Page 53 of Yearning

“No, you know what I mean,” she said, shaking her head at him. “Why are you here?”

“Paying my respects, same as anyone,” he said. “And we are friends, old friends, my lady. You must allow me to do what I can for you. Shall I clear your house of everyone?”

She let out a noisy breath. “I would be ever so grateful, actually. But you must stay. I have not spoken to you in some time. We can catch up.”

“As you wish, my lady.”

THIS WAS HOW she ended up grazing over the dishes of cold food that were all laid out on the dining room table with the colonel, while he asked questions.

“I did hear he was walking again,” said Elizabeth. “And riding horses and all of that, yes. But he and I don’t speak, you know. He has made that very plain.”

“Has he?” said the colonel. “Has he truly?”

Elizabeth sighed. “Perhaps there was a point in time, around when Lily was born, when I had taken things too far.”

“You took things too far?” The colonel shook his head. “I hardly think you were going too far, my lady.”

“I am a married woman, after all,” said Elizabeth. “And I should not, perhaps, have had him there for Lily’s birth. I honestly thought that when my husband discovered that, he would have some sort of reaction to it, but if he did, he must have spared me, since I was recovering from giving birth, and anyway, Mr. Darcy had fled at that point.”

“I don’t know if I quite understand this. He was there? When your daughter was born?”

“I thought he would have told you.”

“You are a topic we do not often discuss, as it happens.”

She felt herself flush.

“Well,” said the colonel, “as of late, he does not speak of you to anyone, or so I understand.”

“Perhaps that is all quite in line with it, then. He is done with me. He refuses to make any sort of contact. Any letters I send him are returned unopened. He, of course, does not initiate anything. I hear things about him, but I have not spoken to him since that night, the night my daughter was born. And I had him there not because… not for anything romantic, clearly, because how could romance bloom when one is giving birth? But only because he would not have such an experience otherwise, you know? He could never have a night like that with a woman he had gotten with child. And perhaps because I wanted to know what it would have been like to have…” She shook her head. “This is neither here nor there.”

“I think I see,” said the colonel.

“I cannot say that I object to the fact he stopped all contact between us. As I say, I am a married woman. It was not a proper association. It is only that he decided it on his own, as he does with everything. I think it is as you said all those years ago, that he likes to have his own way, and that we are all at his disposal.”

“He can be like that,” agreed the colonel.

“I only wanted us to decide it together,” she said. “If he had said that we should keep our distance, I would have agreed. But he did not give me the chance. He cut me off and never spoke to me again. And… and…”

“That blackguard,” said the colonel.

“Yes,” she said. She let out a helpless laugh. “That blackguard.”

“He has not made contact now?” said the colonel.

She shook her head. “No.” A pause. “I may have…”

“What?”

“Well, he is in London, and I may have, just days ago, sent a letter with servants to him, but it was returned unopened just like the others.”

“That blackguard,” said the colonel.

“Perhaps he does not know?” she said. “About my husband?”

“Or perhaps it is not even about that,” said the colonel. “Perhaps he has other reasons for his behavior. We know him, my lady, do we not? We know what sort of man he is. We know how he can behave when he decides to.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Yes, I suppose.”