Page 25 of Leave Her Wild
“Only two more beds,” Darcy counted the chalk marks on the sides of the boards. “You could still win if you can claim the last two beds, Fitzwilliam.”
Mr. Bennet declared, “But Lizzy and I only require one more to claim the victory.” He squeezed his daughter’s hand. “I am counting on you, Lizzy, my girl.”
Darcy smiled upon the woman. He could easily imagine calling her “Lizzy” in the throes of passion, which was not an idea to which he should give credit, for it was truly an impossibility.
Miss Elizabeth teased his cousin. “You are a mere soldier, sir, while I am named after a famous queen.”
“I, too, am named after royalty,” the colonel retorted. “More than one king bears the name ‘Edward,’ while there was only one ‘Elizabeth.’” His cousin played his coins and claimed a bed that still remained open. The score was tied.
“It only took one ‘Elizabeth’ to clean up the mess of nine ‘Edwards,’” the lady said with a smile of confidence. “And Elizabeth reigned for five and forty years and did so alone on the throne.”
In a means to intimidate her, the colonel retorted, “If you place your coin in the same bed as mine,” he warned, “yours does not count.” To Miss Mary, Fitzwilliam said, “Be prepared to call ‘mine’ if such happens so we may claim the bed as our own.”
Miss Mary offered his cousin a playful salute, and Darcy finally noticed a bit of comeliness in the girl’s features he had not observed previously.
“All on your shoulders, Lizzy,” Mr. Bennet whispered, but they had heard him. “Just do not bet on love.”
“I have never bet on love, Papa,” the lady said with complete seriousness. “In truth, I know very little of affection beyond a Shakespeare sonnet or two.”
“Your favorite sonnet, Miss Elizabeth?” Darcy asked, though doing so before an audience had been pure whimsy.
As if the result was scripted, the lady placed her coin on the board. Eyeing the only open bed—the second to the last one on Fitzwilliam’s side, she studied the space, as if she was willing her success.
At length, she released her breath in a steady exhale and with a quick press of the heel of her hand, she sent her ha’penny sliding across the board’s polished surface to land dead center in the only bed still available.
His cousin groaned and covered his eyes with his hands.
Miss Mary declared, “Unbelievable!”
Mr. Bennet exclaimed, “I taught her everything I know!”
Darcy said, “Well done, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Sonnet 29, Mr. Darcy,” she announced, “is my favorite.” As she pranced past him, under her breath, she retorted, “I am confident a man of your intelligence also knows it by heart.”
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As the evening progressed, Darcy offered little to the conversation, for his mind was on Shakespeare’s sonnet. “Why did it resonate with Miss Elizabeth? Did she view her future as hopeless?” He began to repeat it in his head.
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes.
His mind announced,“Though the lady is a gentleman’s daughter, she has no fortune to advance her possible offer of marriage, unless it is one based in affection.”
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate.
He continued to chastise himself:“Whether I wish to admit it or not, her one entry into society was destroyed by me and my own singularity. She has never been appreciated for her uniqueness.
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed.
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
