Page 25 of Mr. Darcy's Folly
Miss Elizabeth’s small gasp felt very loud in his ears.
“I arrived, by chance, the day before they were to leave. She confessed everything to me at once and hoped that I would attend their wedding. After I wrote to Wickham to inform him that my sister’s fortune would never be his, he left Ramsgate immediately.”
“That—” Miss Elizabeth cut herself off, as though struggling for a word strong enough to convey her disgust. “Thatscoundrel,” she finally said, her voice shaking. “How old was your poor sister?”
“She was but fifteen then,” he said, his voice tight. “I count his attempt on her as my greatest failure. My sister fell prey to a seducer, and neither Fitz nor I were there to prevent it.”
“You cannot be everywhere at once, Mr. Darcy,” she said, her voice unexpectedly kind. “You both have your duties. Mr. Wickham was known to your sister, which makes his betrayal all the worse. But you arrived in time. And the fact that Miss Darcy spoke to you of their plans directly suggests that she trusts you.”
He said nothing, though her words calmed something within him. He had often thought only of his failure—but the strength of his relationship with Georgiana, a relationship he had taken great pains to build, had spared them both from a terrible fate. He could not deny that.
As he ruminated on this, Miss Elizabeth spoke again. “You call your cousin Fitz,” she said, tilting her head. “It seems a boyish name for a colonel.”
Darcy smiled faintly at this obvious attempt to change to a pleasanter subject. “It is a relic of our boyhood. My Christian name is Fitzwilliam, and his surname is Fitzwilliam. There were a few years when he was at school and was addressed by his surname while I was still at home and was Master Fitzwilliam.”
Miss Elizabeth blinked. “If your mother called you, did you both answer?”
“You begin to see the problem.”
She laughed softly, a light sound that lifted Darcy’s spirits.
“We were determined to distinguish ourselves from one another, so we agreed to split the name between us. I hated the name Fitz while he liked it. I kept William.” He smiled. “It seemed a reasonable solution at the time.”
She shook her head, her mirth undiminished. “And yet you chose William over Fitz? Fitz is more . . . unique.”
He gave her a dry look. “I detested it. It sounded absurd to my ears.”
Miss Elizabeth was delighted by this information. “I believe I shall call you Fitz, just to confuse everyone.”
“If you wish to drive me to distraction, Miss Bennet, you may do as you please,” he told her, though there was no heat in his words.
“To balance the scales, I shall give you equal hold over me, Mr. Darcy,” she told him. “I dislike it when I am called Eliza, even when the Lucas family does so. But they are good friends, and so I allow it.” A faint wince crossed her features, gone as swiftly as it appeared, and Darcy was forcefully reminded of their dilemma.
He glanced upwards where the sunlight broke into the hole a good fifteen or twenty feet up. There was a way up, but the debris was neither stable nor well-placed to climb. It would be very dangerous to try. And yet, strangely, the thought did not fill him with the same panic it had before. Reason asserted itself. He knew rescue would come, that Fitz would hear of the collapse and immediately begin to account for everyone. It would be short work for him to realise that Darcy was not to be found, but that his horse was still in the stable.
He could count on Fitz to reach them before the hole opened any wider.
And if Fitz did not, there was nothing Darcy could do to prevent it from his current position. Best not to dwell upon it.
In the interim they were inhabiting a strange pocket of solitude, Miss Elizabeth and he, and they might as well make conversation.
He exhaled, allowing his head to rest back against the cool stone. “Fitz,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head.
Miss Elizabeth smirked. “It suits you.”
He groaned, though it was more in amusement than pain. It suited him not at all. “If you insist upon it, I am at your service.”
She held his gaze, her eyes bright even in the dim light. And then, softly, she smiled back. “You truly are a gentleman, Mr. Darcy.”
Darcy swallowed and looked away.
They spoke of little things for a time. Their favourite seasons—Elizabeth preferred the spring, and Mr. Darcy the autumn. Their favourite foods—Elizabeth preferred fish, and Mr. Darcy venison. Even their favourite colours—Elizabeth adored yellow, and Mr. Darcy blue. They spoke of such trifles for a long time, until the sun seemed to be directly overhead, she believed, judging by the brighter shafts of light that made it down to them. She tried to discern how long they had been here. She had left the parsonage around eight and walked perhaps an hour and a half before meeting with Mr. Darcy. They had been here a little more than two hours, then.
That was more than enough time for someone to find them. But no one had come.
The silence had stretched once more, no longer companionable but teetering on the edge of something darker. She held her injured arm very still against her stomach, and the side of her face, her ribs, and her hip still throbbed dully.
A shiver coursed through her, though she was not cold. The thought burrowed deeper:We may never escape.How would her family respond? Papa and Jane would be devastated. Mamma would be too, though her grief would be put on display, demanding all attention be paid to her feelings while ignoring everyone else’s. Mary, Kitty, Lydia—they would mourn her, surely, but she suspected it would not take them nearly as long to recover. Lydia would hate being forced to wear black.
