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Elizabeth was actually a little disappointed as she and Mr Darcy reached the furthest reaches of Longbourn’s estate. Their walk would draw to a close, and in but a few moments this strange felicity that had sprung up between them would be brought to a sudden end - either by the arrival and interference of the rest of her boisterous family or by Mr Darcy bidding her farewell and removing himself. She was not sure which she most wished for, except that, to her surprise, the thought of Mr Darcy’s absence now caused her stomach to sink. This had nothing to do with the fact that Mr Darcy’s departure meant Mr Bingley’s also: for Mr Bingley was not even a concern. No, this was not to do with Jane’s happiness but with Elizabeth’s own. She frowned, turning the thought over in her mind as if it were a jewel. Could it be that I care for Mr Darcy? The thought so startled and amused her that a laugh escaped her lips.
“Something amusing?” Mr Darcy regarded her curiously, his expression lifting a little as if to encourage her to share the joke, whatever it was.
When she did not speak right away, his eyebrows dropped again, and she saw the same guarded expression settle back into place. He expected the cause of her laughter to be him - or, rather, some aspect of his conduct that she found amusing and would proceed to tease him over. Lizzy felt a wave of guilt, for she was used to being teased - one could not grow up in a house filled with her sisters, or as the especial favourite of her father, without learning to embrace sarcasm and teasing. She thought over the Christmas story Darcy had shared, the family he had described. His words, wistful and sad, my mother and father were both still alive. Could she not imagine tragedy changing her own countenance, rendering her guarded and careful amongst new acquaintances? She might laugh less, if she had less cause to laugh, at herself or at anybody else. She swallowed.
“Won’t you – won’t you come in, Mr Darcy, and take tea?” She smiled. “I know my father would be pleased to see you.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “And if you are careful you might yet manage to make it all the way to his study undetected, and be forced to interact with nary a sister of mine...!”
This was enough to make Mr Darcy himself laugh, a short burst of it that warmed Lizzy’s heart.
“Thank you, no.” He paused. “That is not to say I would not like to see your...father again.”
Lizzy deduced this was honesty indeed. Mr Bennet, yes. Mr Darcy would happily spend a quarter-hour with that gentleman in the sanctuary of his study. But to voluntarily take tea with the rest of Longbourn’s inhabitants besides, perhaps he would be rather less enthused by that prospect.
“I must return to Netherfield, for I expect Mr and Miss Bingley’s return at any hour, and ought really to be there to greet them, as it is at my urging they make the journey, to begin with.”
He hesitated, and Lizzy looked at him carefully, silently urging him to continue, to speak whatever was on his mind. They had not often had cause or opportunity to cultivate such a space between them, where they might speak honestly, and beyond the hearing of others, and Lizzy found that she was reluctant to let the moment end.
“I ought not to have encouraged them to leave in the first place. I should beg forgiveness from your sister, I expect, but as she is not here I trust you will accept it in her stead. Miss Elizabeth, I am not above acknowledging when I have thought and acted wrongly, and in this case, I did both.” He bowed, a strange moment of formality in their otherwise contented interaction. “I trust that this evening, in reuniting those I once aided in separating, my error will be undone, my wrongdoing forgiven.”
His eyes met hers, and Lizzy felt a strange certainty that it was not Jane’s forgiveness he sought at all, but hers.
Her mouth was dry, and she could not have spoken immediately, even had she been able to conjure a useful response. She merely nodded, dumbly, and turned back towards the entrance to her home.
“You are very kind to invite us to dine, Mr Darcy. We are all so looking forward to it.”
“You are?” he asked, reaching out towards her. For a moment she thought he meant to catch hold of her hand, but he changed his direction or his mind at the last minute, and his fingers closed around air. “All, I mean. You are all looking forward to it?”
“All.” Lizzy nodded, unable to keep from smiling at him and hoping that her expression conveyed all that her silence did not. She, Lizzy, was looking forward to it. Not dining at Netherfield, per se, nor even seeing Mr Bingley and his sister again, but for the change to spend the evening in Mr Darcy’s company - that, she realised, was all that she had longed for over Christmas, and it was his absence, almost as much as Mr Bingley’s or her aunt and uncle’s that had rendered this particular Christmas so long and lonely. Now, this very evening, that might change.
“Well, good day, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, bowing again, before straightening and turning on his heel. He had walked some paces away so that Elizabeth was quite sure he would not hear her quiet response. She murmured it, all the same.
“Good day, Mr Darcy.”
Turning back towards the entrance to her home, she flung open the door, and pandemonium engulfed her. Lydia had stolen Mary’s book - again - and was playing a kind of keep-a-way with Kitty so that with every smooth arc they passed it between one another Mary wailed. Jane tried, unsuccessfully, to plead with them to stop, and Mrs Bennet cried irritably that God had certainly sought to punish her with such ill-behaved daughters, and she did not see how any of them would ever marry if they could not learn to comport themselves with grace.
Distractedly, her mind still on the walk she had just taken, Lizzy reached up with reflexes honed with years of childhood rough-and-tumble and intercepted the book, passing it straight back to Mary.
“Hey!” Lydia squealed.
“We were only teasing!” Kitty protested.
“Thank you,” Mary mumbled, clutching the book close to her chest and thundering up the stairs before anybody else could be mean to her.
***
THE WEATHER SEEMED to have turned even colder as Darcy walked the few miles back to Netherfield from Longbourn. Not for the first time, he recalled that Elizabeth had made that very same journey in spite of rain and mud to check on Jane’s wellbeing when her sister was taken ill just a few short weeks ago. He recalled, too, that this had been the first time he had allowed his thoughts to soften towards the second Bennet sister. It was utterly improper, to tumble into the parlour in clothing that looked little better than rags, caked in mud and with her hair sodden and plastered to her head, in spite of her ruined bonnet, but in Elizabeth Bennet he had not seen impropriety but love for her sister, the same love that had compelled him to pay Wickham whatever absurd figure he asked for just to have him gone from their lives, and bid him bite his tongue even when he could see Wickham worming his way into friends and families’ hearts. To speak truthfully of Wickham’s character would be to reveal Georgiana’s connection to him and that was more than Darcy could bear. No, love kept him silent in the same way it propelled Elizabeth into action. How could he have ever thought ill of her?
He walked more quickly, alone, than he had done in her company, yet the journey seemed to take longer, the wind ever more biting and icy, but at last he saw the first glimpses of Netherfield. And - as he had feared - a carriage he recognised as the very one that had almost mown them down in the road. He felt a fleeting inclination to vent his anger on the driver, then on the passengers, for not stopping, but then realised that to do so would more than likely be to show his hand. He cared little if Charles knew that he cared for Elizabeth Bennet - for his friend was incapable of teasing and would merely rejoice at the good fortune the two good friends had had in finding love with two such sisters! But Caroline Bingley would have things to say and Darcy was in no humour to listen to her.
Still, as he reached the door and made his way inside, he could not help but feel cheered to hear Charles’ voice call out a welcome.
“Is that you, Darcy? We were just about to dispatch a search party. What were you doing out of doors on a day like today?”
There was a muffled commentary before Charles spoke again, and Darcy followed the sound towards the parlour.
“Quite right. Caroline and I intend to walk out, but we shall not be foolish enough to go very far. Once around the grounds, and then back indoors to thaw our frostbitten toes!” He laughed, standing to greet Darcy with a warm handshake. “Merry Christmas. It is good to see you.”
“And you.” Darcy smiled, in spite of himself. “Although you make it sound as if we have been parted months instead of a week. Miss Bingley.” He nodded towards Caroline, before looking straight back towards Charles. “You do not mind hosting the Bennets for dinner this evening, I hope?”
“Mind it?” Charles snorted “Indeed, not! You know I should happily invite them every evening. I am merely glad, in our absence, that you have discovered a little of what it means to be neighbourly.”
Caroline stared, reproachfully at her brother, and Darcy wondered if her own opinion of the promised evening’s gathering was quite as complimentary as Charles’.
“You cannot begin to imagine the cold here in Hertfordshire. Indeed, I was housebound here for more than a day, and fear it was all the worse at Longbourn. That is why I walked over there, to begin with, to see if I might be of some assistance.”
“Indeed,” Caroline said, sourly. “And were you?”
“They were rather more assistance for me. I fear it was too isolated even for me!” Darcy laughed and watched as his friends exchanged a surprised glance.
“Are you quite well, Darcy?” Charles asked, raising his eyebrows. “You mean to tell us that you actively sought out companionship - and quite a deal of it, in a house filled with ladies - and a gentleman, of course, good Mr Bennet, how is he?”
“The same as he ever was. I dare say he will be grateful to see you this evening, Charles, for he has missed your good-natured conversation, to which I cannot hope to compare!”
Darcy had long known that his friend responded well to compliments, and he was so genuinely pleased to see him again that it was of no great sacrifice to offer them.
“And - and Miss Bennet. All of the Miss Bennets. How is she – that is, how are they?”
Charles affected a manner of indifference that fooled nobody, and Caroline made no attempt to hide her groan of derision. Darcy, on the other hand, met his friend’s eyes with a clear gaze, and answered him honestly, hoping to convey with his manner, an encouragement to Charles to persist in his pursuit of Jane Bennet, where before he would perhaps have tried to dissuade such an attachment.
“All the Miss Bennets are well, of course. Miss Jane Benet was, I wager, a little quiet. I rather fear she missed her friends.” Here Darcy lifted his eyes to Caroline’s, and she was the first to look away as if she read censure in his expression and sought to avoid it. “She was pleased to be invited this evening and asked that I convey her most enthusiastic Christmas wishes to you both.”
“There!” Charles brightened, visibly straightening in his seat so that he sat a clear two inches taller, buoyed by the thought of Jane Bennet’s good wishes. “You see, Caroline? I knew we would be missed! I am just grateful that, now that we are back, we may resume our association with our friends and things might go on precisely as they did before.”
He did not wish for things to go on precisely as they did before. How could they, now that he began to acknowledge just what Elizabeth Bennet had come to mean to him? He would not go back to denying her beauty or her good character.
He felt himself under scrutiny and when he glanced up saw Caroline Bingley regarding him with a bitter expression on her usually elegant features. His heart pounded, for it seemed to him, at that moment, as if she deduced, better than her brother, the true nature of Darcy’s thoughts, and he sought swiftly to change the subject.
“Did you speak of taking a turn about the grounds? I am at my ease, now, so perhaps I will accompany you. I dare say you are eager to see your estate again after so many weeks parted from it...”