Monday, December 16, 1811
“This was a mistake.” Fitzwilliam Darcy’s strained baritone echoed off the brown leather-upholstered walls of his coach, empty except for him. The sound was hollow — very much the way he foresaw his future.
He snapped the book on his lap closed and pulled the rug up around his neck to ward off the wintry nip in the air. The past few weeks had been colder than ever, or was it the prospect of a life void of the challenge, passion, and comfort she could provide that chilled him to the bone?
Darcy raked a hand through his hair. When had his thoughts become so fanciful?
He shook his head, already knowing the answer. It began soon after Michaelmas, that fateful evening at the assembly ball, the moment he took a second look at her and recognized his first impression was completely wrong.
“Ridiculous,” he huffed with a cloud of breath. Again with the whimsy! He barely knew himself lately.
The impression that she was special or that she alone could soothe the ache within his soul was irrational. And yet, with each hoof step his team took towards the village of Meryton, his awareness increased, as if his mind had been in a fog since his hasty retreat from Hertfordshire several weeks ago. The further away he had been from her, the stronger the strain on their connection had grown, decreasing the likeliness of his concentrating on anything else. Now, as he travelled closer, the tension in his chest eased. Relief swelled through him.
No! He must stop thinking along these lines. The idea they were linked somehow was ludicrous. There had to be a perfectly good explanation for his response.
But if it were some sort of trick of his mind, why did not the illusion originate from where he would expect her to be? From the direction of Longbourn, which would be ahead and to the right, instead of to the left?
Perhaps in his mind's eye, he presumed she would be on a stroll with her sisters, heading for Meryton, or even on one of her solitary rambles?
His heart thrashed against his ribs as he pulled the window curtain aside. Gaze combing the woods, he searched for a hint of unnatural colour — her gown or mayhap her bonnet.
His well-sprung coach’s wheels hit a rut so deep, the movement threw him against the seatback. The cloth dropped back into place.
This woman — this nobody — how had she cast a spell on him, so strong he was losing his mind?
It was a question he had asked himself many times since leaving Hertfordshire in late November. These three weeks in London, he had yielded to an all-encompassing, irrational dread that if he so much as thought the name of the lady who had captured his heart — let alone spoke her name aloud — his soul would be so completely weighed down with regret that he would never know a moment’s peace for the rest of his life.
He would prove the fear wrong. He must. Now.
Darcy steeled himself. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
He held his breath for several moments and released it.
There! Nothing had changed. The lady held only as much power over him as he allowed. He would tolerate it no more.
However, the voicing of her name did conjure up a torrent of recollections he had struggled to suppress when awake, but which tortured him nightly in his dreams. Elizabeth’s light and pleasing form skipping through a jig at the Assembly ball. Her porcelain skin, glowing with health and vigor whenever she came in from her beloved outdoors. Her delicate hand resting in his during the one and only dance they had shared. Her graceful movements, leaving a swirl of lavender in the air. Her voice, rising in song, filling his spirit with joy. Her eyes, alit with a flash of challenge or sparkle of lively wit, causing his heart to throb. The cleverness behind each of her words as she debated an opinion, forcing his own intellect to sharpen.
Darcy closed his eyes and fingered his signet ring — a symbol of all he had been taught to protect. Duty to his family name reigned above all else. He must select the proper mate, and Elizabeth was irrevocably unfit to be a Darcy.
Although his soul might be altered forever by meeting her, with time, he would have to forget her.
With that seemingly impossible goal in mind and hoping for an effective distraction, he headed for Matlock. He mentally corrected himself. No, he went primarily to spend Christmas with his relations. Three days hence, after months away from his sister, Georgiana, the siblings would reunite. Georgiana had indicated in her letters that spending time with their aunt and uncle had helped to heal the wounds left behind after learning the man she had loved had been interested only in her dowry. Perchance his spending time with family would cure his broken heart, as well?
Darcy’s eyes snapped open. Broken heart? He was becoming nonsensical.
He shook his head. His aunt’s naggings were correct. It was high time he settled down. Then all these absurd longings for Elizabeth would disappear.
When he returned to London in March for the Season, he would, at last, find someone worthy to become his wife.
There was one hitch to his plan. During his hurried flight from Netherfield, he had forgotten a gift he had purchased for his sister. Since he would be passing near the turnoff to his friend’s estate whilst travelling north today, he chose to stop to retrieve it. To prevent temptation ruling over logic, for Longbourn — Elizabeth’s home — was only three miles away, he would not even leave the confines of his coach. His driver would apply to Netherfield’s housekeeper, and they would be on their way in less than five minutes.
The coach banked to the right, the signal that they would soon enter Meryton.
Darcy pulled the window curtain aside once more and tied it back.
One of the reasons he had approved Bingley’s choice of leasing Netherfield was that Meryton reminded him of Lambton, the thriving community near his own estate. Last autumn, the sight of this village — always bustling with members of the four-and-twenty genteel households Mrs. Bennet boasted of entertaining, along with their servants and tenant farmers — often quelled the homesickness he faced whenever he was away from Pemberley.
However, as they pulled into town this time, his heart sank.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
The village was deserted — peculiar for this time of the morning. No cheery boughs of greenery hung over the shop doors, as would be expected so close to Christmas. Window panes lacked the holly leaves and berries usual for this time of year. Absent were the pedestrians and carriages which had always been present before, save one lone cart sitting before the inn, but even that was abandoned with no horse attached. Shutters or drapes were tightly shut in every upper window facing the street, and “CLOSED” signs hung on many of the shop doors. The bookshop with which he had become so familiar during the time he stayed with Bingley, now had two boards nailed in an X across the doorway.
Darcy struck his cane against the roof. As the coach rolled to a halt, he opened the door and stepped down.
An icy breeze kicked up a whirlwind of dust near the butcher’s shop. It rose, picking up stray leaves as it made its way down the empty road toward where it forked, one lane leading to Netherfield, the other to Lucas Lodge and Longbourn. At the end of the row of buildings, the eddy collapsed, scattering its contents near the sign he knew proclaimed “Welcome to Meryton.”
He shuddered.
A door slammed, and Darcy spun. A man with a kerchief tied around his face exited a door near the milliner’s shop and hurried along the boarded walkway.
“You there!” Darcy called out, but the man ducked into the next door without looking in Darcy’s direction. A bolt clicked into place.
“What in blazes is going on here?” He glanced up at the coachman.
Roberts shook his head and pulled a rifle out from under his seat while the footman slid down from his bench and took a tentative step towards Darcy.
“Don’t know, Mr. Darcy,” Baxter said, “but it don’t seem right.”
Darcy nodded as he scrutinized the upper floors of the buildings across from him. Had the village been taken over by highwaymen? Had the French invaded England and now occupied Meryton?
A curtain moved in a window above the bookshop.
Darcy took a step closer. “Hello, Smithers? Is that you?”
The window opened a hands-width.
“Mr. Darcy?” The bookshop owner’s voice bounced off all structures in the vacant street. “You best leave now, sir. Before it’s too late!”
“Too late for what, Smithers?” He paused. “What is going on?”
The window closed with a bang.
Darcy caught Baxter’s eye.
The coachman called down, “Want me and Baxter to knock on some doors, sir?”
Darcy shook his head. “Let us proceed to Netherfield as planned. Perhaps we can find out what is happening from the housekeeper.”
As the horses followed the fork to the left, Darcy’s gaze strayed down the lane leading to Longbourn. Was Elizabeth at home? Was she safe?
Why was there no tug at his heart coming from that direction?
An unpleasant weight settled in his stomach.
Whether this stop at Netherfield held any answers, and no matter how he longed to erase her from his mind, he could not leave the area until he was certain she was well.
The mile to Netherfield seemed interminable. When the coach jerked to a halt, Darcy bolted from it and up the staircase leading to the front door. Since Bingley was not in residence, the knocker had been removed, so Darcy thumped the thick wooden door with the head of his cane.
Bingley had told him several servants were retained to keep the house in order until his lease ran out. So why, then, did the place seem deserted? Had the same fate come upon Netherfield as Meryton?
He paced the landing… it seemed forever. The tug on his heart began anew, from his right. Longbourn was in that direction.
He knocked again, to no avail. Not a trace of acknowledgment came from indoors, but the scraping of a rake sounded somewhere off to the right of the building.
Descending the stairs, he called out to the driver, “Remain here in case someone comes to the door.”
Darcy motioned to Baxter to follow him, and they headed towards the stables.
He increased his pace to a jog. To a run. He must find answers.
Rounding the barn door, Darcy stopped short.
A lady stood still, rubbing her back, arched in a way that displayed her figure to its best advantage. One long chestnut curl escaped a simple bun. Her gown was of decent material and cut; the dirty hem was pulled up and tucked into the tie of a full-length apron, revealing both ankles and a hint of her right calf. After a few moments, she moved, and pulled a rake towards her again and again.
Darcy blinked several times, but the apparition did not disappear. His heart stuttered.
It was the most beautiful sight he had ever beheld.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet, safe and well… and vigorously mucking out a horse’s stall.