Pamela Aidan - An Assembly Such as This

As the squire rambled, Darcy could feel the mortification of what had happened course through his body. His own sense of confusion over the increasing fascination he felt for her was burden enough, but that it should be so easily apparent to the world was intolerable. When he had first entered Society, his natural reserve had earned him a reputation as proud, and in those earlier days, he had allowed this to serve as a shield. Lately, according to Bingley, it had become transformed into armor. Shield or armor, it was not serving him well now. With great effort he drew on his past habits and answered the squire in a chill, quelling voice. “I could have no opinion on that, sir. If you will excuse me?” Bowing quickly, he walked away, the squire staring after him, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

Darcy’s stony countenance dissuaded any he passed from attempting to engage him. He found a single chair with an unobstructed view of the greater part of the room and, sitting down, attempted to regain his equilibrium. He was attracted to her, that was indisputable. It was certain, though, that Elizabeth Bennet had taken no opportunity to come in his way again after dinner. For a few troubling moments, he entertained the disconcerting possibility that he simply was not of interest to her. If this were so, it would be a singular experience. Ever since his uncle had introduced him to the hallowed halls of Almack’s, he had found himself courted by haughty, matchmaking mamas and deferred to by their husbands in the hopes that he would toss his handkerchief in their daughters’ ways. Indeed, until this expedition to Hertfordshire, he could not recall a single female of marriageable age who had not couched her syllables in terms designed to elicit his approbation or entrap him into matrimony. The fantastic notion of Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s disinterest was quickly discounted. Her short and dissatisfying exchange with him before dinner had encouraged him to believe that he had escaped the category into which Miss Bingley had been placed. That he no longer was an object of amusement he received with equanimity, but that he now seemed to rank among the furniture nettled his pride.

A few officers gathered around a couch near Darcy who had been engaged in an increasingly loud disagreement suddenly erupted with a noisy call for a lady to come and arbitrate a most vexatious matter. From under hooded eyes, Darcy watched as the opinion of the drawing room on the most suitable arbiter among the ladies wavered and then swelled to a chorus that named Miss Elizabeth Bennet. With a fine mixture of amused tolerance and modesty, she passed by Darcy on her way to the judgment seat the officers had cleared for her. A hint of her perfume drifted to him as she passed, and he found himself riveted by the gentle swishing of her gown. At that moment, without being entirely clear as to why her regard of him should matter or what was his ultimate goal, he set about devising a plan to obtain her particular attention. Reason briefly protested, but the gate was opened, the path beckoned irresistibly, and Darcy’s imagination slipped past the posterns and on to the mysteries of a woman whose charms he found increasingly disturbing to his composure.

Several mornings after the squire’s dinner, Darcy sauntered down the corridor to his friend’s chamber and delivered a brisk knock on the door. A stumbling sound issued from behind the great oak portal, followed by the sound of a fob or watch hitting the floor. “It is no use,” he heard Bingley groan to his valet. “Open the door; let him in, and be done with it!”

The door swung wide on its hinges, assisted by the tip of Darcy’s riding crop. “Dare I hope you have at least eaten, Bingley?” Darcy sighed as he surveyed the turmoil of the room and its occupant. “You did say ‘in the saddle, nine o’clock, sharp,’ or did I mistake you?”

Bingley sniffed wistfully at the tidy breakfast of ham, rasher of bacon, eggs, and assorted delicacies that awaited his attention on a tray in his dressing room. The smell wafting through the open door looked to drive him mad. “I cannot think what possessed me to make our appointment for such an early hour,” he groused as the chamber clock chimed a merry nine o’clock. “You know how I dislike the morning air. Too damp by half!” He continued dressing, glancing the while at Darcy, who still stood in the doorway but was now tapping his riding crop repeatedly into the gloved palm of his hand.

“If you have come to ring a peal over me, I promise you leisure to do a thorough job of it,” he offered desperately, “for I must have something to eat!” So saying, he dashed for the dressing room and the breakfast tray. Following Bingley into the next room, Darcy grabbed a chair and brought it up to the small table, which groaned under the weight of silver serving bowls. His own fast broken over an hour ago, he shook his head at Bingley’s offer to share the bounty and began to remove his gloves.

“Ring a peal over you? Did I really appear that grim?” At Bingley’s nod, Darcy slapped his gloves on his knee as he dropped into the chair.

“I fully expected a royal jaw-me-dead about lapses in punctuality, the dangers of keeping good horseflesh waiting, failure to fulfill promises, and whatever other defect of my character you could lay your hands upon!” ventured Bingley between bites of ham and gulps of tea. “Are you sure you do not want something?” he offered again.

“No, nothing,” Darcy murmured, and fell to studying his gloves. “Although everything you just now mentioned is true.” He looked reprovingly at Bingley from under gathered brows and was promptly rewarded with a sugar lump cast at his head.

“There, I knew you could not resist a lecture, though it was a mercifully brief one. Tell me, is your father your model in this as in all else, or have you perfected that towering frown on your own?”

“It is my own creation, Bingley, part and parcel of that armor you say I have donned, and by the by, it is extremely useful. Now, are you finished, and may we begin this tour of the countryside you were so mad for last night?”

Bingley nodded vigorously, his mouth being stuffed with toast and jam. Wiping sticky fingers on a cream-colored linen napkin, he rose from the table. “Your obedient servant, sir,” he intoned, bowing to Darcy in his best servile manner.

“May that day come quickly! Get your gear; the morning is beautiful, and I am on edge for a good gallop.” With that, he strode out of the room, leaving Bingley to follow as he might.

The groom brought Nelson to the mounting block as soon as Darcy appeared in the stable yard but had a difficult task keeping him there when the great black became aware of his master’s approach. His ears pricked forward, and swinging his massive fore-quarters around to face the entry arch, he pulled the groom with him as he surged toward the sound of Darcy’s boots on the cobble.

“Nelson, you brute! Leave off dragging that poor fellow around!” Darcy tried without success to look sternly at his horse, who was too occupied in nickering a greeting to be concerned with the welfare of his groom. Darcy reached out his hand for the reins. “Here, give them to me. You will never get him back round, I fear.” Only too happy to relinquish them, the groom placed them into Darcy’s hand and backed away to watch.

Under his master’s direction, Nelson allowed himself to be led back to the mounting block, and Darcy neatly swung up, gathering the reins into his expert grip. He was almost tempted to ride on and leave Bingley to catch him up. Instead, he nudged Nelson into a trot, then a restrained canter, directing him into a tight figure eight that circumscribed the stable yard, thus demanding the animal’s full attention to his commands.

“On edge,” he repeated to himself as he signaled Nelson to change lead at the crossing of the eight. He had described himself so to Bingley, and the phrase limned him perfectly. Ever since the evening at the squire’s, his entire being, body and soul, seemed in the grip of distraction. The cause of his disquiet was no mystery. The object herself, though, was nothing but a mystery, whose lure he found difficult to ignore.

The last two evenings had been spent in Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s presence, though not strictly in her company. Bingley’s information had been correct, and Darcy recalled the unexpected exhilaration he had felt upon confirming her attendance on both occasions. It had taken prodigious concentration on his part to position himself close enough to overlisten her conversations and fulfill his own social obligations without attracting her notice or the curiosity of others.

Darcy felt Nelson tense, awaiting his signal as they again approached the crossing of the figure. He leaned slightly to the left, applying pressure with his knee as a toss of Nelson’s head communicated his displeasure with such disciplined exercise. Once, not long after the horse had been broken to bit and bridle, Darcy had taken him out into the wilder grounds of Pemberley, eager to see what the animal could do. The vista before them had excited both horse and rider, and before he knew it, Nelson had the bit between his teeth and they were careening over field, ditch, and fence in a manner that had both thrilled and terrified his rider. Both had survived the neck-or-nothing ride with only a few bruises, and Darcy had taken care in Nelson’s training that the like should not happen again; but the emotions that had overwhelmed him then had not been forgotten.

Thrilling…yet terrifying! Darcy mused as he brought the powerful beast beneath him to a neat, precise halt at the center of the eight. Those emotions seemed to have resurrected recently in his breast, but this time their cause did not threaten danger to his body. He leaned over Nelson’s neck and stroked the powerfully muscled arch with approval and affection. No, the danger the young woman presents is to your heart…your very soul, he acknowledged to himself. No less thrilling — he paused and stared hard across the fields toward Longbourn — and certainly no less terrifying. Miss Elizabeth Bennet, what have you wrought?