Page 45 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
“I could be,” she said.
He thought about it. He knew what she meant. The mistress was Traifal’s, in the end, and Lady Traifal didn’t belong to her husband, not in any strict sense of the word. Mr. Darcy could take up with this woman. He could fall in love with this woman. (Truly, he had been half in love with her already. It was easy to fall in love then, when he was young and when all of it was so new and exciting.) He could fall for her, and he might marry some other woman someday, for status or wealth, but he could be with Lady Traifal. He could erase that sadness in her expression and love her the way she should be loved.
And he didn’t do it.
He distanced himself from her after that, all with civil apologies, even though he could see that he hurt her. It was only that he couldn’t do it. It would have perpetrated the problem, to his way of thinking.
If Traifal could have simply married his mistress and set his wife free to find a man who truly appreciated her, that would have solved things.
If Traifal had not married someone he didn’t care for, if he’d waited until he found the person he could be devoted to, that would have solved things.
Darcy wanted to marry someone he truly loved.
In a perfect world, one in which Georgiana’s reputation was not on the line, he would want Georgiana to be loved as well, not treated the way poor Lady Traifal had been treated.
Of course, he tried to push aside this entire thought process and concentrate only on the letter he was sending to his cousin, because it was reminding him of Miss ElizabethBennet in a rather maddening way.
He’d looked at Elizabeth before, and she’d looked at him.
So, he didn’t know why they’d had that odd moment, gazing into each other’s eyes, right then and there, at that ball last night. Why, he’d been moments away from kissing her. Right there, in the middle of the room, in front of everyone, when she was as good as Bingley’s.
It was madness.
He thought, however, that she’d felt it, too. That was the difference, perhaps. He’d been drawn to her all along, but she hadn’t been drawn to him. And then, now, one moment, and they’d both felt something powerful.
She was attracted to him as well.
It doesn’t matter,he told himself.I cannot marry that woman.
But he wondered if he was being ridiculous. What if he married someone else, and he ended up like old Traifal, chasing after Elizabeth with single-minded devotion, ruining her just to have her. It would be better to marry her than to force her and their children into ignominy.
Oh, so you’re already getting children on her, is that it?
He set down his pen and imagined Elizabeth heavy with his child, and he felt—well, whatever he felt, it was shameful.
“Bloody hell,” he said out loud.
There was no help for it at this point. Before, he could tell himself little half-truths—that he was interested in Jane Bennet, or that he simply wanted to show those women, both of them, that they were worth more than they seemed to think they were worth. There had been a time when he could convince himself his interest was simply in bettering the women, out of the goodness of his heart.
And it wasn’t that he didn’t wish Jane Bennet all the best, or that he didn’t think well of her.
Whatever he thought of Elizabeth Bennet, however, it couldn’t be boiled down to a word like “well.”
He wanted her.
Rather ruinously, he thought.
“Bloody hell,” he said again.
The letter! He must write the letter and stop thinking shameful things about Elizabeth Bennet. He picked up his pen and set about writing.
He sent off the letter. No sooner was it gone that he was making ready to go to the Bingley household, as he had promised he would the evening before.
He presented himself at the door and was admitted inside, a servant taking his hat and coat. He was shown to the sitting room to wait for Bingley.
But then, moments later, a servant appeared and said she would escort Mr. Darcy to Mr. Bingley’s study.
Bingley met him at the door. “All right, attend to me, Fitzwilliam, attend to me closely.”
