Page 11 of One Night with Mr. Darcy
“How would you do that?”
Darcy didn’t know. A gentleman could not back out of a proposal, after all. Once it was done, he was committed. Women could changetheirminds, of course, but not men.
That night, after he’d pieced it all together—the arrival of Collins, the imminence of his proposal, the predicament Elizabeth found herself in, the certitude that she would cede to that hideous man—well, it had driven him out of his head.
Or the absinthe had.
He never drank like that.
Rarely, anyway.
He could count on his hand the times he’d gotten so deep into his cups that he’d lost time. This… practically the whole night was obliterated. He’d asked Bingley about it, but Bingley said no one had seen him.
“You disappeared,” Bingley said. “You danced with her, and then you were gone. I didn’t see you again until the morning.”
His bedchamber had been… well, a chair had been knocked over. There were ever so many empty cups and empty bottles. He obviously hadn’t just gone to bed that night. He’d been up there, alone, destroying everything.
Well.
Except for the fact that Elizabeth had shown up the next day and indicated to him that he’d promised to call on her that day, and he didn’t have any memory of that. And the room, the cups, so many cups…
What if she’d been in there with him?
If so, the two of them alone, it was enough that he would have offered for her if they’d been discovered, clearly. Drinking alone in a man’s bedchamber would have ruined her. And hewantedto marry her. He knew heshouldn’tmarry her, and perhaps that was preciselywhyhe wanted to marry her.
It didn’t matter; she was married to Collins now.
He might see her at Anne’s funeral. He hoped she would be… that the marriage would not have dimmed her spirit, that she would still be her, that she would still have that laugh. He wanted her happy even if she couldn’t be his.
She hated him, anyway.
If there had been any indication that she’d had some spark of admiration for him…
Mr. Darcy had to admit he spent more time thinking about Elizabeth Bennet—Elizabeth Collins—than about his dead cousin.
Even so, he was stunned when she was there at Rosings when he arrived. He came with his sister Georgiana in tow. Georgiana did not like Rosings. The beds were too soft. The food was too bland. Her aunt was too shrill. The air was too muggy. Georgiana was a particular girl.
Darcy knew she was just, well, sensitive. But others interpreted it as her being difficult. He was protective of his sister.
Georgiana wanted a bath upon arrival—a ridiculous sort of request that put the servants of Rosings out—but Darcy insisted her request be fulfilled, even as his aunt went on and on about how the servants could not possibly be spared to haul water.
And even as all that was going on, Darcy caught sight of her.
It was this way: He was speaking. “I know, Aunt Catherine, but Georgiana has a need for a bath after the stress of the carriage. It soothes her, and otherwise, she’ll be in a fit and won’t make it down for dinner. I likely won’t either, because I’ll need to tend to her, so if you want things to go smoothly, I sug—” Then he wasn’t speaking. Then, he was pushing away from his aunt and Georgiana, who was hunched up in her traveling cloak as if she could make herself disappear. He stepped through the doorway and into the sitting room.
Elizabeth was there.
She was more beautiful than ever. She was plumper, but he liked it. He liked the way she seemed more youthful and almost fecund. Her skin was flushed, her hair was shining, and she was smiling.
Not at him, but at ababy.
Oh, Lord.
She’d had a blazing baby. She was married. It made sense. But she hadn’t been married that long, had she?
Oh, the thought of Collins and her—
He let out a small groan.
