Page 22 of Yearning

“He said, ‘It was never lust between us’ or something of that nature.”

“Well, I’m sure he meant that it wasn’t all lust,” said the colonel. “I’m positive he lusted after you, madam. I’m certain of that. Anyone with eyes—”

“Anyone with bollocks?” she interrupted.

He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “This conversation, Miss Bennet.”

“I thought you and I were beyond propriety,” she said.

He chuckled softly, looking away. A long moment passed and then he turned back to her. “Well, let me ask you this.”

“What?”

“Will you be happy, with this older titled rich man?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “I do not think that such things are really possible anymore, you see. But I think it will be easier than trying to force Mr. Darcy into accepting that I am not going anywhere. I am tired, you see. And… this man, he says there can be children.”

“How old is this man?”

“He said, pointedly, he could still father children.”

“Oh, how does he know? You think he’s gotten a babe on some opera singer recently or something? He’d say anything to have you, Miss Bennet. If it’s about children, then…”

She waited.

The colonel sighed heavily. He gave her a wistful look. “Know that if the situation were different, Miss Bennet, I should marry you in a heartbeat.”

“But the situation is what it is,” she said.

“And you do not want me.”

She gazed into his eyes. “I could want you, I think. Ask, as I said, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Ask.”

He shook his head. “I cannot.”

“Well, then,” she said, looking away, and her throat felt tight.

“I am ever so sorry,” he whispered.

“So am I,” she said.

He reached down and took her hand in his. He squeezed it briefly. “He does want you, Elizabeth. I know he does.”

MR. DARCY WOKE to someone shaking his foot. His one remaining foot. He opened his eyes and there was Richard at the foot of the bed, violently shaking him.

“Ought you be doing that?” said Darcy, rather droll. “I have been told again and again not to upset my pelvis too much since it is not healed.”

“I am told it’s set,” said Richard. “As is your jaw.”

“Well, perhaps you are right,” said Mr. Darcy.

“I simply did not know where I could touch you to wake you,” said Richard.

“You have woken me,” said Darcy.

“You’ve done it,” said Richard. “I think you’ve actually done it. You have driven Miss Bennet off, and she is going to marry someone else, some titled man old enough to be her grandfather, she says, and I am telling you because I know you don’t want that, and you can stop her.”

Darcy let out a whoosh of air, his heart beginning to pound in his chest. He did not know how he felt about this. Partly, yes, devastated, but partly, it was a triumph, a relief, a weight lifted. He would not be an albatross around her neck. He would not be— “Old enough to be her grandfather?” He was annoyed. “Why would she do that?”