Reader I Married Him

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I approached them to see if I could be of assistance. The man gripped his foot with both hands and a deep set frown. I recognized him, with a shock, from the portrait.
He was Mr. Darcy. He was my employer.
And then he looked at me, with a piercing gaze, and a preoccupied frown.
He was more handsome in life, even though the portraitist had taken liberties to idealize his features. And it was there in those eyes, in his beautiful deep eyes. I saw again hints of that pained unhappy creature straining desperately for escape from some horrid trap into which he had found himself. My stomach leapt up in a strange way, and he seemed silenced by an odd spell.
“Sir,” cried I at last, “are you hurt badly, how bad was the fall?”
I hurried up, breaking the spell, and knelt next to him. I was aware of a strange sense at sitting so near to him, and I could not help but note that Mr. Darcy had fine noble features, a lean and active figure, and above all that, he was exceptionally tall.
“Hmmmm.” He looked at me with an intense frown, as though he were not sure if he would deign to answer me. I thought from something in his expression, how he held his jaw tight together that he was in substantial pain, but refused to cry out or allow it to show on his face.
He stripped off his gloves, and continued his examination of his injured foot, carefully rolling and twisting it through the boot.
“I do not believe,” he permitted himself to say, after I had nearly begun to despair of an answer and feel quite awkward crouched next to him, “that it is broken. And I have only been bruised otherwise. Ice over the bridge. This section of the road is Mr. Locke’s duty to maintain. I shall send him a letter about allowing black ice to remain.”
“There was snow but a week before now.”
“Then there was a week to ensure that travelers can safely pass — who are you? You are dressed too finely to be a servant. I ought to know who you are.”
“Me? I am Miss Bennet.”
“I do not know a Miss Bennet. Not around here.”
“So you know everyone round about?” I replied with a cheeky smile. I rather wondered at my not immediately identifying myself as his employee. But there was something unpleasant at the prospect of losing entirely this one chance to interact with this gentleman as a supposed equal, a fellow member of the gentry.
He barked a laugh. “For the most part. For the most part — and to my discredit. But you — who are you? You must be visiting someone.”
“No, I am not a visitor.”
He smiled slightly at my continued refusal to identify myself directly. “No but tell me straight out, who are you?”
“You do not like to guess at such matters?” I replied. “But this is no time for games; tell me how I might aid you. I can hurry to Lambton and fetch help.”
The day was cold, and the sun setting quickly, and I did not like the thought of leaving this gentleman on a moonless road, cut through by an icy wind. I also did not wish to stay here speaking with him without movement for long. I was beginning to feel the bite of the cold.
He waved that aside. “To Lambton? Whatever for — at least half an hour going and returning. No, no, I simply require your aid to collect my horse and mount — I see you prefer to play such games, and hide your identity.”
“I come from the estate, Pemberley,” I at last admitted, rather unhappily, expecting him to immediately connect my name, which I had already given, to the upper employee he had added a year prior.
“No! Pemberley — then I must know who you are.”
“The governess, sir.” I forced a smile, and I wondered what sort of a first impression I had given him.
This brought a frown to his face; he looked at me and sighed. “Ah yes. The governess. I had nearly forgotten. The governess, of course! Nearly forgotten that whole matter. Well, and what do you think of Mr. Darcy, the owner of the estate?”
Ah, he had not given me his name as yet. So he must assume himself to be anonymous.
I realized that he did not know that I recognized him from his portrait. I smiled a little and said, “I hear only good spoken of him, except that he is absent rather more than the house and neighborhood would prefer — but then I suppose he arranges his life to his own satisfaction, and not ours, which is as is right — but a father ought be with his daughter more.”
“Daughter. Hah! But Mr. Darcy hardly ever arranges matters to his own satisfaction,” the man replied sardonically, and for a moment a deep cloud sat upon his face. But then he took in a deep breath, and settled his face, as if pressing down into the depths of his heart whatever melancholy had fallen upon him.
It again rose to mind, my frequent suspicion that my dear and treasured pupil was not his true daughter.
“Well, and what do you do on this lonely road at this hour, governess?”
“I thought to take a walk, and offered to spare John in his daily duty of going out to post the post.”
“Hmph.” Mr. Darcy shook his head. “A walk of five miles? And each direction?”
“I have a great affection for nature and long walks,” I replied with a smile and a little dignity.
“Five miles?” he replied skeptically. Then he looked at me closer. “You are a small pretty thing — he ought to have insisted on accompanying you.”
“I had not heard that the wilds here were unsettled and plagued by bandits. I had thought they were well managed, being quite near the center of our England in these settled days.”
Mr. Darcy laughed at that, and this time it was a genuine laugh, the sort that required any who heard him smile at him in their own turn.
“Well said,” he smiled. “But the land is still plagued with hidden ice patches, and landowners who do not go to the effort to keep the ways safe for travelers — enough of complaint. Though I cannot say I am glad to have been witnessed taking a fall, I think you are rather friendlier of an audience than most.”
And saying that, Mr. Darcy attempted to rise, but he found his foot would not support him.
He sighed. “Miss Bennet, might I entreat you to aid me?”
“Of course, sir. I am at your service.”
“Over there, bring my horse closer — grab the halter. Do not worry, Milton has the sweetest temperament.”
I looked skeptically at the great beast, who had a wildness in his eyes as he pawed worriedly at the ground. My stomach twisted with fear, but it would not produce a promising impression upon my employer to fail to help him in what he considered a simple matter.
I confess I am no horsewoman. I in general avoid the beasts. This particular stallion was a massive creature, larger by far than most of them. It was with a definite fear that I creeped closer to the animal, the whole while aware of Mr. Darcy watching me from behind.
When I came close enough that I could grab the halter, the horse neighed and pulled its head out of my reach and backed up several steps.
“Firmer than that, Miss Bennet. Firmer,” Mr. Darcy called out.
I attempted to be firm in how I stepped forward but the horse again backed away, and threw its head to the side so I could not get my hands anywhere near to the halter.
And again.
I sighed and looked back at Mr. Darcy.
He laughed, but not cruelly. “You have no great experience with horses.”
“Not an excess—” I replied with an embarrassed shrug. “My shameful secret is that they frighten me.”
“So I see. So I see.” He then peered at me and after a gloomy pause again laughed, this time with bitterness — Mr. Darcy could show a wonderful range of emotion through his laughs. “You call that a shameful secret? What a child.”
I frowned at him more than a little annoyed.
“Do not look like that, Miss Bennet — you lack experience in the world, and—”
“I do not.”
“Of a certainty you do if you confess to being a poor horsewoman as a shameful secret. As though any human creature could care to comment upon such a secret with more than a shrug — it is not difficult to learn, and were you to overcome your fear, the art is in general very useful, and—”
“Would you choose either to make sport of me for thinking it a shameful thing to not be able to do a matter generally considered trivial, or attempt to convince me it is in fact trivial — but might you not do both? I am becoming cold as we converse on this.”
I shivered theatrically as I said that, and determinedly stepped away from the horse to come closer to Mr. Darcy.
“And you have something of a temper as well, Miss Bennet. Hardly the usual accomplishment for a governess? How do you manage when your charge annoys you?”
“Cathy,” I replied sharply, “has the sweetest temperament in the world, as I have been informed by Mrs. Reynolds her father did as well as child.”
Mr. Darcy winced at that statement. He then sighed, and said, “As you cannot bring my horse to me, necessity requires I make use of you in a different way. My apologies — but if the mountain will not come to Mohommed, Mohommed must go to the mountain. Come here, Miss Bennet.”
I came up to him in a mood now rather more inclined to be annoyed at his high-handed commanding manner than amused.
He half stood, and then pressing his hands on my shoulders used me to pull himself the rest of the way to his feet. Then leaning on my shoulder he limped his way step by step up to the horse, who for some mysterious reason did not shy away from Mr. Darcy at all.
When next to the horse he looked at the leap up to the saddle, grimaced, and then using his arms as much as possible to lift himself put the injured foot in the stirrup and with a muffled curse swung his other leg over and mounted the horse.
“Thank you again, Miss Bennet, thank you. I am in your debt — might you also aid me by retrieving my riding crop, and my gloves. Upon the rock.”
I did so.
“Thank you. Now hurry and return to the estate — even lacking the bandits needed to complete the picturesque of this land, it would be best not to remain on the road long after dark.”
Really?
Now he was looking after me as though I was the child. And he still had not introduced himself as Mr. Darcy. High-handed, exasperating, annoyingly handsome man.
I hoped very much he would stay a long time, and I would see a great deal of him.