Page 65 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
Feeling lower than a worm, he slunk away, trying to work out how to make amends. One thing his short marriage taught him was that his manners before marriage were somewhere between bad and atrocious, and his wife never saw anything much better than atrocious, if at all.
He had done his best to remake the character that his Elizabeth had tried to sketch before their marriage. He wasmostly successful, being polite and kind to everyone he met, first through conscious choice, and eventually through long-ingrained habit. However, he was blisteringly aware that he had just either frightened or greatly angered a woman who had done him no harm, and he felt it essential to make amends. He understood through bitter experience that sometimes it was impossible to repair bad choices, and sometimes it was too late, but when itcouldbe done, itshouldbe.
Exactly how to make amends, he had no idea.
The next two days were busy with engagements, and he even thought to ask one of his friends for confidential advice but demurred. He regretted that Bates was no longer with him. The old valet had taken a pension to spend more time with his daughter and grandchildren, a year after Elizabeth’s death, when his mourning was complete. Darcy never worked out whether that was because the man was disappointed in the master, or if he was just tired. He gave the pension gladly, as it had been readily available to Bates for some years for the asking, and hired a new man, who not been with him anywhere near long enough to ask for advice on such a sensitive subject.
On Friday, he decided one more abject apology was in order, but he thought to procrastinate at a coffee house a few streets away to work up his courage. Seeing the ghost of his wife had shaken him considerably. He was still unsure if it was her or not, but of one thing he was certain. Whether she had ever been Elizabeth Darcy or not, shecertainlywas not then—or at least, she was unwilling to admit to it—and there was no way short of hauling one of her sisters or Mrs Reynolds to Edinburgh to prove it. Even that would be unlikely to pass scrutiny if she dug her heels in.
Walking into the coffee shop, he trailed behind a large group from a local estate and found himself engaged with a gentleman he had resided with for a few days on arrival. He thought about asking about the bookshop, but realised he was already interfering with the unknown shopkeeper’s privacy and thought better of it.
Once the group sat down, Darcy looked around for a table in the crowded courtyard and found himself staring directly at the woman in question. She had implied that it was her shop, which was not unheard of. Widows often continued their husbands’ businesses, and nobody thought anything of it. He had even read that one in five households in Scotland were run by women, a higher rate than in England. With shaking hands, he walked towards her and stopped a good three yards away.
She sensed his presence, not that it required very much awareness to detect a man well over six feet standing nervously a few yards away. She looked at him, looked around as if ensuring they were very much in public, and then stared at him for a disconcerting half minute.
With a sigh, she finally put her book down on the table next to an empty coffee cup and plate and pointed at the chair. “You may as well sit down and let us have this out, once and for all. I will have your word that if I ask you to never enter my shop again, you will not only agree, but you will also generally avoid this area entirely.”
Darcy bowed. “So stipulated.”
She, surprisingly, chuckled. “You read too many law books.”
Darcy thought the woman still looked extremely nervous, which could easily have several reasons. If she really were Elizabeth Darcy, hiding out in Edinburgh, she would beinordinatelydistressed to bump into the husband she had gone to such pains to excise from her life. In such a situation, she would not know whether to engage, to convince him of his folly,or ignore him and hope he went away. If she werenotElizabeth Darcy, which seemed increasingly likely, she would not be happy about having a madman wandering around stalking her while pretending she was someone she was not.
He sat down gingerly. “I probably do—read too many law books, that is—but something tells me there is no legal term I could use, or frankly any term, that would distress you.”
She looked at him carefully, and he felt more and more as if shecould beElizabeth, but then she spoke, and her voice sounded quite different from what he remembered. After his wife’s passing, he learned that she never liked him, or even respected him, so he was quite unlikely to have ever heard anything except the teasing voice she used on men she did not care for. This woman’s voice was more mature, but also sounded either nervous or annoyed—a not unexpected development when dealing with a pest.
She asked, “On what evidence?”
“The quality of the bookshop. You implied it is yours, and it looks very well organised and efficient. I assumed—”
She had been leaning back in her chair a little bit, but she suddenly leaned forward, and snapped, “That is where you went wrong, sir. Youassumed.”
Darcy leaned forward as well, feeling tenser by the second. “I am trying to make amends, madam. I am doing my best, as poor as that may seem.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Do you blame me? You are a foot taller and at least five stone heavier.”
“Not at all. I learned—”
He paused, wondering exactly what kind of hole he had dug himself, and if he might be able to dig his way out. He found the woman interesting, but he could not say whether that was because of her similarities to Elizabeth, or the fact that she wasnot intimidated by him, despite her observations of their relative size difference.
She still seemed angry, but slightly less so. “Go on.”
“My wife died, apparently, five years ago.”
“What do you mean ‘apparently’? She either died or she did not.”
“I was not—” and he paused, wondering how much to say.
She prompted him with, “You may as well say it. You are itching to and nobody is listening.”
“How can you be certain?”
“I know these people, and I know how far voices carry in this establishment.”
That was an interesting revelation, but she added, “Once again, be careful with assumptions. I am not an eavesdropper. The coffee houses of Edinburgh attract intellectuals. Intellectuals like people to listen to their discussions. It makes them feel important, and the listeners can learn from the experience, so long as they can separate the wheat from the chaff. Intellectuals buy books. I sell books—hence my interest. I have spent many, many hours in the coffee houses of Edinburgh, and this is the closest one to my shop. I know it intimately.”
He wondered if she worried about her reputation like single women (single gentlewomen at least). Such concerns had pushed him into an unwanted (at the time) marriage. Did tradeswomen have the same concerns? Would her own personal reputation affect the custom of the shop? Was it different in Scotland than in England? There were so many questions, but he would never be able to answer them unless he showed himself not to be a brute.
