Page 54 of A Most Favourable Match

Chapter 18

“Confound it all!” Darcy exclaimed, blotting at the ink that had splashed onto his writing paper at the moment the doorbell cut jarringly through his deep concentration.

Tutting at his own clumsiness, he shuffled together the complete pages already covered with neat, purposeful handwriting. There were only a few more paragraphs to add, and then it would be done. It had not been an easy letter to write. Darcy had spent considerable time and effort on its composition, never mind the waste of paper as he crossed out or added to his thoughts.

It was only too likely that Elizabeth Bennet would never respond to the letter or even acknowledge it, never mind alter her feelings towards him. So be it. It was only important that she know the truth, as far as he could tell it, and judge him on that alone.

Darcy swore again when he realised the ink had also splotched his shirt sleeves. He considered going to his room to change and ask his valet to get the maids to deal with the stained shirt, but some unknown person was at the front door. His jacket would cover the stainsif he could remember where he took the infernal thing off.

Looking irritably around the library, he hoped that the caller downstairs would be for Georgiana or Mrs Annesley, who had gone out together half an hour ago. It would be even better if the caller had the wrong house entirely. In any case, Darcy was in no mood for visitors.

He had just found his jacket on the back of a chair and was pulling it on when his elderly butler, Soames, entered the room.

“There is a visitor, Mr Darcy.”

“Whoever it is, can you tell them I am not home, Soames?” Darcy asked immediately. “I am not really in a state to receive unexpected guests, and no mood for it either. If it’s a friend of mine, tell them I will return the call as soon as I can.”

Looking back over his shoulder, Soames seemed unusually uncomfortable and distracted, as well as slightly pink in the face. “Sir, unfortunately, I could not…”

“Mr Darcy,” rang out Miss Caroline Bingley’s voice, cutting across his butler’s attempts to explain the situation. “How lovely to see you. I was just passing, with nothing in particular to do today, and thought it might be a good time to call in and see Georgiana.”

Darcy nodded to the butler, wordlessly communicating his understanding that the man had been steamrollered by Miss Bingley at the front door and unable to prevent her entering the library unannounced. He alsogestured for Soames to remain at the door, not wishing to be alone with a woman as persistent as Miss Bingley had shown herself to be. Darcy was glad that he had had time to at least don his jacket.

And was Miss Bingley indeed ‘just passing’, as she had claimed? Her neat teal walking suit and carefully arranged hair under her matching hat told a rather different story. He half-wondered if she had even waited outside for Georgiana to leave, although perhaps that was moving into paranoia.

All the same, Darcy forced himself to smile. However much she grated on his nerves, Miss Bingley was still his friend’s sister and a lady to be respected.

“Georgiana and Mrs Annesley have gone out for the afternoon,” he said briefly. “I cannot say what time they will return. I am sorry that your journey has been wasted, Miss Bingley. May I get Soames to call you a cab, or do you have a carriage with you?”

“There is no need to trouble yourself, Mr Darcy,” Miss Bingley returned, coming further into the room, despite his lack of invitation and the faint impropriety of their meeting alone like this. “I have a carriage. Charles kindly left the larger coach in London for me and Louisa to use. He does not intend to go about much in Hertfordshire and does not need more than one carriage there.”

Darcy did now vaguely remember seeing a familiar carriage in the street as he saw off Georgiana and Mrs Annesley earlier. Alarm bells rang in his head – perhaps his suspicion that Miss Bingley had lain in wait to get him alone was not too wide of the mark after all.

“I had thought you would have gone to Netherfield Park with your brother,” Darcy observed, wishing that it had indeed been the case.

Charles Bingley had departed for Netherfield Park the morning after the Suttonfield ball. Darcy had seen his friend’s mood lift on seeing Miss Jane Bennet again at the ball, and then crash the following day, on having to accept all over again that she was engaged to another man and he had no hope of ever winning her hand.

“No, my own personal interests are very much here…in London, I mean,” Miss Bingley said, glancing down at the ground and then back at Darcy with a flirtatious smile.

He winced, embarrassed to have Soames witness this scene but knowing that his situation could become far worse if he sent the butler away. Was Miss Bingley really expecting him to offer her tea?

“Have you heard from your brother?” he asked, having received no letters from Netherfield yet and imagining Bingley to be moping about the place rather than attending to his correspondence.

“No, not a single letter,” sighed Miss Bingley. “I do miss him.”

“Perhaps you will soon go and join him at Netherfield,” Darcy suggested, hopefully more than with any conviction.

Caroline Bingley only laughed at the idea, a very artificial and silvery laugh. “I should have said that I miss having Charles in London,” she corrected herself. “I have so many social engagements right now andno gentleman to escort me. It is most trying that my brother should remove himself from London a second time during the Season.”

“You have Mr and Mrs Hurst,” Darcy pointed out, having no inclination to fall into the trap of agreeing to escort Miss Bingley about London and being mistaken for her admirer, or even prospective husband.

Miss Bingley had moved to be directly in front of him. Darcy felt a shiver pass over his body, and he walked slowly away from her. He remembered the sensation when she had grasped his arm at the Suttonfield ball, and he had recoiled with something close to revulsion. He felt something of that now, merely from her proximity without any contact.

This encounter in Darcy House’s library was very different to being alone with Miss Elizabeth Bennet in that candlelit room at the Suttonfield ball, where she had upbraided and railed at Darcy, and he had madly suggested they marry. Elizabeth’s proximity had sparked entirely different feelings in his breast, even when she was shouting at him.

“Yes, there is Mr Hurst, but he is generally…fully occupied.”

Miss Bingley’s answer left it open whether she meant occupied with drink, or with escorting his wife. Everyone knew the man was a sot, but no one ever acknowledged it publicly, Darcy thought with distaste. Seeing his visitor’s eyes fall on the desk where he had been writing, Darcy hastily gathered up his letter and slipped it into a drawer.