Page 31 of Her Affections and Wishes

“Perhaps one might be,” muttered Sir John.

For once, Darcy agreed with the man. The profusion of ornaments and sculptures in this passage, in the entire house, was oppressive.

“It must have been closer to the edge than anyone realised,” said one of the guests, who congratulated Elizabeth on her escape before returning to the billiard room.

“Likely some vibrations of the lady going down the stairs jostled it, and it fell as she went below,” another said with a shrug before they, too, left the scene.

“You poor dear,” Mrs Tessier repeated. “Would you like me to call Lady Metcalfe to comfort you?”

Darcy would have lost his patience with their hostess by now, but Elizabeth showed all of her gracious manner. “I would not wish to disturb her since she has gone to bed.”

“Then come back into the drawing room with us, and we will take your mind off it.”

Now he noticed her patience falter. Elizabeth sighed, and Darcy understood the feeling. “I am unharmed, but I will just go to bed as I planned. Thank you all for coming to check on me.”

Mrs Tessier fussed over Elizabeth until she finally extricated herself and once again gave him a lingering look in parting. They could not talk now. He bowed to her and said good evening with as much warmth and depth as he could project, and reluctantly followed his hostess back to the drawing room.

She would not have kissed him like that if she did not love him. He would ask her to marry him in the morning. He struggled to keep his patience with the rest of the party. Elizabeth loved him, so how could he remain here with strangers when everything with Elizabeth remained unspoken?

“Your mind is not on our game, Mr Darcy,” Julia said to him later across the card table when he made another mistake. Her foot had nudged his calf for the third time. If he inched any farther from the table, he would not be able to see the cards.

“I am still shaken by that vase nearly hitting Miss Bennet.” That was also true, although his mind was also on their kiss.

But the thought of the accident pushed aside the sensations from the passion of her embrace. That large and heavy vase could have broken her neck or crushed her skull. He closed his eyes and envisioned her crumpled in a heap of blood and broken bones. Horror washed over him. Inches had separated them from perfect disaster.

Julia scowled. “It did not hit her. Besides,” she said, her voice lowering, “why worry over her?”

“Because she is my friend, and she could have died.”

“But she did not. Like I said at dinner, she ought to be grateful to be here amongst grand people with the chance to find someone willing to take her. A man like you,” she added, with extra heat, “has a proper sense of his station and character, and of the relation in which you stand to others. Miss Bennet is not worth being distressed over.”

“Are you implying she roundly deserved to have a vase fall on her because she lacks your rank and wealth?”

She shrugged, then leant toward him. “I only meant there are worthier objects of your interest rather than a woman too poor and playful to be likeable.”

Elizabeth’s lively, sporting manner was one of her many attractions. She was gifted with the art of being pleasing. She was handsome, witty, humorous, and eloquent without herself suspecting anything remarkable or attractive about her manner.

And then after their day together, with her feelings for him improved—after she had sat in his lap and touched him—he had impulsively kissed her. For how long had he waited for that moment to have Elizabeth in his arms? But he had done it all wrong yet again. He may not have insulted her when he ought to have pleased her, but he should have proposed before embracing her.

He could not be free from fear or doubt until he talked with her.

He looked round the drawing room in disgust. Anyone’s company but Elizabeth’s was unendurable. When the card game was over, Darcy lied to his hostess and said he would go to the billiard room until supper but instead he escaped to the solitude of the library. After a half an hour’s quiet reflection in the library, he could either join the others with tolerable composure or be tired enough to just go to sleep.

When he entered, to his surprise, Elizabeth sat by the fire, slippers on the floor, with her feet curled under her as she read a book. She rose and slid her slippers back on, as though after appearing before him all day in breeches he would object to seeing her stockinged toes.

“Are you well?” he asked, coming forward.

She ducked her head. “I did not want to be with the others, but I was not ready to sleep, either.”

She did not have to explain. He was excessively distracted by the memory of her lips on his, the sweet little murmurs she made when he kissed her. But she might be thinking of her ordeal with nearly being struck by the vase or of jealous Julia Metcalfe’s spite from earlier this evening. What if her preoccupation had nothing to do with him?

“Me too,” he offered hesitantly. “Shall we hide together, at least until everyone is settled in games they do not need us to complete the numbers for?”

Elizabeth gestured for him to join her. “Only be careful; your back is to the jib-door, and I would want no one to surprise you.”

He wondered if she had been startled. “There is one to my study off of Pemberley’s library, although I doubt it fools anyone. I see there is a metamorphic table, as well. I have one at home, but it is a chair.”

Upon her baffled shrug, he rose to demonstrate. “It is a library table that converts into a stepladder.” He felt the bottom of one end of the table to find latches and lifted the top with both hands. “Once the tabletop is raised vertically, you find the two latches on the hand railings of the ladder, then lock the railings into place and pull out the ladder.”