color. It was an expert cut straight to the quick for one who believed herself the social superior of everyone in attendance at the assembly.

  How had Sir William discerned her character so accurately in the few minutes since they entered the large room to deliver such a direct cut?

  Darcy was in awe. Cunning and deceit he could handle, but he had never met a foe who used open manners so skillfully as Sir William. For the first time since his first mission, Darcy felt he was in over his head. Getting the information he required from Sir William would be his greatest challenge to date, and it was the one mission in which he genuinely could not fail.

  Sir William continued, “I only recently returned from London where I had the good fortune to renew an old acquaintance. Perhaps you know Sir Erasmus Clark?”

  Darcy froze. Was Sir William so bold as to name one of The Four Horsemen aloud?

  The sly gentleman, his eyebrows raised in bushy question marks, turned his attention to Darcy, looking him straight in the eye so that Darcy’s blood went cold. Did Sir William already suspect? How could he?

  With all the indifference in his possession, Darcy held his gaze. “I know of Sir Erasmus, but I cannot say we are intimately acquainted.”

  Haughtily, Miss Bingley said, “My acquaintances are limited to the first circles.”

  Had Sir Erasmus been born into nobility, she would have pretended an acquaintance, but knights were only one step above a commoner (despite their obscene wealth.) Since they could not be used to heighten her position in society, she did not waste her time with them.

  Darcy, however, rose to meet Sir William’s challenge. “He is highly respected in certain circles.”

  Sir William leaned closer to Darcy, as if he meant to share a confidence.

  Darcy held his breath, his pulse drumming in his ears.

  “Sir William, now is not the time for private conversations when we look to you for introductions!” a shrill voice interrupted. “How can we welcome the new residents to Netherfield Park properly if you do not perform your office? We do not want them to think we lack in social graces nor neighborly affection.”

  Already inclined to dislike the screeching madam, Darcy followed Sir William’s trajectory of sight to a plu
mp woman drowning in lace and wielding a fan like a sword as she cut through the crowd. She dragged five ladies behind her, all of them young, and, Darcy would wager, all of them unmarried. The meaning behind the squealing matron’s words were painfully clear.

  His tête-à-tête with Sir William thus brought to an immediate halt, Darcy sought to extract himself lest he expose his increasing aggravation. Until he set upon a pair of fine, brown eyes. He knew those eyes.

  Darcy could not help but note that the face surrounding said features, now fully visible for him to appreciate without the splotches of mud inhibiting his view, was equally fine.

  Her pert nose suggested she was no stranger to mischief, as the circumstances of their first meeting confirmed. The firmness of her chin suggested a strength of character uncommon in most young ladies in society. The twitch tugging the corners of her lips implied a sense of humor. Given her good humor after having been thrown from her horse, he concluded that the lady was one to make the best of any situation no matter how unfavorable. The blush on her cheeks was as rosy as it had been that morning, and the way she chewed her bottom lip while peeking at her mother suggested she possessed more manners than Darcy had believed from someone who had run away after receiving his assistance. Darcy had not known what to think of her, but there was no denying she had left an impression.

  The young lady beside her, a fair-haired maiden whose pale complexion confirmed a less adventurous spirit than her sister, also blushed as her mother prattled to Sir William about what Darcy knew not. He could not bring himself to pay attention to a word she said. Nor, apparently, did the gentleman who came up to stand behind her. His eyes contained the same mirth and curiosity his fine-eyed daughter expressed, but he did not look in the least embarrassed about his wife’s presumption. Nor did he pay her any particular tender regard when he said rather sarcastically, “Your ability to converse without taking in breath is remarkable, my love, but considering how easily your nerves are unsettled, I recommend you pause to breathe at once before you swoon.”

  Sir William must have been accustomed to the lady’s manners. He lost no time in performing the service she had insisted upon.

  Darcy committed their names to memory. Miss Elizabeth Bennet. That was the one which lingered in his mind.

  He ought to ask her for a dance. Surely, he could indulge in a reel during his mission.

  His mission! Sir William. The Four Horsemen. Pemberley.

  Darcy clenched his jaw and his fists. How easily he had been distracted! He was as flighty as Miss Bingley had accused her brother of being.

  To his chagrin, Darcy found his gaze once again straying to Miss Elizabeth.

  He knew then that he must depart from her company.

  For a brief moment, he had been inclined to delay his investigation and ask her to dance. It deeply troubled Darcy that such a desire should provoke him to distraction at that moment, and with a young lady he had last seen covered head-to-toe in mud.

  Chapter 5

  Darcy excused himself from the group, earning nothing more than a frown from Mrs. Bennet, who was too pleased with her eldest daughter’s success in securing a dance with Bingley to overlook his own oversight toward her remaining four daughters.

  Since he avoided dancing with Miss Elizabeth, Darcy decided it best to forgo dancing altogether that evening. He had work to do — work which would increase the safety and security of every person at the assembly. If that was not justification enough, he could not conjure a better one.

  Skirting around the edge of the room, Darcy took advantage of his superior height to observe the villagers, tradesmen, and scattered gentry crowded into the assembly room. There was a notable lack of higher society, thus explaining to some degree the rashness Mrs. Bennet allowed herself. With nobody to check her — for Mr. Bennet had clearly given up on the task long ago, if indeed he had ever attempted to improve his wife — she felt free to indulge her vulgar speech. Several times her voice perforated Darcy’s thoughts and intruded the conversations he attempted to listen to with estimations of his and Bingley’s wealth along with doting praise over Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst’s gaudy gowns.

  Miss Elizabeth, on the other hand, made her neighbors smile everywhere she went. From the tenants with frayed coat collars to the ladies turned out in their finest, and the shopkeepers decked out in their wares, she conversed easily with all and left each group she addressed happier for having received her attention.

  To his perplexed first impression of a lady caked in mud were added the more complementary endowments of lively, observant eyes, an oft present bright smile, and laughter that tinkled like chiming bells.

  She captured his attention, and Darcy could not fathom why. Too many times, his vision settled on her when he ought to have been following the movements of Sir William.

  It perturbed Darcy to feel an instant connection to the young lady. There must be a valid, logical reason for it. His instincts were too acutely trained to mislead him, and time and again, his gaze wandered to the impertinent miss. Miss Elizabeth.

  Thus presented with a problem requiring immediate solution, Darcy studied Miss Elizabeth more fully as she flitted from one group to the next, her eyes frequently tracking the location and activities of her sisters (especially the younger ones.)

  It occurred to Darcy that Miss Elizabeth fitted the profile of an excellent informant. She clearly possessed the confidence of every being in the building. No doubt, she used her humor to diffuse tense situations as well as to extract information others struggled to attain (such as himself at that moment.) She was insightful enough to watch her sisters and possessed the initiative required to prevent disaster before it could start. She reminded Darcy of Richard.

  That was it! He understood now. He was only drawn to Miss Elizabeth because she represented someone familiar to him in these unfamiliar surroundings. She was also close to Sir William’s eldest daughter, who had presented herself briefly after Miss Elizabeth had sped away on her horse earlier that morning.

  He had not been distracted by her at all. He had only recognized in her the traits he often sought out in a valuable asset. Miss Elizabeth would be a worthy partner … were she not a female. It was a pity his instincts had not accounted for her gender. Darcy could not in good conscience involve her in his assignment. Never let it be said that Fitzwilliam Darcy endangered the life of a lady.

  However, while Darcy wished for his mission’s sake that his best means of befriending Sir Lucas was not a female, his frequent gazes in her direction could not rebut the fact that Miss Elizabeth was unquestionably a member of the fairer sex … and that her similarities to Richard did not venture beyond certain tells of character.

  She glided with a nimbleness which rivaled the athleticism of many of Darcy’s acquaintances employed by Leo.

  While her incident with the mare lent itself to the conclusion that she had much to learn in regards to horsemanship, she had known to kick her feet free of the stirrup and her skirts in the split-second before she fell. Either she was not so inexperienced as the scene suggested, or she had too much experience tumbling from racing equines. Darcy guessed the former, as only a fool would risk the latter. And he was convinced Miss Elizabeth was not a fool.

  “This is nothing like what we are accustomed to, is it, Mr. Darcy?” a voice which was not Mrs. Bennet’s, but which was equally unwelcome, said.

  Darcy frowned. How strange he should compare Miss Bingley to Mrs. Bennet … which, naturally, led to the passing observation that Miss Elizabeth seemed quite distinct from her mother.

  He really must stop thinking of her. She was not the informant he sought, and his repeated attempts to regain focus when Miss Elizabeth persisted in invading his thoughts was onerous. As were Miss Bingley’s incessant interruptions.

  Miss Bingley smiled, clearly pleased with her observation and emboldened to deepen her cut against the assembled. “I would not be surprised if someone should release a pig any moment!” She must have believed her dis
dain to be clever, for she chuckled under her gloved fingers.

  Darcy could not bear her company a moment longer. The crowd too closely resembled the assemblies he had attended near Pemberley. Out of respect for his own hard-working tenants, he would not share in her unseemly derision.

  Excusing himself to continue about the room, he watched Sir William for the better part of the next hour. He was a marvel — a true master. Not once did the gentleman’s disguise falter. No calculating looks or hardened eyes. No unexplained absences or sly glances. Had Darcy not witnessed Sir William’s insightful cut to Miss Bingley and heard his naming of Sir Erasmus, he would have been the last gentleman in the country Darcy would ever have suspected of treachery.

  Darcy was confident of his abilities, but Sir William exceeded his level of skill. Darcy despised disguise. He hated hidden motives and lies, and it was plain to see that Sir William was lord of all such traits. To confront him directly would be a grave mistake.

  From whom, then, could he extract information without arousing suspicions (other than Miss Elizabeth, of course)? Sir William’s family? One of his friends? A longtime servant? A close neighbor?

  Mr. Bennet came to mind. Sir William had introduced him heartily. He was one to watch, and soon Darcy found himself standing along the back wall, where he could more discreetly observe Mr. Bennet debate with two of Sir William’s sons.

  Mr. John Lucas was the firstborn, and the male equivalent to Miss Bingley so far as Darcy ascertained. His cravat was folded with greater care than the occasion required, and the frequency with which he partook of his snuffbox and peered downward through his eyepiece at everyone gave the image of a determined dandy with delusions of grandeur. He had not presumed to dance with any of the ladies present, much like Darcy (but for vastly different reasons, Darcy presumed.)