Elizabeth’s brow pinched, and her lashes fluttered. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I only saw him for a few moments at Pemberley, and the man I glimpsed today had a hat over much of his face. I think it was the way he was looking at me, rather than his features, that made me recall Mr Wickham.”
Darcy stepped close and brushed his hand down her arm, coaxing her to lean into him. “Howwas he looking at you?”
She hesitated, squinted, then said, very softly, “Like he knows something. Knowsme—in a way he should not.”
Darcy’s spine stiffened, and his jaw went rigid.
“But surely,” Elizabeth protested, “that was just incidental. Like the men back home who would get drunk and loiter in the streets, sometimes staring or jeering at respectable folk and making a scene. They never really meant anything by it.”
“Elizabeth, if a man looks at you that way, healwaysmeans something by it. Drunk or sober, I will not stand for you to be made uncomfortable by the uncouth and foul.”
“It was less than a second, William,” she soothed. “For all I know, he is still out there on the street somewhere, and I am safe here with you.” She emphasised this by pressing against his chest, her fingers trailing intoxicating spirals at the base of his neck as she nuzzled his cheek.
He gently disengaged her hands. “But if you truly did see Wickham, it was no accident. He must have followed us, which means he still wants something, and that he knows…”
Elizabeth tilted her head, her arms twining stubbornly about his neck again. “Knows what? That you were escorting me instead of Miss de Bourgh? Do you suppose anyone else you know saw us in the crowds today? We shall be a terrific scandal, William,” she teased.
Darcy tried to collect his thoughts, to remain serious and address these things with all due solemnity, but when she kissed the cleft of his chin like that… when her lips feathered along his throat and her hands spread possessively over his chest, all his powers of reason melted away. She answered every thirst, awakened every buried longing. As his hands slid down the curve of her waist and his thumb stroked the strong ridge of her back through her gown, he gloried in a moment of reckless abandon and drank eagerly from the well of her love.
A moment, however, was all he could afford. “Elizabeth,” he managed to sigh between her lips, “I have an appointment with the earl.”
She gave a soft moan of resignation and, cat-like, allowed her fingers to trail down his chest as she arched away. “And the countess has threatened me with a seamstress, a shoe-maker, and a portrait artist. I hope she was teasing.”
“Probably not.”
“Then, if these are the rites of passage required to become Mrs Darcy, I begin to wonder if it is worth the trouble of marrying you, sir. Perhaps I shall reconsider the earl’s offer of that simple cottage, out of the public eye. I might even go to Boston with Georgiana—I think I could be inconspicuous enough there. Or—” she nipped her tongue between her teeth and giggled— “perhaps ourMr and Mrs de Bourghcould use a travelling companion.”
He laughed. “You are very cynical of your cousin’s prospects!”
“I speak as I find, and I believe we both know who will answer to whom in that marriage.”
He kissed her lightly, then vowed, “It would not matter where you travelled or with whom, for I would follow you wherever you went.”
Her mouth pulled to the side, setting off a tiny dimple that only appeared when she smiled just so. “Would you, now?” she whispered.
He bent to brush one more kiss to those dusky lips. “Absolutely. You still owe me a chess match.”
Chapter 39
Kent
March 1901
AnnedeBourgh’savowednotion to marry abroad proved little more than an idle threat, probably conceived merely for the pleasure of provoking the earl and watching the countess fan herself. After a short two-month engagement, Anne became Mrs William Collins in the Hunsford chapel, nearly on the steps of her childhood home of Rosings.
When Elizabeth marvelled at the beauty of the estate and wondered aloud why Miss de Bourgh would choose to be more often away from it, she received only the cryptic reply that “home is not a house.” However, if Billy’s unabashed admiration for the grounds and the architecture truly flattered his new wife as much as it appeared to, Elizabeth suspected the couple would be spending more time in Kent in the following years.
The new Mr and Mrs Collins set out from Dover for Calais—the first of many voyages the happy bride had scheduled. The well-wishers remained another day, then departed for London. Jane was to be the next fortunate lady, and she had discovered that Lady Matlock’s exertions were not restricted merely to Elizabeth’s interests. Their fellow countrywoman had made it her personal mission to see both Jane and Elizabeth launched into London society in high style—whether they desired her help or not.
“I did not think I was nervous,” Jane confessed in private one evening, “but with all these gown fittings and etiquette lessons, the countess is going to make me so jittery I’ll be sure to knock over some fine lady during my introductions!”
“She means well,” Elizabeth said. “I may baulk at some of her suggestions and insistences, but she has navigated these waters far longer than we.”
“What about you, Lizzy? I am only becoming the wife of a businessman, but you have much bigger shoes to fill. Are you at all uneasy about it?”
Elizabeth twirled a pen in her hand. “About marrying William? I only wish it could be sooner. I love—genuinely love every minute I am with him.”
“But apparently,thatis not the worry. What about when you have to start mingling with the people he knows?”
