Darcy stood by the steps leading down from the terrace to the garden waiting for Elizabeth. He could not wrap his mind around her being called Miss Carruthers. He was eager to speak to her; but at the same time, he was not. Tonight, he would learn why she had jilted him. Once he knew why, he could defend himself, at least to himself. He had not bothered defending himself to the ton in the past, and no matter she told him, he would not scruple to defend himself to it in the future. The ton, in all its collective majesty, could go to blazes as far as he was concerned.
Where was she? He looked at his pocket watch, they had agreed to meet at half past eight, and it was almost twenty-five to nine now. If she was to be late, he hoped it was because she took the time to find a warm cloak; although it had quit raining overnight, the air was still quite damp and chilly this February morning.
As he waited, he wondered at this new Elizabeth he had found, stumbled across her really, after all he had not been looking for her. She had seemed tentative in responding to him, when he, in his shock at seeing her, had compared her to a pumpkin – he shook his head at that, he would never, never, ever tell anyone about that, especially not his cousin, Fitzwilliam, who would dine out on that anecdote for years, telling it at the most inopportune times, he could hear Fitzwilliam braying on about 'Darcy, Darcy, pumpkin eater' – the old Elizabeth would have squashed him with her wit. Then there was the new Elizabeth's strange reaction to his pedantic lecture about the Anglo-Saxon months (another botched bon mot, to be hidden forever from the notice of Fitzwilliam); the old Elizabeth would have hit a ball bowled at her so erratically for six; probably with some Anglo-Saxon name, made up by her on the spot, but sounding entirely plausible, for 'foot in mouth' month. And had there been a whiff of desperation in her eagerness to meet with him this morning?
He had spent the two weeks immediately preceding this trip of assessment to Quickentree Abbey in town at the beck and call of his Aunt Matlock as she had introduced him to a bevy of young ladies, each of whom, she assured him, fit the description of Miss Elizabeth Bennet as related to her by Fitzwilliam and him. Fitzwilliam, was of course safe fighting the French on the peninsula, and so the burden of telling Aunt Matlock that, in fact, none of the young ladies were at all like Miss Elizabeth Bennet fell on him. A good majority, which is to say, most, were not at all intelligent – when his aunt argued that the young ladies were schooled in hiding their intelligence, he had perhaps crossed a line when he told her most of her picks were less intelligent than squirrels and we all knew that is why forests grew up - the squirrels forgot where they buried their nuts – and so he was not prepared to gamble on marrying one of her young ladies and then find out that his new wife had forgotten where she had hidden her intelligence. He compounded his aunt's aggravation by telling her the rest of her picks lacked the requisite sparkle in their eyes. 'Sparkle,' such an innocuous word, yet his aunt had abused it terribly, shocking him by telling him, in words she had no right to even know, let alone utter, where he would find his 'sparkle' if he did not display some intelligence himself. That night his Uncle Matlock had helpfully sent a list of Aunt Matlock's favourite bon bons, and where they might be obtained, around to Darcy House.
The night before he left town his aunt told him that he had better find some way for her to appraise Miss Elizabeth Bennet herself if he truly wanted her assistance in finding someone like that particular young lady to marry. He had told his aunt that such a meeting was an impossibility, no one knew where Miss Elizabeth Bennet was – but now that he did, he supposed he might be able to contrive such a meeting before the season ended. But to what end? Was this seemingly beaten down Elizabeth one and the same as the Elizabeth to whom he had avowed his admiration and love? She must be. She had to be. Judging by the bizarre costume she wore, and that overpowering scent she was drenched in, her companionship must be something well beyond the expected and ordinary. Strip all that away and she would be the sparkling Elizabeth of old (here he peeked, but did not venture down, that lane of lust that the thought of peeling off that dress and washing away that scent evoked). After Elizabeth gave him her perfectly reasonable and logical reasons why she had jilted him, and in such a public way, he would forgive her and sweep her away from this place. And he would tell his aunt that she could quit looking for someone like Miss Elizabeth Bennet, because he had found the real one.
Behind him he heard the door to the terrace open and close. He turned to greet Elizabeth.