This time the enormous rush of relief had nothing to do with Elizabeth's magic touch. Eleanor would refuse to many him! He had been hoping for that since he heard of her flight. If she were determined to end the engagement, then he truly would be free. "She has my deepest gratitude. I am reaching the limit of my tolerance for her family."
"I noticed, although I thought you did quite well."
"I did not murder Charles. That was an accomplishment." It had been one of the worst moments of his life, that brief instant after he realized Carlisle was serious and before Elizabeth answered. If she had accepted him. Darcy would not have been answerable for the consequences.
She laughed, soft and low. "Is the megrim gone now?"
"Not if it means you will stop holding my hand." But it was gone. The megrim was gone, his engagement to Eleanor was gone. Carlisle was left behind - and he was alone with Elizabeth in a dark carriage. After thinking he had lost her forever, after torturing himself with images of her married first to Paxton, then to Carlisle, her closeness was as intoxicating as fine wine. "You told Carlisle that you would be safe traveling to Hillington with me."
"Yes. I said that." She sounded amused again.
"I think..." His voice was low and uneven. "I think you may have been wrong."
The air in the carriage seemed to vibrate with tension as she considered this. "Will I be requiring a hairpin?"
"That can be arranged." He found her face with his hands, then pushed back her hood. He ran his fingers lightly over her hair until he discovered the knot. Probing it carefully, he found the end of first one hairpin, then another. There had to be a third and a fourth somewhere - she always wore four. The other two were below the knot, near the tender skin of her neck. Slowly he drew the pins out, one at a time, savoring each moment. At last, her hair tumbled over his hands, down past her shoulders.
It did not matter that he could not see it. He could feel the silky curtain of her hair, tantalizing him with the scent of lavender, begging for him to take possession of it, to plunge his hands into her curls and never release her. Drawing his fingers lightly along her neck with one hand, he dropped the hairpins into his pocket. Triumph surged through him. "On second thought, you do not get a hairpin this time. I intend to keep them myself."
She laughed. "To defend yourself from me?"
"No. Because I do not want you to put your hair back up. I want you just like this." He could hold back no longer. He touched her face, then buried his fingers deep into her hair, luxuriating in the softness of it. The utter darkness making all his other senses more acute, he was aware of each quick breath she took until he captured her mouth with his own.
The sweet taste of her only fueled his need, not only for her, but also to wipe the memory of her time with Paxton and Carlisle's proposal from his mind. It was more than desire, this thirst to possess her; it was the expression of all the agony of the last day, of believing he might have lost her forever. He had thought she was his after he kissed her on the moor, but she had been tom away from him by someone he had once trusted like a father. Now he could never be certain, not even as she pressed herself against him and returned his kiss with a gratifying fervor. If only he could knot his fingers in her luxuriant hair and never let go!
He could not get enough of her, and he no longer cared about propriety. He drew her onto his lap so he could hold her closer and feel the tantalizing pressure of her soft curves against his chest. When her hands stole around his neck, he thought his life might never be so sweet, again.
Pressing his lips to the sensitive skin of her neck, he traced kisses beneath her ear, her hair falling over his face like a curtain, then he tasted the hollow at the base of the neck. He might have been able to stop there if she had not moaned at his touch, but that little sound left him hungry for more.
His fingertips traced along the line of her collarbone to the neckline of her dress, then he pushed the lacy fabric aside. His breath came in a rush as her bare shoulder was revealed, a piece of her no other man had touched. Dizzy with desire, he pressed his lips to her newly exposed skin, silently marking her flesh as his, only his. Then, before she could protest the liberty he had taken, he reclaimed her mouth, demanding and receiving a response that thrilled him to his core.
He knew he had gone too far, especially since they were not yet engaged and he was still tied to another, albeit only in name. All in all, he thought he had done quite well only to go that far, given how desperately he wanted to tear off her dress and make her his right there in the coach, as much to ensure that she could never marry another man as out of his own desire for her. He would never, ever let Charles Carlisle have her, not if it cost him his life. But he wanted her to know his tenderness for her, not the consequences of his jealousy.
What had happened to his self-control? He had to recover it, had to remember it was enough to have her in his arms, her hair flowing loose around her shoulders, and responding to his kisses. With a great effort, he forced himself to lessen his demands, and began to scatter light kisses across her face.
Then his lips discovered a trail of warm moisture running down her cheek. For a moment he could not comprehend the reason for this, and then he froze in horror. "I am so sorry, Elizabeth. Pray tell me I am not hurting you," he begged.
"No." she said in a whisper. "You are not hurting me. Nothing is amiss. Just...I had thought I would never feel your arms around me again." Her voice cracked on the last word, and she buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
Instinctively he cradled her to him, whispering words of love and consolation. What a beast he was, thinking only of his need to possess her, and forgetting that she had been injured just as much by Lord Bentham's machinations as he was. How would he have felt, had she been the one to sweep into the room and announce her engagement to some highly eligible gentleman? He would have been devastated. Just listening to Carlisle's proposal had nearly tom him to pieces, and Elizabeth had been forced to live with the knowledge of his engagement to Eleanor for much longer than that. As her sobs stilled, he said. "My sweetest Elizabeth! I do not deserve you."
She gave a shaky laugh. "It is too late to tell me that. I have already decided that you do."
He was too late in more ways than one. The carriage was already drawing to a halt, and Elizabeth was still on his lap. in his arms, her hair spilling over her shoulders. He heard the coachman jump down from the driver's seat, knowing they had only a few seconds before he opened the door.
In a panic, Elizabeth scrambled off him, twisting and knotting her hair, then pulled her hood up over it. Would the coachman be able to guess what they had been doing? She felt as if it must be written across her face in large letters. Somehow she managed a sort of normalcy as Darcy handed her down from the carriage in front of Hillington Hall.
Despite the late hour, there was light shining through several of the windows of the large Palladian manor before them. A yawning footman scrambled to greet them as Darcy opened the door for Elizabeth.
"Is Paxton still awake?" Darcy asked tersely.
"Yes, sir, he is in his suite." Though the young footman tried to say this calmly, it was clear he was disturbed by it. He took Darcy's gloves without seeming to notice Darcy had not been wearing them.
"And Lady Eleanor?"
"Lady Eleanor is... is with Mr. Paxton," he stuttered. In the master's suite? That would account for the footman's shock, or perhaps it was the sight of the unmarried Mr. Darcy arriving in the middle of the night accompanied by an unknown lady.
"Pray have a room prepared for Miss Bennet."
"Yes, sir." He held out his hand for Elizabeth's cloak, but did not look at her.
She removed it reluctantly, hoping the knot in her hair would hold. It would look odd with her formal dinner dress, but she would be happy if it stayed up. "If possible. I would prefer to stay with Lady Eleanor."
"Yes, miss."
"That will be all," Darcy said. He took a candle from the small t
able. "This way, Miss Bennet." Once they had passed the footman, he turned to inspect her. Gravely he reached out a hand and tugged her dress up where it still exposed her shoulder, then handed her a handkerchief.
She blushed furiously, grateful for the handkerchief that hid her face as she used it to dry her eyes. No wonder the footman would not look at her! She could only pray that Paxton's servants were discreet.
"I suppose I should return these as well," said Darcy. Her hairpins lay in his open palm.
"Thank you." Somehow she managed a weak smile as she inserted them into the floppy knot she had created. At least now it would not fall down. Perhaps everyone would think she had been roused from bed to come here and had not had time to arrange her hair. The diamond hairpins might not fit well with that theory, though.
It felt odd to walk through a grand house in the pre-dawn hours as if they were burglars. She heard a clock chime the half hour, and wondered whether it was half three or half four. The flickers of candlelight illuminated neoclassical plaster moldings, sending grotesque shadows across the walls as Elizabeth followed Darcy up the grand staircase. The house was impressive - not Bentham Park, but very few houses in England would meet that standard - yet at least as large as Netherfield, and she thought that to be Mistress of Hillington would suit Eleanor well.
Darcy waited for her on the landing and gestured to the left. "Through here." Soft light spilled through an open door into a tastefully decorated sitting room, which led in turn into a bedroom lit by two large candelabras and a roaring fire in the fireplace. Eleanor, her complexion pale, lay propped up on pillows in the large four-poster bed. a bandage around her head. Mr. Paxton sat beside her on the bed, holding her hand in both of his. At least one good thing seemed to have come from this evening, as they were clearly not quarreling any longer. Apparently they had also moved into challenging the two new arrivals for lack of respectability.
"Paxton!" Darcy's voice was a rebuke.
His friend looked up, but did not stand. "Oh, it is you. I was beginning to think you were staying the night at Bentham Park. My apologies, Miss Bennet, I did not see you there. Welcome to Hillington."
"What in God's name are you thinking, putting Lady Eleanor in your bed?" Darcy demanded.
Paxton gave an exaggerated sigh. "What am I thinking? Well, having carried Eleanor in my arms for nearly a mile in my shirtsleeves, while she wore nothing but a thin wisp of silk that was soaking wet and hid nothing, and having my entire staff witness our arrival in that same state, it is really too late to worry about compromising her. And the other thing I am thinking is that Lady Eleanor is no longer any business of yours."
Elizabeth missed Darcy's response as she rushed to her friend's side. "Dearest Eleanor, what happened? Why did you run off?"
Eleanor smiled dreamily at her. "It all became clear after you told me the truth. How could I obey my father when it meant injuring both you and Geoffrey? The only way to free Mr. Darcy was to run off, and I wanted to see Geoffrey so much. It was a fine plan until I tried to cross the river at the stepping-stones. They are much trickier than I recalled. I slipped and fell on the rocks, then into the river. Fortunately," she said, turning a luminous smile on her beloved, "Geoffrey taught me the rudiments of swimming when I was a child, and I remembered enough of it to get to the bank."
"Which was where I found her," said Paxton, "soaked to the skin and bleeding, and more than a little confused."
"You were injured?" Elizabeth prompted.
"Just cuts and scrapes," said Eleanor, "and I turned my knee somehow in the process."
"Some fairly serious cuts and scrapes," Paxton corrected. "A blow to the head, with a gash in her scalp. I believe she lost a significant amount of blood from that, although it was dark and I could not tell for certain, apart from what she left on my shirt. I am also concerned for her knee. I am glad you are here, Miss Bennet, since I can trust your judgment better than that of the housekeeper who was the only female I could find to look at it. She said it was bruised and as big as a melon. And then there is the matter of taking a chill after being wet for so long. Eleanor, you will discover, is still a little dazed from her experience."
"I suppose that explains why this room is as hot as an oven," Elizabeth said. "A good precaution."
"I can assure you that it took no cleverness at all to realize that she needed warmth. She was chilled to the bone." The look on Paxton's face showed how shaken he still was by the experience.
Eleanor laughed. "You were wet, too."
"Yes, but I was carrying you, and that exercise kept me quite warm, let me assure you!" He raised Eleanor's hand to his lips and met her eyes for a long moment.
Darcy cleared his throat. "Pray do not suppose that I object to the proceedings, but in as much as there is still a formal engagement in effect, at least in name, and I am not in a position to release Lady Eleanor from it, perhaps she would be so kind as to jilt me?"
Eleanor looked at him as if uncertain how he came to be there. "The engagement? Yes, of course."
"Good. That is done, at least," said Paxton. "Although I fail to see why you could not release her."
"Apart from common politeness? The blackmail used to convince me to enter into the engagement is still in place, and I have great faith that Carlisle would be happy to act on it if he has the slightest sense that I withdrew my offer. Therefore, my offer must stand, and the refusal must come from Lady Eleanor."
Paxton said. "Blackmail? Oh, come now, Darcy."
"You may call it what you like, but Carlisle believed I had compromised his sister, so he made it clear that if I did not remedy the matter, he would make a point of ruining my sister's name. I know him too well to doubt that he would do it, nor that he could do it with no more than the right words in a single ear. Of course, you were the one who kissed Lady Eleanor in the woods at the picnic, but Lord Bentham was told I had done it; and for reasons of her own, Lady Eleanor also told him that I was the one with her at the time. My denials were of no use. I am sorry you despise me for it, but given the choice between the certainty of ruining Georgiana's life or taking away the practically non-existent chance that you could convince Lord Bentham to allow you to offer for his daughter, I would again choose to protect my sister." Darcy's icy tone could have cut through steel.
Paxton looked down at Eleanor, who made no effort to deny the allegation, then back at his friend. "You do not wish to marry her?"
"Of course I do not wish to marry her! Even if I were unprincipled enough to try to steal her from under your nose, surely you know that I have no desire whatsoever to ally myself to Lord Bentham - as I would have explained to you had you allowed me the opportunity!"
"I did not realize someone had seen us kissing," said Eleanor weakly. "I thought he just wanted to know who I was walking with, and it seemed safer to say it was you."
Elizabeth moved between the two gentlemen and held up her hands. "Obviously the two of you have a great deal to discuss, but perhaps Eleanor's sick-room is not the best place for this argument." Darcy's face softened as he looked at her. "You are quite right. Paxton, perhaps we can speak further downstairs."
"I suppose we must." Paxton eyed Eleanor with regret. "And I suppose I should tell you to sleep and that I will see you in the morning. Miss Bennet. will you inform me should there be any change in her condition?"
"Of course."
Darcy cleared his throat. "And Miss Bennet?"
"Yes, Mr. Darcy?"
"May I speak to you tomorrow - privately?"
"Yes," she said quietly, trying to reassure him with her eyes. "I will look forward to it."
Chapter 15
"She wants to bring Eleanor back in the morning?" exclaimed Paxton. "Did you tell her that she was injured and must not be moved?"
"I did, and I am no happier about it than you," Darcy said. "I think it would be best for Lady Eleanor not to return to Bentham Park at all, but the fact remains that her father has the legal right to do whatever he pleases, a
nd to call on the magistrate if you refuse to allow him to take her."
"Devil take him! Then it will have to be scandal. I would rather not have tarnished Eleanor's name, but tonight has convinced me that the current situation is untenable."
"That is abundantly obvious. However, there may be another option. With your permission, I would like to send a rider at first light to the Dowager Marchioness with an urgent request for her presence here. It will be much more difficult for Lord Bentham to insist on removing his daughter over his mother's objections."
Paxton nodded slowly. "An excellent idea."
The next morning, Paxton appeared at Eleanor's door, accompanied by the apothecary. As if there were nothing unusual about it, Paxton strolled into the room and made the introductions. The poor apothecary, clearly shocked, had no idea where to look, but finally gave all his attention to Eleanor.
Under the cover of his questions about her injuries, Elizabeth whispered to Paxton, "You should not be here!"
He looked altogether too pleased with himself. "If I am going to cause a scandal, I might as well do it properly."
The apothecary's pronouncements were much as Elizabeth had expected, that Eleanor must rest and not be moved. He left a bottle of laudanum to ease her pain before he scuttled out, clearly anxious to be away from the shocking scene of Lady Eleanor Carlisle in Mr. Paxton's bed.
Paxton ordered breakfast to be served in the bedroom. It made for an odd party, since Paxton and Eleanor seemed determined to ignore any hint that they should not be holding hands. Elizabeth, who had never been in a bedroom with a gentleman present before, much less in said gentleman's bedroom, was alternately bemused and shocked by this informality.
She wondered where Darcy was, but her main concern was for Eleanor's comfort, since as near as Elizabeth could tell, Eleanor had barely slept at all from the pain. Eleanor steadfastly refused her efforts to convince her to drink the laudanum. "Sooner or later my father and stepmother will arrive to take me away, and I must have my wits about me if I am to oppose them."