Page 15 of Yearning

It was these sorts of feelings that drove her to the ball. When she was staying strong for Mr. Darcy, it was easier in some ways. Then she could focus entirely on him and any pain she felt was all in service of doing what she could for him. It felt noble, and it was its own motivation.

She could not, however, for some reason, convince herself that the loss of children was a noble sacrifice, because it hurt too much. Anyway, he didn’t even want her to make the sacrifice for him, that was the absolute hell of it.

He had said it baldly, I don’t want you here for any of it.

She sometimes remembered things about this man, things such as the way she had first met him, when he had said—loud enough for her to overhear—that she was not handsome enough to tempt him. She remembered his first marriage proposal, during which he had gone on for some time about how far it was that she was beneath him and how absolutely improper a match was between them. She was remembering the letter he had sent her in which he had pointed out how badly behaved her family was. That had not been the point of the letter, but he hadn’t been able to resist putting that in there.

“There were some very strong objections against the lady,” was what Colonel Fitzwilliam had said about Elizabeth’s sister Jane, and Mr. Darcy had always had strong objections against her as well.

Why had he wanted her?

She still could not say that she understood. Before his accident, she had talked to him about it, tried to pin down when it was that he had begun to have feelings for her, and he had told her that it had crept up on him, that he was already in love with her before he was aware of it. Then, they had been walking together, hand-in-hand. Then, she could look up at him and smell his scent, and feel the crackle of promise between them. There was something between them then, and it was a physical thing, an attraction, a draw.

It was not the only thing.

It truly was not.

But that was gone.

At the ball, she danced every dance. She danced with Mr. Bingley and then with a man she had just met named Mr. Allerton, and then she found herself on the arm of a baron called Hellig. The man was in his sixties, likely, old enough to be her father, but she found herself liking him. Maybe he reminded her of her father, with his dry humor and his little mischievous smiles. He told her that he had two sons, one of whom was older than she was, and that he was not at all looking for another wife.

“It would be foolish for me to marry again,” he said. “I have a very comfortable life, after all. I am thinking that I shall simply get some large dogs and let them sleep in my bed and that should be better than a wife, anyway.”

“Oh?” she said, snickering in spite of herself. “Will it truly?”

“Indeed,” he said. “Dogs are always quite happy and grateful for anything you do for them, and they never ask for anything or find fault or want you to buy them new dresses or bring them to London for the spring or get into jealous snits about the number of times you danced with women far too young for you, after all. Dogs are utterly superior to wives in every way.”

“It does sound so,” said Elizabeth, with a little shrug.

He moved around her, following the steps of the dance. “I sense you don’t agree.”

She turned and looked over her shoulder as she followed the steps as well and went to his left. “Well, dogs aren’t particularly good conversationalists.”

“True,” he said, and his eyes twinkled.

“And if you want dogflesh in your bed, I think it may not matter, truly. You are a baron, and I can hardly imagine your lady wife not having her own bedchamber.”

“Well, that is so,” he said. “I suppose I could have a dog and a wife.”

“You quite could, my lord,” she said to him.

He moved back, for the steps meant him to, and she moved back as well, and then they came back together.

His gaze was soft as he looked over her, and he did not remind her of her father right now, not the way he was looking at her, which was… well, perhaps it was nice. It was not the way Mr. Darcy used to look at her. It was different. But Mr. Darcy did not look at her like that anymore, anyway, not that she could expect him to, not that he could… Heavens.

“There is the fact, of course,” said Baron Hellig in a very low voice, “that all the unattached women I come across are far, far too young for me.”

“I don’t see men worrying overmuch about that, my lord,” she said.

“Well, perhaps they ought to,” he said. “Young women do not desire old men, and to maneuver them into such positions, it is cruel in some ways.”

“Life is cruel, my lord,” she said. “Happiness evades us much of the time.”

She danced with other men, as well. A young merchant whose business was in competition with Mr. Bingley’s, who seemed to think that dancing with Bingley’s wife’s sister sent some sort of message about how he was going to trounce Bingley and undercut his prices. Elizabeth had tuned out in the midst of that man’s diatribe.

She danced with a viscount and with Mr. Hurst, for he was there, with his wife. Mr. Hurst was Mr. Bingley’s brother-in-law, married to the sister who was not Caroline, Louisa.

Later, she found herself on the outskirts of everything, rather exhausted, for she had stood up for hours and it was quite late. She was a bit tipsy. She’d had a number of glasses of wine and some of the wine punch as well.