Page 9 of An Accidental Holiday

Apparently, her anger had not abated.

Mr. Darcy chose to sit in the chair closest to her. “Bingley said that you discovered him on your walk this morning, and then I found you on your way out to Netherfield on your own. Have you not felt the consequences of being so much out of doors today? It is colder at Pemberley, of course, but we do try not to be outside in it.”

Was he truly criticising her now? “Perhaps if Miss Bingley had read my note, Mr. Darcy, I should not have been required to set out on a second trip.”

“Elizabeth,” Jane said quietly.

“I did think Mr. Bingley’s family would wish to be with him,” Elizabeth said.

Jane sat forward, appearing as though she wished to make an excuse for Miss Bingley, but Mr. Darcy shook his head at her. “Miss Elizabeth is quite right,” he said. “Miss Bingley did receive the note but chose not to open it.”

Elizabeth sat back in her seat, smug but also irritated. Would it have taken anything from Miss Bingley to simply read what she had written? If she wished to toss it away or even put it in the fire afterward, Elizabeth would not care a jot, but why would she send a note the very morning after a ball were it not something urgent?

She sighed. This day had been mortifying from beginning to end. She could only hope that tomorrow would be better.

Ithadto be better. Did it not?

“Are you feeling warmer, Miss Elizabeth?” Mr. Darcy asked.

Elizabeth gazed at him for a moment. “Quite,” she said. She could not understand him. She was not handsome enough to tempt him, had no accomplishments to speak of, and could not even remove her own scarf. Yet he was inquiring, quite solicitously, about her health?

Mr. Darcy was unfathomable. She sighed. And still handsome.

Poor Jane was blushing, but Elizabeth knew her sister well. She was not blushing because of the insult of Miss Bingley’s behaviour. Instead, she was blushing because she felt sorry for Mr. Bingley. In Jane’s mind, poor Mr. Bingley would be made very unhappy by his sister’s actions. They knew he was for London that very morning, and yet they had not troubled themselves to read an unexpected note from the neighbours who lived along the first part of his route. Elizabeth was also quite certain that in the very next moment Jane would forgive them, for who could anticipate such an unlikely series of events?

“Bingley told me that you gave him your cloak.”

“I did,” she said directly. “His clothing was damp, and he was very cold.”

“As his friend, I can only be grateful for your solicitude, Miss Elizabeth. I am thankful that you and Miss Bennet discovered him before his exposure to the cold made him seriously ill.”

Elizabeth felt the corners of her mouth turn up. “You are welcome, Mr. Darcy, but really. Do you think us so deficient in all proper feeling that we would leave even a stranger to suffer were we to discover him in such a plight?”

He smiled. It was a small smile, but she was pleasantly surprised by it.

“No,” he said. “If anyone can be said to possess compassion and kindness, Miss Elizabeth, it is you and Miss Bennet.”

Elizabeth did not know how to respond. A compliment from Mr. Darcy?

“Miss Elizabeth at a loss for words?” he asked, his smile growing just a bit wider. “I could never have imagined it.”

“Lizzy is merely overcome to hear you think well of her,” Lydia called over and then laughed.

That girl had the hearing of a bat.

Mr. Darcy frowned. “Is that true, Miss Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth attempted to think of something polite to say, but the aggravations of the day came crashing down upon her at last. She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Perhaps it is because you have never offered me a compliment before, Mr. Darcy.”

She ignored Jane’s glare from across the room.

“Would you . . . might I . . .” Mr. Darcy said but stopped when he noted the silent communication in which she and Jane were participating.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said, and she meant it. She hoped it would be enough. “Would you like to write a note to Miss Bingley to explain that you are with us?”

Mr. Darcy shifted in his chair. “I have already sent a message to my valet,” he said haltingly. “I am sure he will inform all the pertinent parties.”

That was a rather odd way to phrase it, but Mr. Darcy, for all his apparent virtues, was still an enigma to Elizabeth. He glanced about the room at all her sisters who had returned to their former occupations.

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