Perhaps I shifted in my seat in agitation—in frustration—for she said, “Whatever it is you wish to say, you should tell me, Mr Darcy. What better time than at the end of those last horrible miles? What better place than over this questionable collation?”
My resolve broke. “Very well,” I cried. “If you must have plain-speaking, you wish to point out to me that your family will rightfully believe that I have damaged your reputation, and they would force me to act because of it. I am not afraid of what they would require of me to protect your honour. I am only afraid of how little you would care for the prospect of being my wife!”
I was angrier than I wished to be, but she had pressed upon this nerve too hard, and I continued with an ungentlemanly ferocity. “What you are suggesting is impossible. I cannot scurry into the shadows and deny my responsibility to you!”
“Not even if I asked you? Begged you? Please—please, Mr Darcy, let the particulars of our adventure remain private,” she pleaded. “Do you think I relish the prospect of being interrogated as to any nonsense I might have endured by a man who has done nothing but help me? Do you imagine I will not be upbraided for the many choices I made which put me in your power? The outcome of such disclosures is a certainty, and be it a man or a woman, no thinking person would consider a forced union other than cursed from the beginning.” She put her hand to her eyes and rubbed them before she again spoke almost despondently. “Oh, I am so very tired.”
I could not speak. Seconds passed slowly and bitterly between us. At last, I said, “I shall secure a coach for hire similar to what you would have had coming directly from Hunsford. As to what you will say about spending one night on the road and your missing trunk, I leave that to you, ma’am.”
The coldness of my tone caused her eyes to water, and I regretted how ungracious I had been in my defeat.
She spoke quietly, but with a clarity that suggested she had thoroughly thought the matter through. “I shall say I had to wait a day to leave because there was no coach available, and perhaps Mrs Collins’s maid failed to take my note of explanation to my relations to the post. I shall then explain I came to a stand in Sevenoaks because of a bent wheel, and that well-met and against all odds, you were also there, and you found me another coach but that my trunk was left behind in the confusion.
“When my luggage reaches you, and is then sent to me, I shall only remark that you must have discovered my trunk set by the door to be loaded, and taken it up with you as a kindness.”
“Gentleman that I am,” I said bitterly.
“Youarea gentleman, Mr Darcy,” she said with rising passion. “I know this to be true, and that is why I am certain you will, in this unfortunate instance, do as I wish for my sake.”
I stood abruptly and made for the desk in the hall. And though my reception was at first indifferent because I looked like an itinerant gypsy, a gold coin placed irritably between us earned me the ostler’s earnest attention. I was so out of all patience, I did not care that what I had given him could hire ten coaches-and-four. I would have thrown it in his face if my temper had been given full rein.
“I assume I shall not have to wait overlong,” I said at my very coldest.
I wish I could report that I returned to the snug in a more proper state of mind. But I was too angry to do other than sit down heavily and say, “We are to wait a quarter of an hour. You should not arrive much past nine o’clock.”
“So late? I thought we were much closer.”
“At this hour, five miles in London is like ten elsewhere.”
“Oh. I have no experience of travelling at night, sir. I suppose you are right.”
After another moment of high tension between us, she said, “You have every right to be angry with me. I have asked a great deal of you.”
“I am not angry at you,” I said, though my voice was not the least bit conciliating. “I am angry that convention has overridden good sense. I should be free to help a lady in such circumstances as we found ourselves, and she should be free to comfortably allow it.”
“Let us make it so, Mr Darcy,” she said gently. And with that my temper abruptly died.
“Forgive me. I should not have raised my voice to you.”
“I cannot forgive you for what you should rightfully feel. Might you pardon me for having asked so much? I am truly daunted to have taken so great a portion of your time, your resources, the work of your people—for having inconvenienced you so extremely. I do not rightly know how I could ever thank you. Perhaps this last request may be excused as a poor attempt at doing so. I do not wish you to be subjected to one more moment of discomfort on my behalf.”
By this point, I had melted rather dreadfully, and were I the sort of man who could not contain his feelings, the tears that stung the back of my eyes might have filled them and spilt over.
With a telling catch in my voice, I said, “It has been the privilege of my life to be of service to you. There is not one moment—from Sevenoaks to this place, this table set between us—that I will forget for as long as I live. You deserve so much respect, so much admiration for the manner in which you meet difficulty. I only regret I could not see you through to the very end. It was merely selfish of me to want to see you embraced by the warmth of your family and rushed up the stairs to be offered such comforts as must await you. I should have remembered how much better it is to bow to your wishes than it is to cater to my own.”
She, having no such hard training as a man, briefly put her handkerchief to her eyes. “Forgive me. I do not mean to embarrass you.” She sniffed. “But I do not believe I have ever been so moved as I am just now. I do not deserve what you have said of me, sir.”
“Come,” I said tenderly. “We have gone from bad to worse. What next? Are we to be sobbing out our hearts? Together, we have been through an ordeal which makes this parting all the more difficult. Perhaps we should find something to laugh at.”
She offered me a watery chuckle. “Perhaps we should. Oh! I know,” she said, looking around her, suddenly conscious wewere not alone in the room. “Do you suppose we look like an ordinary man and his wife arguing loudly over a meal?”
“Ordinary? I take affront. I would have you know I am the clerk to the undersecretary of the lowest ranking man in Whitehall. And you, my fine lady, are quite out of place to be seen with me.” I did not—I could not—disguise the adoration with which I looked across the table at her.
“Am I? Do you mean because I look like a country maid in all my dirt?”
“Hmm. You must certainly be the beloved daughter of some impoverished squire. You are very wide-eyed just now. But it is as it should be, since you are amazed at how fine a man sits across from you. Ah, there it is at last,” I said, smiling at her.
“What do you mean? My coach, so soon?”
