Page 31 of The Fee Entail

I smiled. “Are you saying you want to know some of my feminine wiles?”

“I do!”

I just chuckled. “How close to your hounds do you have to come before they start baying? If Rosings were downwind, you might stand a chance, but alas, luck is not with you. We have five senses. Your cologne is very distinctive and has not changed in a year.”

He chuckled, and we spoke of anything and nothing for another five minutes. I have not the slightest idea what we actually discussed, but it was pleasant. Everything was amiable and pointless with nothing at all of significance said or heard, something like Mr Bingley chatting with Louisa Hurst.

Surprisingly happy with the way the morning was working out considering what a disaster I thought the evening likely to be, I glanced at the front door. My companion noted my intent, and as I was becoming somewhat accustomed to, we simply moved in that direction in unison with no particular discussion. In a very gentlemanly manner, he helped me into my pelisse before donning his greatcoat. I removed my mobcap and replaced it with a brand-new bonnet my sisters decorated personally and brought for me, as he put on his beaver and opened the front door to usher us outside.

We both walked somewhat stiffly with our hands clasped behind our backs, much tighter than any practical purpose required, and for perhaps the first time in his company, I allowed myself to reflect back on our history together. Our easy companionship of the breakfast room was reduced but not quite gone. Neither of us seemed particularly put out or under any real duress, at least by our usual conversational standards, so my mind had time to wander.

By mutual agreement, and by that, I mean mutual awkwardness and inability to think of anything witty or intelligent to say, we walked out towards the ornamental gardens. It occurred to me that, in some alternate life where I was not shackled to my cousin, I might have visited some other more amenable bride. It was easy enough to imagine Charlotte Lucas or Louisa Golding marrying the man just for comfort and security, and should I have happened to visit, I might have spent days and weeks wandering these grounds in complete satisfaction. Lady Catherine’s taste in gardens tended more toward the formal than mine, but nobody could deny their beauty, and the woods to the side of the formal gardens were enchanting. Both garden and copse had been right outside my door through a winter, a spring, a summer, an autumn, and back to winter, and I had scarcely noticed. How much had I lost? How much felicity had I missed because I quit looking for beauty all around me? More troubling, why, in the presence of this particular man, was I starting to think about it once again?

In Hertfordshire, every conversation was like a knife fight, with me as likely to be trying to injure him as not. He played the part of innocent lamb that did not even know what a knife was most of the time. I wondered how he missed my dissembling, and once again, how I refused to see what Jane and Charlotte saw so clearly. That was what happened in a knife fight—sooner or later, you only saw the knife and not the opponent, or the arena, or the spectators.

In Kent, every conversation was like a fire or flood, with each of us alternating between the roles of rescuer and arsonist. Somehow, in a way I did not think I would ever truly understand, we both laid our souls bare, right down to the foundations, and in the process, perhaps stopped or slowed something dark that we each found attached. Somehow, despite our wretched beginnings, we offered each other some healing.

How it began, I had not the slightest idea, because there was no earthly reason I should have done anything but hate him after his eavesdropping on perhaps the worst conversation of my life—well, fourth or fifth worst perhaps. Mayhap he formed a preference for me back somewhere in our past life and that established the connection, or perhaps he was just exactly what he appeared to be: an honourable man, trying to do his best in a difficult world and appalled by my situation.

I could well remember the exact words that first allowed him to creep into my thoughts and perhaps into the tiny corner of my heart that still functioned: ‘my cowardice is screaming at me.’ Somehow, in that declaration, I found someone I could listen to. I recognised a fellow human being in pain, and concluded, without actually knowing it, that I could offer some relief. Somehow, I could tell it was a pain I could respond to with something other than more bitterness and pain, and the tide was slowly but inexorably turned towards—towards what exactly?

After some considerable time, each lost in our thoughts that were threatening to become more maudlin by the minute, I decided that for once in our lives, we might have a conversation. I did not mean we never had conversations, but I meant perhaps we could have one that was not likely to leave one of us dead and the other maimed for life, only to start over with alternate roles ten minutes later.

I looked up, and he seemed engaged in his own thoughts, but also peeking at me from time to time.

I finally screwed up my courage. “Jane is right, you know, Mr Darcy.”

He looked at me more carefully, and thought through his reply, as he usually did. “Might you use my given name, Elizabeth? I promise that crow is the only witness, and he seems trustworthy enough. You have done it once before, so you know what it is.”

“Yes, I used it just yesterday, but I was spitting, murderously, hopping mad at the time.”

He smiled, which I had to admit made him look quite handsome—disturbingly handsome—and also had both a disarming and an alarming effect. “Perhaps we can dispense with that part. It is less desirable.”

I answered that with a small smile that I did not really intend, but I let it stand.

He continued, “I have diverted you long enough. How is Jane right?”

Still caught up in reflections of the past, and nearly forgetting the conversation I had started, I had to sheepishly admit that, back at Netherfield, he said many clever and intelligent things, which I promptly misinterpreted like as not. In fact, I sometimes thought he did the same thing I did in reverse. Things I gave as barbs, he took as witty banter or compliments. Things he gave as compliments, I took as witty but injurious barbs.

For example, I remembered a parlour discussion about the hated accomplishments, when he said, “All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” That was in fact a near-crippling set-down to Miss Bingley, but I did not see it. In a prudential light, I suspected it was intended as a compliment to me, but I was no more perceptive than the other recipient and went on to try to injure his assertion, rather than recognising it for what it was. More the fool me!

I brought my focus back to the present, but as usual, he seemed like he would be happy to wait until yet another summer went by for my answer. I felt the stiffness and tension in both of my arms, and realised that we had been in somewhat easy company for nigh on a half-hour by then, but we were both still unsure of ourselves, stiff and formal, open and afraid. I thought I should at least try to put us both out of our misery.

I gradually relaxed my hands, then my arms, and somewhat shyly reached over to take the inside of his arm. He immediately released his own hands and moved his arm to the usual walking position, and we carried on for a moment or two, arm in arm, seemingly in perfect peace and accord, for the moment happy with each other’s company.

I finally decided to finish my own thought. “I apologise; I was wool-gathering. What I meant about Jane being right, Fitzwilliam, is that you are my friend. Perhaps you have always been, or perhaps not, but I believe you are now, and dare I say I believe you will remain. Do you concur?”

“Yes, Elizabeth, I am your friend. I shall always be. A bond was formed this week that neither time nor distance nor troubles shall break.”

The simple declaration warmed my heart, and for a little while, I believed perhaps I could worry about someone else for a change.

“We have not spoken of your sister since that first fraught conversation. How does she fare?”

His countenance was easier to read now that both of us were less diligent in maintaining our defensive masks than before, and I thought I saw the signs of both approbation that I was taking his sister into the circle of people I cared about, and sadness at what nearly befell her.

“She has recovered much over the past year, but is—” He stumbled for words, and I was afraid I had once again begun one of our near-fatal discussions, but he brightened back up “—somewhat reduced, but mostly recovered. I have high hopes for her, as I recently discovered an entirely new, and I believe more effective treatment. The new regimen should result in full recovery.”

“What exactly is this wondrous regimen you speak so highly of?”