Page 167 of Companions of Their Youth
“I wonder,” she said aloud, “if I might show Mr. Darcy something in the garden.”
The room paused.
“Thegarden, Lizzy?” her mother said, scandalized. “It is snowing!”
“Only lightly,” Elizabeth replied, already motioning for a maid to fetch her cloak and bonnet. “And it will not be long.”
Darcy stood at once. “I would be very pleased to accompany you, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth. The weight on her shoulders lightened somewhat at the sound of her name on his lips.
They stepped into the brisk air, boots crunching over snow-dusted gravel. Elizabeth led him through the hedges toward a small bench near the yew trees, their limbs shivering in the wind.
“Are you well?” she asked quietly.
He looked away. “As well as can be expected.”
They walked in silence for several solemn moments, the cold air biting at their cheeks. “It is a sorrowful thing,” she said at last. “To see a life wasted. He might have done so much, if he had only let go of his hate.”
Darcy nodded. “He was… not always like this. As boys, he could be kind. Mischievous. Charming. But he let his envy poison him. And I—” he hesitated, “—I think I was part of that poison.”
Elizabeth turned toward him. “You cannot blame yourself.”
“No. But I regret much.”
Another pause, and then she braved the harder question. “And… my father? Are you… truly well with it?”
“I had suspicions there was someone in your family or close acquaintances with such… inclinations.” Darcy smiled wryly. “Fitzwilliam thought it was your brother, at first. Mark.”
Elizabeth gave a startled laugh. “Oh no. Mark is thoroughly interested in women. I once found some rather scandalous prints hidden in a Latin volume he brought home. And I caught him kissing one of the Lucas maids behind the dovecote when we were fifteen.”
Darcy blinked. “Ah.”
“Papa took him to a brothel shortly thereafter. Not for what you might think—he only spoke with the women there. Told Mark about disease, about consequences, about how intimacy without love often leaves more wounds than pleasure. He told him that monogamy, in its truest form, is a gift. Not a burden.”
Darcy sat back. “I had never thought of it that way.”
Elizabeth turned toward him slowly. “Does that mean… you had not planned to be faithful to me?”
His eyes widened. “No! I—Elizabeth—never think that.”
She waited, her breath curling visibly in the air.
“I am not inexperienced,” he said carefully. “But I was taught never to take advantage, never with servants, never with anyone unwilling. How to protect myself. How to be courteous. But no—those were not… not matters of the heart. I love you. And I intend to keep my vows.”
Elizabeth nodded, trying to absorb that. He had spoken plainly, even honorably—but her mind wandered where her heart did not wish it to go.
What if I cannot please him?
What if he remembers those other women—what they did, how they looked—and finds me wanting?
She forced a small smile. “I understand. I know the ways of the world.”
But even as he lifted her gloved hand to press it to his lips, her thoughts turned inward again, brimming with questions she dared not yet voice.
“It is probably best we return in doors. It is quite a bit colder than I expected.”
Chapter 35
