Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice (23 page)

"Sorry, but I can't. I've got a lot of work here." He wondered if she were perhaps feeling shy and needed some convincing. "How about if I bring dinner to you, then?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to work straight
through. Thanks anyway." Was that coolness in
her voice, or was he imagining it?
"Maybe tomorrow, then?"

He heard her sigh. "Look, Will, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but you don't owe me anything for last night. It was just something that happened." Stung, he retorted, "I'm not trying to
pay yo
u for it. I thought it might be nice to spend a little time together."

"It's very nice of you, but it's unnecessary. Look, I need to go, okay?"

He felt unable to breathe. "If that's what you want, then."

"Yes. Thanks for asking, though, Will. Take care." "You too," he said automatically, just before hearing her hang up.

For quite some time, he felt nothing but numbness. He recognized her message. He had been the one to give it often enough in the past to women who were interested in more than he wanted to give. He had never spent a great deal of time thinking about how they felt, beyond trying to do it as gently as possible because he did not want to hurt anyone's feelings. Of course, he was sure Elizabeth had tried to avoid hurting his feelings as well. Unfortunately, that was impossible. She had stolen all his feelings away.

He had never been the one to be left behind before. For so many women, it was enough that he was rich and came from a famous family. That was all they wanted. But whatever it was Elizabeth wanted, he did not possess it.

The hurt did not begin until he went up to his room that night. She had only been there for a few hours, but the memory of her filled his room—her teasing smile, her laughter, her agile hands and warm body that seemed to accept him into it so gladly. But it was just a bit of fun for her, a release of tension, perhaps, nothing more. And he had been prepared to give up almost anything for her sake. He buried his face in his hands, feeling once again what it was to be unnecessary, unaccepted, and unloved. It was a position with which he was quite familiar.

   Cassie could no longer control her tears. She couldn't separate out how much of her was hurting for the character of Darcy as Calder had created it and how much was hating herself for what she had done. If he had written this as a punishment to her, he couldn't have done a better job. But she knew better than that. From what little she did know of his character, cruelty wasn't part of it. No, this was raw, naked honesty, and it hurt.

   If only she could stop reading. But she had to know what happened next, or rather, how much worse it would get. She already knew what was going to happen.

His resentment was fueled through the day by several strong drinks. By midafternoon, the combination of sleeplessness and alcohol overcame him, and he dozed off at his desk. Bingley woke him by pounding on the door at dinnertime. Darcy kept a grim silence during the meal, speaking only enough to keep his friend from becoming suspicious. Afterwards he went out onto the porch, yet another drink in his hand, to watch the sunset and brood. He ran through in his head his brief telephone conversation with Elizabeth again and again, letting himself feel her abruptness and unwillingness even to talk. Then, in the midst of his anger, he realized what he had missed earlier. Elizabeth's behavior during the call was out of character. Even when they had first met, when he had been unquestionably rude, she was unfailingly patient and pleasant with him. She never hesitated to take time to explain things to him, even when she was busy. She had never, never been abrupt or dismissive or unwilling to explain herself, not until that phone call.

He knew instinctively this was important, but his clouded mind could not see through the issue. He wanted to find Jane and demand she explain what Elizabeth was doing, but fortunately his good sense prevailed.

Elizabeth was upset, that much was clear. But why? Perhaps she was angry, either with herself or with him, for what happened; perhaps she was carried away by the moment and had gone further than she could be comfortable with, for some reason. Perhaps a commitment to someone else? No, that he could not believe. Or maybe it was a moral position; though she had obviously not been a virgin, it was equally obvious it had been some time since she had taken a lover. But she seemed so down to earth about it. That did not make sense either. Or… the realization suddenly hit him. He had made the mistake that any intelligent teenager knew to avoid. He had not thought about protection. It never even crossed his mind. Now
that
was something that would upset Elizabeth. She would have no tolerance, either for herself or anyone else, with that kind of carelessness.

He felt a huge sense of relief at having found an explanation. For a few minutes, all he could do was look blindly at the sunset and breathe deeply. Anger or anxiety: those were only stumbling blocks, not a brick wall. They could be worked through. He was impatient to fix things with her, but it would have to be tomorrow. He should talk to her in person; they had not done well on the telephone, and he should not be driving now. Not to mention the conclusions she would draw if he appeared unexpectedly at her cottage at night! No, it would have to wait until the morning, but now he
could wait
, now that it was no longer hopeless.

Despite his fatigue and the effects of alcohol, he awoke early and immediately readied himself to go to Elizabeth. Jane had said Elizabeth was often in the lab before anyone else, and he would prefer to talk to her when there were fewer people around. He walked down the Penzance Point road toward town, enjoying the early morning chill and solitude, filled with hope and energy. He
would find a way to make it all right for her, an
d then they could be together.

   Cassie braced herself for what was coming. He described his visit to her lab evocatively, his hopes as he arrived dashed by the coldness he met with from her. He had shown so little that day of what he was feeling, or had she simply not been looking?

Elizabeth rested her hand on her microscope. "I really don't have time for this kind of thing in my life right now; I have to focus on my work and getting tenure."

His heart sank. No time. That was the one reason he had not expected to hear from her; he could not say
why he
had not expected it, as he had certainly heard it often enough in his life. Work always came first for the people he loved—it came ahead of family time, it came ahead of playtime, it came ahead of any desire to understand him. Unconsciously, he put back on the mask of formality he used to cover pain.

It was over. There was no point in arguing it. There was no reason to hope for sympathy just because he felt ripped apart. Still, there was one thing he still needed to say, and perhaps it might leave a door open. "All right, I can accept that. But if I can take another minute of your time," that precious time, he thought "I just want to say that I know I was irresponsible. I'm not used to doing that kind of thing on the spur of the moment either, and I wasn't prepared, or even thinking. But if there are any… consequences, I hope you'll tell me. I wouldn't want to be left out of it, no matter what decision you made."

She looked at him for a moment, and then realization dawned over her face. Unpleasant realization, it was obvious. "There's nothing to worry about."

It was as if the woman before him was a completely different person from the one he had thought he knew, and it left him feeling helpless. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to upset you." She looked down at her papers on the bench. "I'm fine." It was a patent lie. "I'm just worried about my work."

"I guess I'll leave you to it, then. Good luck with your paper." He could not quite bring himself to say good-bye.

"Thank you." Her voice was firm, but when she looked up at him, he saw a trace of the woman he loved in her eyes. "Good-bye, Will." She could have no idea how much it hurt him to see it. Without another word, he turned and left. So much for that dream. It was nice while it lasted, the idea that a woman could value him for himself and not for his name or his money. But it was not realistic. There would be plenty of women who would be willing to put up with him for the material advantages he could offer, and he would have to settle for that.

   His writing always had the power to move her, and this was agonizing. She had been so angry that day. She had done it again, put the worst possible interpretation on everything he said and treated him badly when he meant well. And she had failed completely to recognize how vulnerable he was.

   She couldn't stop crying, and the worst was yet to come. This was going to be nothing compared to the Christmas party. And he had been so kind to her the day they met in Woods Hole, though she couldn't have deserved it less.

   The book continued, telling the story of Darcy's return to New York and how he plunged himself into activities in an attempt to forget her. It turned to bitterness when Bingley reentered the picture.

Bingley was in New York for a meeting, and arranged to meet Darcy for lunch while he was there. They met at an elegant restaurant where Darcy was fairly certain they would be untroubled by celebritywatchers. He was surprised at the difference in his friend's appearance since he had seen him last, just six weeks earlier. He looked a little thinner, but more than that, his mouth had a turn of discontent atypical of the usually cheerful Bingley.

Darcy knew he had only to wait for Bingley to raise the topic of whatever was bothering him. The appetizers had not even arrived when he was proven correct. "I saw Jane last weekend," said Bingley.

Darcy buttered his roll. "How is she?" He did not particularly want to talk about Jane; the less they said about anything that reminded him of Elizabeth, the better, but it was the issue on Bingley's mind, and there was no avoiding it.

Bingley looked sad. "She was fine. She was working on a project and had to go in for part of the day on Saturday. I didn't realize how understanding Elizabeth was this summer. I wasn't even allowed in the Duke labs."

"So you didn't see as much of her as you'd have liked?"

"No." Bingley paused for a moment. "I hate this long-distance idiocy, first not seeing her for weeks, then an intense weekend together, then apart again. And I can't get away as much as I'd like, and she has barely any time off. She keeps saying it'll be better when she gets a new job, but that won't be till next fall at the earliest. I want her
with
me." Elizabeth had told him straight out she had no time for a relationship. It was a painful thought, but it carried a little sweetness, too. Perhaps Elizabeth had considered the potential cost to him. "Jane says she needs her job until she has a new one, but I don't know—academic jobs are in short supply, and what are the chances she'll get one in Boston? I can't do this forever. And I don't feel like I can ask her to quit her job for me. I care about her, but we were only together for a little over a month, and I don't want to make promises I might not be able to keep. She's worked a long time to get where she is today." He looked pleadingly at Darcy, as if he might have some sort of answer.

Darcy certainly had no words of wisdom on this subject. "It sounds like the question really is whether she'll have time for you in any academic job, not just this one. It's very demanding for a beginning professor. They have to work all kinds of hours, at least until they get tenure. Look at Elizabeth. She was hardly out of the lab all summer."

Bingley looked even more despondent. "I don't even want to think about that. I just can't do that. And I can't even blame her. I work long hours, too, and
I'm not about to give up my jo
b for her. God, I wish I'd thought of all this before we got involved!"

Darcy could sympathize with that feeling, at least to a certain extent. He would never be willing to give up the little bit of Elizabeth he had. The image of her face as she watched him playing Trivial Pursuit came to him, and he felt a sudden longing for her.

   There it was, the one thing she had never been able to forgive him for—coming between Scott and Erin. Yet as he presented it, it was no more than the logical conclusion of the seemingly harmless white lie she told him when she said she didn't have time for a relationship. Erin had never changed her story about looking for an academic job.

   It could have been so different if only they had talked about their feelings. It might not have worked out anyway, given their differences, but at least they would have had something. Or she would have had enough to really break her heart when it ended.

   She continued reading Calder's description of the autumn, of how Darcy had grappled with feelings of loneliness and pointlessness by grimly dating, and occasionally bedding, a series of women. It wasn't a surprise, and she had no right to object to it, but it still bothered her.

   She read Darcy's fantasies about Elizabeth with a different kind of embarrassment. If only his fantasies could have met hers, what a fine time they would have had. His memories of what he had seen as her tenderness saddened her. It took so little to mean so much to him.