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“Are you hurt?” Darcy’s heart was in his mouth. Elizabeth had remained upright, but only just, for he had felt her whole weight pull on his arm as he moved her out of harm’s way. He looked around for some assistance, and saw a stile at a nearby fence post, guiding her towards it.
“Pray, sit down a moment.” He turned back towards the road, but the carriage had continued down it and was almost out of sight. Darcy scowled. What had possessed the driver to continue at such speed down a highway where he knew there might be pedestrians?
“I am quite alright,” Elizabeth stammered, standing once more to her feet. “But I must thank you for your quick reactions. I dread to think what would have happened otherwise!” She laughed, but he thought her voice sounded a little faint, still.
“I think it unwise for us to linger too much longer out of doors, Miss Bennet. Surely your family will be missing you. I shall escort you back to Longbourn as soon as you feel able to manage the walk.”
“I am well able,” Elizabeth said, a little of the old energy coming back into her voice.
Darcy caught his smile before it grew too wide, fearing she would read some condescension in the reaction where in fact it was relief that she seemed unchanged by the near collision, admiring the strength of character he had noticed in Elizabeth Bennet almost from their first meeting. He cursed himself for shying away from that, when he had noticed it, rather than appreciating the trait for what it was. For strength was not to be despised in a young woman when it produced character without rendering the possessor cold. Elizabeth may be clever, but she was not cunning or manipulative, the way many young women seemed to be. Yes, even the least endearing of the Bennet sisters could hardly be called cunning, Darcy realised, regretting, not for the first time, that he had mistaken Jane Bennet’s true nature almost as thoroughly as he had her sister’s.
“Come, then, let us walk. It will serve neither of us well if, lingering in the cold, we fall ill.” His eyes glinted with amusement. “Whatever will our dinner be like, if we are both sneezing from either end of the table.”
“It will be sure to arouse suspicion and provoke a great deal of teasing from Lydia!” Elizabeth remarked with a rueful smile. “I cannot be alone in longing for the thaw if only insofar as it will allow her and Kitty free rein to make their visits to Meryton and call upon the regiment once more. Cooped up inside, they are both driven mad by their confinement.”
As if fearing she spoke too strongly, she smiled, to indicate to him that she was teasing, and he nodded, silently inviting her to continue.
“It is Mary I feel most sorry for,” she said, before glancing over her shoulder as if she feared being overheard. “Although I am as surprised to hear the words on my lips as you are, no doubt, to hear them. Mary and I are not close,” she said, quickly, by way of explanation. “At least not close in the way that Jane and I are close.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “I dare say Mary thinks me too bold, too strident in my views and too free in discussing them.”
Her eyes opened, and she fixed them, laughingly, on her companion “I dare say she would not be alone in holding that opinion.”
Darcy’s mouth fell open, but he said nothing, the reflexive reaction offering response enough to satisfy and amuse Elizabeth.
“And perhaps she is right, perhaps you are both right!” she remarked, with a shake of her head. “I am sure I have cost myself more than one friendship because of my forthright opinions, and certainly lost more suitors than I care to count.”
“A trail of broken hearts?”
Elizabeth’s eyes flashed, and her cheeks flooded with pink she tried, unsuccessfully, to hide by hunching her shoulders up to her ears.
“Hardly! As you yourself remarked, Mr Darcy, Jane is the true beauty of our family. If anyone has a licence to break hearts it is her.” She sighed. “Alas, her own heart is so tender it is liable to fall victim to breaking just as easily - if not more so.” She shook her head. “But I had promised I would mention Jane no more, for now that Mr Bingley returns perhaps there is a chance all may be mended before the year draws to a close.” She fixed her gaze on Mr Darcy carefully, and he felt as if she peered into the very depths of his soul. “Tell me, Mr Darcy, do you think it possible that hearts, once turned towards each other, might survive a little bruising on their journey towards a future together?”
She asked the question in reference to her sister and Bingley, Darcy knew, yet he could not help but think of another pair of hearts as he answered. One beat in the body beside him, the other in his own chest. His affection for Elizabeth Bennet, for it seemed apparent to him now that that was what it was, where first he had attempted to find fault with her, to put her away from him, would continue to assert itself, despite his best attempt to ignore it. Perhaps, in speaking of her sister and his friend, the very love affair he had been instrumental in interrupting, she was unwittingly offering him the means to win her own heart. Unite Charles and Jane, he thought, and I might prove my own heart is not so icy as Elizabeth Bennet might have had cause to believe.
***
“I THINK YOU ARE MISTAKEN, Caroline,” Charles said, as the carriage conveying him and Caroline bounded along the road towards Netherfield. “How could that have been Darcy? In any case, we owe whoever it was an apology - we almost ploughed straight into them! Look, perhaps we should slow down and go back to check. We might take them on to wherever they need to go. It is bitter weather for walking anywhere!”
Caroline pursed her lips.
“Honestly, Charles! You worry too much!” She tried to smile but the expression felt unconvincing even to her, so she turned, angling her face back towards the window and away from the curious view of her brother. I think you are mistaken, Caroline. She scowled. She most certainly was not mistaken, and if Charles would resist daydreaming about Jane Bennet for more than two minutes altogether he would have seen what she had - that Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy was walking along a snow-covered road very close to a young lady who was none other than Elizabeth Bennet!
Caroline felt a flare of anger, and it took all of her energy to remain quiet, unmoved, so as not to draw any further questions from her brother. This, then, must be Mr Darcy’s true reason for volunteering to return to Netherfield on their behalf in the first place. He could not bear to be apart from Elizabeth Bennet, even while he agreed that her brother ought to be separated from Jane. It was hypocrisy, plain and simple. Worse! It was betrayal.
Caroline let out a low sob she tried to disguise as a cough, and for once she was grateful for her brother’s absent-mindedness. Let him attend to his thoughts of love and romance and remain utterly oblivious to the heartbreak his own sister was suffering! It was too cruel.
She had known as far back as when Jane fell ill at Netherfield and Elizabeth walked miles in the mud and the rain to tend to her - Caroline shuddered at the recollection of her bedraggled arrival at their home, and how completely their house had been taken over by Bennets in the aftermath - that Mr Darcy’s curiosity had been piqued, but she had never thought that that would lead to affection. How could it? He was too handsome, too wealthy - in short, too good. He deserved someone who thrived in society and who would appreciate all that life on the arm of the eligible Mr Darcy, Master of Pemberley would offer. What did Elizabeth Bennet know or care about Darcy’s position or the fact that Caroline had long since, in the privacy of her own mind, laid claim to him?
I knew him first! She smarted, feeling somehow cheated out of a prize that ought to have been hers. If only we could have remained in London - then Mr Darcy might have seen me in my element! For Caroline thrived in the social whirl of London at Christmas. Even with Charles’ misery, and her own fabricated illness, they had attended at least one gathering where Caroline had been her wittiest, most charming, most elegant, quite winning the hearts of half the gentlemen present, she was sure of it. If only one of those gentlemen might have been him! Then she would be walking alongside him, their heads bent low together as they conversed. She frowned. No, that was not right. She would never dream of walking out of doors in weather so cruel and cold as today’s. They would walk the halls of Pemberley. Yes! For if she was to reside in the countryside it certainly would not be Hertfordshire where she chose to make her home. Derbyshire would be her preference, and she might see Georgiana again. Dear Georgiana, the sister she deserved. Far sweeter and kinder than Mrs Hurst, who grew haughtier and more dismissive of Caroline with every year she remained married when Caroline did not. She drew a breath. Well, that was a mercy to be thankful for: that if she and Charles must return to Netherfield they might do it without Mr and Mrs Hurst. She would be free of at least one critical companion.
“Here we are, Caro!” Charles’ voice was cheerier than it had been in weeks, and Caroline darted a glance at him, fearing he somehow had seen through her silence, deducing her thoughts and was poised to discuss them in detail. But no, his eyes were fixed on his own window and he had recognised the familiar aspect of Netherfield Park. “Home sweet home!”
Caroline smiled, blandly, but inwardly she wanted to scream.
Home sweet home? If Netherfield is home than what have we just left behind us, pray?
She wished she could shake Charles, to ask him if he cared to drag her from pillar to post on a whim, all because he had lost his heart to a young woman so scheming, so conniving...
And yet here her tirade fell short. Even in private, Caroline could not convince herself that Jane Bennet was all these things. She was not any of them, really. She was sweet and good-natured, and if she had the misfortune to have been saddled with an obnoxious sister in Elizabeth Bennet, why that was a fate that even Caroline herself could not claim freedom from. We cannot choose our family, she thought, sourly. But Jane was not wealthy, and her family hardly established. It would not benefit Charles to make so low a match when he might do infinitely better. She wanted her brother to be happy, of course she did, but must he be happy with the pleasant, but unhappily poor, Jane Bennet?
“We have made good time!” Charles said, leaning forward as if he willed the carriage to go still faster, to arrive sooner. “I think we shall take a few moments of refreshments and then I shall take a walk in the grounds. Will you join me?”
“But - it’s cold!” Caroline’s voice sounded too much like a whine and strove to alter it, softening her harsh tones. “That is, it has been snowing. No doubt it will be dreadfully icy underfoot. You do not wish to slip and cause yourself an injury before dinnertime. Is it not tonight that Mr Darcy has invited his guests? You would not wish to cancel -”
She stopped short, her mind knitting together a plan just in time to keep her from stumbling into the very obstacle that might further her plans. She cleared her throat.
“On second thoughts, Charles, I think a walk is a splendid idea. I should very much like to see the fountains, for I dare say they are frozen into sheet ice and must look so beautiful sparkling in the winter sunlight...”