“Thank you, Miss Lucas,” Miss Darcy murmured shyly, settling into a vacant chair beside the hearth. “Your home is very charming.”
“Ah, but it is notourhome, dear Miss Darcy,“ I interjected playfully. “Merely a temporary abode, from which we shall soon deport ourselves after the gaieties of the Season have ended.”
“Ah, yes, the Twelfth Night celebrations loom ever closer,” Mr. Van der Meer agreed. “Miss Lucas, I hope I do not seem too forward in saying this, but your color is heightened remarkably since I last saw you. Is there any hope you might be able to attend our Twelfth Night festivities in a few days?”
I started shaking my head at once, but Charlotte shot me a glare that silenced me. “I saw Doctor Abernathy again yesterday, and he is greatly encouraged. That is all I can say for now, for my most devoted friend here has been eagerly squashing any attempt I make at exerting myself.”
“For good reason,” Mr. Darcy said, his eyes touching mine. “I share your optimism, Miss Lucas, but your hopes for restoration of your health can only be improved by letting yourself recover as well as possible.”
“Oh, dear,” Charlotte sighed dramatically. “Now I havetwoof you fussing over me. I declare, Mr. Van der Meer, what is one to do against such stubborn friends?”
He laughed and pulled the cork from the wine bottle. “I have a handful of such friends, Miss Lucas, and I can only say, without fail, they are usually the most vexing and also the most faithful of all my acquaintances. Perhaps we will heed them for a little while, then do as we please when they are not looking.”
Charlotte laughed, and… was I imagining it? That was the heartiest sound I had heard from her in many months.
Thewinewasexquisite.And the company… Well, I will just say that I was exceedingly diverted. For Charlotte’s sake, of course.
Mrs. Annesley proved a clever storyteller with a rather rich tapestry of tales from which to draw. She was the widow of a navy captain, and had spent years at sea with her husband, touring parts of the world I could hardly imagine. She kept Charlotte vastly entertained, and Mr. Van der Meer—who had sailed a fair bit himself—had much to add to the conversation.
But it was when Mr. Darcy left his station by the fireplace to claim a seat beside me that my heart began to pound and my senses to tingle. He sat passively for a few moments, his posture relaxed and his attention on the speakers, until his gaze happened to shift my way. He smiled, and I think my heart leaked just a little bit. Howdidthe man smile like that?
“Miss Elizabeth, I see you have been readingChilde Harold,“ he said, gesturing to the book on the side table. “Have you any thoughts on it?”
I tried to find my voice, but it seemed to have wandered off for a moment. I reached for the book to grant myself some delay, and had to draw one or two short little gasps before my voice decided to make an appearance. “It is… layered, provocative,” I began, tapping the book’s spine, “though, at times, Byron seems self-indulgent.”
His eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. “Self-indulgent? Or just an unapologetic mirror to our own souls?”
“Are you suggesting we all harbor a scandalous poet within?”
“Perhaps,” he said with a sly grin. “Some of us are just better at concealing it.”
“Like you?” I asked softly.
He sat back a little, his mouth twitching. “And what secrets do you suppose I conceal, Miss Elizabeth?”
“You do go out of your way to hide the fact that you are a decent human being.”
“Hide it?” He scoffed. “I prefer to think that those who are unable to plumb the depths of a man’s character ought not to be privy to what lies beneath.”
“Ah, there lies your hidden poet, Mr. Darcy. But don’t you think that is a touch overstated?”
“Overstated how?”
From across the room, I caught Charlotte glancing our way and trying to suppress a grin. Ignoring her barely concealed amusement, I shot back, “I think Byron is always trying to read some deeper meaning into places where it does not always exist. For instance, the stanza where he writes of the ocean’s waves,‘Rolling on the deep as he did sleep, Regardless of its power.’One might say that’s a tad melodramatic, no?”
Darcy leaned back, stroking his chin. “Ah, but haven’t you ever been captivated by the ocean’s might? Maybe Byron is just admitting what others dare not voice.”
I laughed. “So, we’re all just suppressing our desire to wax poetic about the sea?”
“Exactly!” he exclaimed, leaning forward animatedly. “Take‘The spellbound horses, which midnight bears.’A brilliant metaphor for the uncontrollable emotions that gallop within us.”
I tilted my head, considering. “Or an admission of his inability to rein in his own feelings?”
He chuckled. “Ah, Miss Elizabeth, I knew I could count on you to present a perspective I had not considered.”
I opened the book to point to another line. “And what of‘To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind’? A rather cynical view, wouldn’t you say?”
Darcy nodded thoughtfully. “True, but maybe a reflection of the isolation one feels amidst society’s judgments?”
