By mutual agreement, Bingley and I decided not to inform her sisters of the engagement just yet. We went out of our way to arrive far too late to deal with the rest of the house, but just to be sure, we snuck in through the kitchen and went straight to our bedchambers.One cannot be too careful!
15th October 1811 7 o’clock
“Miss Smith!”
“Mr Jones!”
That was how our eleventh encounter began.
I completed the new ritual by chastely kissing both of her hands, and she introduced a new one by grabbing my head and kissing me within an inch of my life.Good Lord, I thought I would burst into flames!I was absolutely certain our nuptials should be much sooner than later—presuming I survived the courtship.
“I cannot believe how much I love you,” I said when we finally paused for breath and she was clasped to my breast.
“I never could have imagined the pleasure of being allowed to love you,” she returned enigmatically.
I thought about that a minute. “That is why I need you in my life. You always give new and interesting perspectives. Most people think about the pleasure ofreceivinglove, yet you focus on the pleasure ofgiving.You have the essence of love in one sentence.”
She smiled a bit, or at least I think she did because her ear was against my chest and I could not see her face, though she nodded in acknowledgement.
She thought about it a few minutes, and finally added, “I think the contrasting perspectives are due to the differences between the sexes in our society.”
“How so?”
“I think that, in general, the pleasure of giving love is as great as receiving, as you agreed. It is more obvious to me due to the limitations society places on women. You are free to fall in love and declare yourself or not as you choose. I never had that luxury—that freedom of choice. Had I tried to even hint at an attachment before you declared yourself, I would be consideredfast… even desperate… and that is even beside the fact I was meeting you in such an unorthodox manner, and our conditions in life are so vastly different.”
“Yes, that is tremendously unfair, and it means you had to suffer in silence until I got my thinking straight. I regret the lost time.”
“I do not,” she said thoughtfully. “We did what was required to arrive here. Who knows if we would have been able to rescue your sister had we been distracted by our feelings or already attached. Who knows if our love would have had the strength to endure all of life’s trials if we had not had the time to allow it to grow naturally. For most of our acquaintance, I was far too young for you anyway. I was little more than a child when we met. Things worked out well enough, but I still find the imbalance unjust.”
I thought a bit more. “While it does not excuse your mother’s failings, it certainly paints your father in a very poor light.”
“That it does.”
“Enough!There is time to be maudlin later.”
She jumped back, grabbed my hands, and forced me to spin around a few turns laughing like children on a maypole. We ended up with another toe-curling kiss, and it was something I looked forward to very much, though we both realised we would have to put some effort intonotanticipating our vows. We would have enough suspicion as it was without feeding the beast with an early arrival.
We sat down on a bench placed at the best viewing spot.
“Fitzwilliam, I dislike lying on principle, but the last five years have forced me to become accustomed to it—or at least—if not lying, then not telling the complete and unvarnished truth either.”
“Disguise is my abhorrence as well, but I had no qualms about meeting with you all these years, so I hardly have room to criticise your propriety.”
“Whilst we need to establish an honest footing going forward, we still need a good, shared history. We obviously cannot tell anybody the real story with four unwed sisters.”
“Agreed,” I said, having given it some thought. “I think it would be best if we met when you were eighteen, and thus old enough to be out in London and worthy of notice, yet not old enough to be in a hurry for an attachment. Did you ever attend anything with some remote possibility of us meeting back then?”
“My thinking exactly,” she said, and pulled out a piece of paper. “I listed all the events I can remember starting from when I came out at seventeen in Meryton. We could embellish a few meetings. Balls and assemblies might be far-fetched because you would never attend the same ones, and meeting at the theatre or opera also fails because I was always with my relatives. The museum, park, amphitheatre, and bookshop are our best bets.”
I looked over the list. “Some of these dinner parties or Vauxhall Gardens are not as far-fetched as you might think. Will your uncle contradict the story, or at least look on it suspiciously since he never heard of me?”
“Not really. I love them dearly, but I only mentioned some of the men I met, and it was common for other friends to chaperone us. If I tell them I met you and spoke with you extensively, but you were obviously far above my touch so I would be embarrassed to even presume any future possibilities, they will go along. That is not as far from the truth as it sounds. In the worst case, I suppose I could own up to it. They are not like my parents. You will like them tremendously, but I would prefer theynotbe aware of the risks I exposed their family to over the last five years.”
“They have children, I presume.”
“Yes. They are much younger, but still—”
“Say no more,” I said gently.
