It seemed to take an age before Darcy was at last well enough to resume his normal life. After his little late-night escapade he had, as he assumed he would, incurred the wrath of Georgiana, such as it was. Just thinking of his delicate and reserved sister taking such a fierce tack with him was enough to make him smile, even through the remainder of the bed rest imposed on him by not only the doctor and Georgiana herself, but also by the urgent demands of his own body.
It had been a very bad illness indeed, and he was given to understand in no uncertain terms that he had been risking his very health to have been out in the cold night air when his lungs had been labored for breath as much as they had already been.
Once Georgiana had learned from the doctor that Darcy would recover and once she had satisfied herself by yelling at him for a solid three minutes, she had demanded, "Why would you do something so blatantly irresponsible anyway?"
He had known she would ask. Of course she would. They loved each other and each would be willing to protect the other from anything, even if it was from their own bouts of recklessness and stupidity.
So he had been composed as he sipped at the glass of juice he had been permitted and was able to answer in a steady voice. "It was for a woman."
He was watching her from the corner of his eye, so he saw her fair brows shoot straight up in surprise.
"A woman? Who?"
An odd warmth had filled his chest as he at last permitted himself to tell someone of his feelings for Elizabeth. "Her name is Elizabeth Bennet. She is the younger sister of Jane Marchrend, the woman Charles is seeing."
"The women you asked about," Georgiana said instantly, finally understanding the cryptic message that Mr. Bingley had passed to her brother through her. "That's why you asked after them. But if they were both well, why did you go out? And in the middle of the night!"
Darcy chuckled. "Calm down, my ferocious little sister. I am well aware of my transgressions and won't require another of your lectures just yet. But to answer your question, I was aware that Miss Bennet was going to be in an unsafe part of town and I was concerned for her well being. I simply felt the need to see she was escorted home safely, and that is what I did."
As he suspected she might, Georgiana fixed on his motivations rather than on how he had come by such knowledge. "But if she were just anyone, you might have sent Fitch without you," she observed shrewdly.
Darcy sipped at his juice again, still watching her out of the corner of his eye. She was grinning almost maniacally as she left her place in the chair at his bedside and moved to sit on his mattress near his feet. She peered into his face as though all the secrets of the world might be written there, searching his eyes for the answer to the question she hadn't quite managed to ask.
"You love her. Or, well, you at least like her a great deal."
"I hope to marry her someday," Darcy told her honestly. There was no point in his hiding it from his own sister. "If only she will have me."
"Of course she will. She would be a fool to turn you down!" Georgiana was swift in coming to his defense and he smiled fondly at her.
"Well, we shall see," was all he said and shortly thereafter he had returned to solitary rest, or tried to. Actual sleep eluded him, as his mind spun in a whirl of thoughts.
Part of him had wanted to lay out the whole miserable tale to his sister and to hear her thoughts on the matter. She knew him better than anyone else in the world, but she did not love him to the point of being blind to his faults. In addition, she did not know about his Second Sight, and in truth, the sensation of not knowing how things would turn out between himself and Elizabeth was something of a novel one for him.
Most of his life had been shaped by his Second Sight, with all of his major business decisions having been informed by his strange gift. He had never had cause to doubt a favorable outcome before now, but he supposed that just because his business plans had always been well executed didn't guarantee him a happy result when the heart and mind of a person entirely out of his control were thrown into the mix.
In business, it had been a matter of knowing when and how much to invest. With Elizabeth, his vision might have been nothing more than a happy possibility if only he didn't manage to bungle the whole affair. And he was very much afraid that he had somehow made Elizabeth hate him.
His letting her go from his employment right after meeting her was his first and probably biggest mistake. The fact was so glaringly obvious that he wanted to somehow go back in time and throttle himself for ever assuming she would have taken such a thing well. What had he thought at the time? The she understood that he was going to marry her someday and that he wished to protect her from the vicious gossip of society?
He didn't know how he had reached such a laughable conclusion, let alone how he had managed to persuade himself to believe it.
To be entirely truthful, he hadn't bothered to think all that much about it at the time. But seeing the level to which she had descended just to earn a wage cast everything in a new and sober light. He was so accustomed to running his empire and having all the advantages of wealth and privilege that he had never stopped to consider that she might have been depending on that job and that paycheck just to survive and keep a roof over her head.
He had been so blithe and cavalier in his treatment of her that day, casually destroying her livelihood without the slightest attention paid to the question of what she might do after. Granted, he had offered to place her elsewhere in his company, but how might that have sounded to her, not knowing all the details behind his decision? Trying to put himself into her shoes, he realized that his pride would have been stung beyond measure had he been turned away without reason or warning from a job he had not been given the opportunity to perform.
Perhaps that vision of his had blinded him with a joyous haze of unreal expectations. It was as though he had truly seen and understood a part of Elizabeth for the first time last night, and the seeing had caused the optimistic shine to fade from even his memories of their interactions.
He now considered himself to be the most willfully deluded sort of fool and could only look back with shame on his actions and his interpretation of her response to him. She was civil, nothing more, and hadn't even been that at the outset of their interaction last night. But if she had been uncivil, he had deserved it and worse. Given the way he had acted towards her thus far, he had to admit that she had shown a great deal of maturity and restraint in being as kind to him as she had been.
Yes, and wouldn't that be just the most damning sort of inscription to have on the metaphorical tombstone of their failed relationship? "Could have been the love of your life, instead was forced to show maturity and restraint towards you. She didn't kill you, but you killed the romance."
He had to admit that it lacked a certain something in pithiness, but the general observation rang overwhelmingly true.
Eventually, Darcy decided that he could either fret endlessly about whether or not he had managed to forever ruin his chances to be with Elizabeth, or he could assume he still had a chance to make reparations and then to woo her. Of the two options, the latter was decidedly more attractive if not rather more daunting.
He had never had to try with a woman before, having rather disdained most of the ladies of his acquaintance who had set their caps at him and his fortune. He was on distantly friendly terms with several other women, all of whom were either married or his elders or both. Aside from watching Bingley carry out his succession of brief romances, Darcy hadn't had much exposure to the art or form of lovemaking*, nor had he ever thought to pay attention.
While a bachelor's life certainly had never been his dearest wish or highest ideal, he had never given much thought to how he might change from a single to a married status, instead rather assuming that eventually he would come across some society lady who wasn't entirely objectionable but who would still accept him for his wealth and position more than succumb to the fiercely tender wooing of his soul.
Groaning at his ignorance and his utter inability to determine a starting point for his campaign to win Elizabeth's heart, he turned his attention instead to how he might go about securing her physical safety and comfort. He thought he had gotten enough of her true measure the previous night to know that she would never welcome open interference from him on the issue. She had a streak of independence that was so wide he wasn't certain how he had missed it in his early assessment of her character. More future happiness-induced blindness, no doubt. The material point, he was sure, was that he couldn't task a driver to seeing her safely to and from her workplace each night.
His second thought, and one he discarded even more swiftly than the first, was that perhaps he could have a manservant follow her discreetly. However, the best thing of all would be to get her working during normal daytime hours and doing something more ladylike. Perhaps he could arrange for a business associate to hire her into his offices as a secretary. She had been qualified enough to do so for Darcy; surely her ability would stand up to the demands of anyone else he knew.
But again, the problem there was that such a maneuver would be all too obvious. Unless she were to happen to see and apply to such a position on her own - and there was nothing to indicate that she was even looking to move away from her current situation - it would have his fingerprints all over it.
If only she had taken him up on his original offer to work elsewhere in his business interests so that he could have ultimate oversight over her work situation while he went about the business of courting her!
There was a thought, and one that had him sitting up as quickly as his sore and weary body would permit. Blue Line was possibly a profitable avenue for business and Darcy was always looking to expand into new areas. Too many businessmen were afraid to expand into unknown quarters, but even if Blue Line were the worst sort of sinkhole for cash, Darcy would consider it a sound investment if only he could have the peace of mind of knowing that Elizabeth was his responsibility.
If he were to research into the company and make an offer to purchase it outright, perhaps the owner would sell to him. He could arrange it all secretly, going through solicitors and banks and using whatever management existed already to create a new position that would, in one fell stroke, grant Elizabeth safety, better pay and more genteel labor.
A man of action when he saw his way clear, Darcy tugged on the bell-pull and informed the servant who arrived to answer his call that he required the presence of his solicitor as soon as that man could be summoned.
Feeling pleased with his plan, Darcy actually managed to settle into a light doze as he awaited the arrival of Mr. Smyth.
It was a full week before Doctor Channing pronounced Darcy well enough to leave his bedchamber and to make a partial return to his business affairs.
"I would much rather you didn't go in at all," the doctor had said, looking sternly at his rather willful patient. "But of course you will hear of no such thing, and I am fully aware of it. You had better not go in above two or three times a week and you must keep your hours to a reasonable minimum."
Darcy assured the doctor that he would do his best to take it easy until he felt all his old strength had been rebuilt but the man still frowned at him in a markedly disapproving manner as he left the house.
Although Darcy would have gone back to work on the spot, it still remained to get past the fussy coddling of the rest of the household, sibling and servants alike. It was a full three days after Doctor Channing's permission had been granted that Georgiana at last consented to give her approval as well.
She did so in a fit of pique, tired of Darcy's incessant wheedling on the matter. He might have just gone without her permission; he certainly didn't really require it, but it made her feel better to have some say and it was an area where he was actually happy enough to indulge her. They spent most of the three days together, and it was a pleasant break from the normal busyness of life, but couldn't have been sustained by either of them for much longer.
The servants had even less real say than did Georgiana, but that didn't stop even a single one of them from expressing the opinion that he should not return to work until he had fully recovered. The housekeeper went so far as to remark within his hearing that it was bad enough that he spent a few hours each day closeted in his study and meeting with Smyth or some other man of his employment who was keeping things running in his absence.
By the time Darcy was actually back to working his normal hours every day of the week, he was all but ready to make an offer to the owner of Blue Line. Smyth was clearly curious as to why Darcy was so insistent on wanting to purchase the other company, but he asked no impertinent questions and merely went about the business of getting the best possible deal he could negotiate.
It still was not the sort of brilliant purchase that Darcy was so famous for, but on this particular transaction he was not being guided by his Second Sight for the usual reasons. Having no notion whether he might be able to turn the company to a stronger profit, Darcy nevertheless believed that it was the best investment he had made in some time.
In only a few weeks, he would have quietly arranged a better quality of life for Elizabeth. And once she was settled into her new routine, he would drop a subtle hint or two to Bingley to arrange for another joint outing. With a few more such encounters, Darcy would be able to make a better and more deliberate impression on Elizabeth.
Despite her dislike for him, he was certain she had softened somewhat towards him by the end of their encounter on the night he had seen her home safely. He had been more wholly himself that evening, he knew, with some of his natural reserve having been subverted by illness and exhaustion. If he could only achieve a similar level of ease in speaking to her while whole and well, she would perhaps soften still further and he would be able to make his intentions towards her a little more obviously known.
Even as he dreamed of a future where she would be his, Darcy reminded himself that this time around he would have to be both more cautious and deliberate in his interactions with her. And all the while as he planned, his heart beat with a fierce longing for that moment when he would know that she had forgiven him for his folly.
A/N: *I am using the old meaning of 'lovemaking' here, back when it meant courtship.
Also, I know we have all known for several chapters (and therefore, for older readers, many months!) that Bingley and Jane are no longer together, but Darcy has been sick or on the mend ever since that happened, so he (and Georgiana) wouldn't have any reason to know about that little development as of yet.
On a more personal note, thanks to everyone who is reading, with extra thanks to those who favorited or followed or both! Special thanks to those who reviewed. It means so much to me, I cannot even properly express my gratitude, and I hereby promise a teaser to anyone who reviews this chapter and has PM's enabled. Don't think of it as a bribe. Think of it as a thank you.
We'll be seeing a lot more action from Darcy's POV. I find him easier to write and I hope you all continue to not mind his ridiculously introspective ways. Because he pretty much never stops thinking.
Lastly, Happy New Year to all! I'm pretending that by starting the year out this way, I shall see a continuation of my muse behaving and real life not getting too much in the way.