Mr. Darcy's Indiscretions

by Valerie Lennox

  “You and that doctor made me think I was going to the devil. The misery you’ve caused me.” Darcy clenched his hands into fists. “And all for no reason at all.”

  “Not for no reason. For your own good. Darcy, you’ve already come down in what you were taking a day. You’ve managed it. Don’t you see what an accomplishment that is?”

  “It’s no accomplishment. It’s been torture. And now this torture. The worst torture. You have no idea what this is doing to me. I feel as if my skin is flaking off. I feel as if I’m being stabbed with a thousand knives—”

  “Stop being melodramatic,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, who was standing behind them, observing everything to make sure that Elizabeth didn’t try to slip Darcy any opium.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Darcy said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, lip curling. “Why, I might kill you yet.”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes. You’re going to murder me. I’ve heard it all before.”

  Elizabeth reached for her husband. “I know you don’t want to be this way. You don’t want to be dependent on this awful thing. And you’re on your way now. If you just choose to try, to fight, you can have everything that you never thought you could. We can be truly together. We can be…” She bit down on her lip. Until she gave words to this, she hadn’t realized just how desperately she wanted him to come out of this, to be the Darcy she had first met.

  Darcy sneered at her. “What happened to saying you’d take nothing more from me than I could give, hmm?”

  Elizabeth pressed her lips together.

  “Maybe you are just a whore,” he said. “Maybe you’re so desperate to be fucked that you’ll do anything to me.”

  Elizabeth drew back, sucking in breath.

  “Don’t,” Elizabeth said to him, her voice quiet. Darcy’s sharp, vulgar words had wounded her far more than she had known possible.

  Colonel Fitzwilliam placed a hand on her shoulder. “I wouldn’t pay any mind to what he’s saying now. It would probably be best if you stayed away for the next few days. I don’t mind his abuse, but the things he might say to you may be worse yet than that.”

  Elizabeth shook him off. She went closer to Darcy again, kneeling next to him. “I know it hurts.” She reached up and rested her hands on his knees. “I know you think you are dying. But if you fight for this, you can get through it.”

  “Give me some laudanum,” said Darcy. “Please.”

  She shook her head. “Choose me, Darcy. Fight the habit and choose me and the life we could have together.”

  Darcy pushed her hands away. “I choose my blasted laudanum. I’m dying without it, do you hear me?”

  * * *

  Colonel Fitzwilliam found Elizabeth in the drawing room. She was drinking some mulled wine to try to calm her nerves, but it wasn’t working. She stood in front of the fire, and she was still trembling from the thought of the awful things he’d said to her.

  “Mrs. Darcy?”

  She whirled. “The doctor says it’s all for naught. He says he’ll go back to it.”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam sighed. “I suppose it could happen. I have seen that before as well. But I think he will fight for you.”

  She laughed bitterly. “You heard him, didn’t you? He said he chose laudanum.”

  The colonel nodded. He came over to the mantle and stared into the fire.

  They stood in a heavy silence for some time.

  “If he does not recover, if he does choose this, then perhaps…” He licked his lips. “I could not help but overhearing what he was saying to you. I do not mean to speak about indelicate matters, but I understand the marriage is not, er, consummated.”

  “No,” she said, lifting her face at once. “It is. In fact…” She swallowed. “I am three months gone with child.”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam’s eyes widened. “Truly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there is no possibility of an annulment then.”

  “I don’t want an annulment,” said Elizabeth. “Why does everyone think I want an annulment?”

  “We must tell him of the child,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “If anything would lead him to want to pull himself out of this, the knowledge that he is to be a father would. Why have you not told him already?”

  “I…” She took a gulp of her wine. Her hands were still shaking. “Oh, he was so drunk that he does not even remember…” She put a hand to her mouth. “My apologies. I should not speak of such things to you. It is only that I have been telling myself for so long that perhaps if I waited just a little longer, he would recover. And then I could tell him then. But he never recovers, and I am beginning to think myself a fool.”

  “I am sorry, Mrs. Darcy.”

  She clutched her glass. “It was quite one thing when it was only me. But things are different now. I have loved him to distraction. I have thrown all caution to the wind for this man, but if there is to be a child…”

  “You must tell him,” said the colonel. “Tell him, and perhaps it will change everything.”

  Elizabeth sniffed hard. And then she nodded.

  * * *

  The doctor came the next morning. He checked Darcy’s vitals and declared that he was in no danger of dying. The withdrawal would continue on, he said. It would peak the next day and then slowly fade away. The entire process would take a week.

  The doctor told Colonel Fitzwilliam that he was likely wasting his time, that he would have to watch Darcy every moment. “He’ll go back to it first chance he gets.”

  By this time, Darcy’s screams had subsided. He was no longer vomiting or passing thin stool or unable to sleep. But he still looked horrible. He was thin and raving, barely dressed and nearly mad.

  It was starting to snow.

  Darcy yelled from the room, “The doctor won’t be able to come back with the snow. Tell him to leave some laudanum if you have a heart.”

  “Now,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Go to him. Tell him about the child. I will be outside the door.”

  Elizabeth squared her shoulders. “All right,” she said. Together, she and the colonel unlatched the door and Elizabeth entered the room where Darcy was being kept.

  It was cold in the room. Darcy had claimed he was too hot and doused the fire with one of his chamberpots. Now the room smelled of smoke and urine. She could smell it all the more strongly with her heightened senses now that she was carrying their babe.

  “Did you bring me laudanum?” said Darcy. He was sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed. He was clad only in a pair of drawers. His gaunt chest heaved. He was sweating.

  “I came to talk to you,” she said, smoothing out her skirt. “I was waiting to tell you my news until I thought you were doing better. But Colonel Fitzwilliam thinks you should know now. He thinks that if you do know, it may give you a reason to try to fight off your dependency.”

  “I don’t care about any news, Elizabeth,” said Darcy darkly. “I only care about my laudanum. I am dying, and you do not even care.”

  “I am with child,” she said.

  He turned to her sharply. “What?”

  “Yes. I am not very far along. It will be some months before I am even showing signs, but I thought that—”

  “You can’t be with child.” He was on his feet now, coming for her. “I have not touched you.”

  “No, that is the thing. You have. You do not remember. You were drunk and you blocked it all out, but I swear to you—”

  “I am dependent on laudanum, woman, not a simpleton,” he snapped. “You think I would fall for such a ridiculous story?”

  “Do you remember waking up and asking why you were in my bedchamber?” Her voice was shaking.

  “If you are with child, it is not mine,” said Darcy.

  “Please, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “In London, you were pulling me into darkened rooms and trying to get inside my trousers,” he hissed. “I said that you should take a lover, didn’t I? But perha
ps you already had. Perhaps you married me with some other man’s bastard in your belly—”

  “That doesn’t even make sense. We have been married for too long. If I had already been increasing, I should be the size of a house by now.”

  “Fine, then,” he said. “I’m asleep all the time. You could easily be spreading your legs for all of Derbyshire.” He roared the last words.

  She flinched from him.

  Darcy glared at her. “Tell me who, then.”

  “Stop it,” she said. “You know how devoted I am to you. You know I would never—”

  “Is it you, Richard?” Darcy bellowed, throwing his head back. “How long have you been here? Have you been tupping my wife for sport because I’ve not been man enough to do it myself?”

  The door burst open and Colonel Fitzwilliam was inside now. “For God’s sake, Darcy, your wife is breeding, now pull yourself together and—”

  “You’re the one who told me to marry her.” Darcy pointed at the colonel. “Were you with her then? Has this all been some mad scheme between the two of you? What? Are you after my money? Take it, then. Take whatever you want. Take the whore and go, the both of you. Just leave me my laudanum.”

  Elizabeth was starting to cry. “That is the last time you will call me that word, Mr. Darcy,” she said. And even though she was crying, she was pleased that her voice was strong and cold. “I have been faithful to you. Don’t you dare say otherwise.”

  “Get out,” he said to her. “Leave.”

  She lifted her chin. “You would turn your wife and unborn child out of your home? Into the snow?”

  “It’s not my child,” said Darcy.

  She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Darcy was thirsty.

  He drank water and it did nothing to slake his thirst, because he didn’t thirst for water, but for laudanum, but for opium, and he was in agony, and no one would save him.

  Now, he was shaking at the thought of another man’s hands on Elizabeth. He had taken her virtue, all those years ago, and somehow he had grown attached to the idea that he was the only man to ever have touched her. To have kissed her. To have been inside her.

  A dream swam at the edge of his memory, of her bare skin splayed out in front of him…

  But no, he had not been able to achieve an erection in years. There was no possible way that he had fathered a child—

  “Are you going to let her go?” Colonel Fitzwilliam’s voice was quiet and scornful.

  Darcy turned to look at his cousin, who seemed to have materialized out of the shadows. “I thought I told you to get out.”

  “You called Georgiana a whore too, didn’t you?”

  Darcy’s nostrils flared. “What does that have to do with anything that’s happening now? Why do you insist on bringing her up?”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed mirthlessly. “Never mind, Darcy. Your wife is packing up her belongings. She has asked me to escort her away from you, back to her sister’s home in Netherfield. I have agreed. I don’t think she should be anywhere near you at the moment.”

  Darcy sneered. “It is only what I asked of her, isn’t it? For her to leave? You take her away, then. Both of you go. It is your child, isn’t it?”

  “I won’t even dignify that with an answer,” said his cousin and stalked out of the room. He didn’t shut the door after himself.

  Darcy was free.

  He ran out of the room, mad with his desire. He knew that he had left a bit of laudanum in his study, and if he could just get there…

  Dashing down the steps, he came face to face with Elizabeth, who was ascending the steps and speaking to the housekeeper about what should be done in her absence.

  The housekeeper’s eyes widened at the sight of him.

  Darcy realized that he was practically naked. He hadn’t shaved in days. He was sweaty and smelly. He felt ashamed of himself.

  If Elizabeth had slept with another man, could he blame her? Whatever would she want with him? He froze there, staring at her, and she looked so beautiful that he wanted to cry. He wanted to sob like a child, because if she left him, if she left him…

  A memory surfaced from the depths of his mind. His sister, Georgiana, all those years ago, tears streaming down her cheeks as he lit into her, calling her terrible names, screaming at her.

  And then she’d left. She’d gone through the doors and disappeared on her horse, and Darcy had never seen her again.

  Dear God, it was all happening again, wasn’t it?

  And why shouldn’t it? He wasn’t a man. He was a dog. He was worse than George Wickham. He was pathetic and wicked and he didn’t deserve a woman like Elizabeth.

  But still, the words ripped out of him. “Not in the snow.”

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. She had already been staring at him. Both she and the housekeeper had.

  “I won’t chase another pregnant woman out of this house to her death,” said Darcy. He pointed at her. “Not in the snow.” And then he threw himself into his study, where he found the bottle of laudanum where he had hidden it. He uncapped it greedily.

  The liquid slid down his throat like a sweet, sweet balm. He groaned softly and slid to the floor, clutching at the bottle. Now everything would be all right. He had the laudanum, and that was all that mattered.

  * * *

  Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam were gone in the matter of a week, as soon as the snow was melted enough to allow safe passage.

  Neither of them attempted to take his laudanum from him, and for that, Darcy was grateful. He slept most of the week away anyway. He slept away her departure. He awoke in the darkness, and she was gone.

  And that was as it should be. After all, he had done enough to hurt her.

  When he thought of all the ways that he had destroyed that woman, he was ashamed.

  So ashamed, in fact, that even the opium was not the solace it had once been. He would drink, but he would not be shuttled away to pleasant warm dreams of goodness and light, but to dark places of torment. He knew he deserved it.

  Time passed.

  How much time, he couldn’t say, but the snows stopped and the air grew warm and Darcy was cocooned in a hole of laudanum and guilt and regret.

  One day, he went into the bedroom that had been Elizabeth’s, and he lay down on her bed, and he stared at the ceiling.

  He thought about his dead sister and the wreck of his life that he’d wrought, and he hated himself.

  He thought about Elizabeth and the way she had looked at him with all that adoration, and he missed her so acutely that he wanted to die.

  Abruptly, making love to her came back to him.

  Not all at once. Bits and pieces of it. Elizabeth’s cries as he’d had his fingers on her. Then her hoarse voice. I want you now.

  He sat up straight, horrified.

  What had he been thinking? Dear Lord, could he have possibly thought Elizabeth would lie with another man? She had been his. She had been devoted to him. When no other sane person would be devoted to him, she had loved him. She would never…

  “It is my child,” he breathed.

  Well, that was it, then. No more laudanum. He was going to have to pull himself together. Maybe, if he could get off the dreadful stuff, he could somehow convince her to come back, along with their babe. Maybe…

  It lasted an hour, and then he was making excuses and pouring more of the stuff down his throat.

  When he awoke from his stupor later, he realized that he was not going to be able to do this on his own.

  He instructed his servants to pack up his trunk for a journey. He would set out in the morning, he told them.

  And then he had more laudanum and went to sleep.

  But when morning came, he could not rouse himself from his bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Elizabeth had not wanted to leave.

  Slinking back to her elder sister’s home, pregnant and pitiful, it wasn’t a tri
umph, but rather a defeat. She had married. She had left this place and gone on to be mistress of her own estate. And Pemberley was a grand estate, even if it had been left in disrepair for a number of years. She had done much to bring it back to its former splendor.

  No, she had not wanted to leave.

  But she could not stay with Darcy, not in the state that he was in. Not when he had called her a whore twice and not when he had growled at her to get out of his house.

  It would have been too much for her pride to have given in.

  There were some things that were not to be borne, even from Fitzwilliam Darcy, however much she loved him.

  And that was the hell of it all, the sheer infernal agony of it. She did still love him. She knew that he suffered because of his dependency, and she knew that he would regret everything that he had said and done if he were in his right mind. It was not her Darcy who behaved so, but the demon Darcy that had been twisted by opium.

  In some ways, though, it all came to the same thing.

  Arriving at Netherfield was not a pleasant experience, whatever the case. Of course Jane welcomed her with open arms, but Bingley was stiff with her. Nancy was not overly demonstrative either, even though she was happily planning her nuptials with Mr. Martin, who had not cared a whit for any scandal caused by Elizabeth’s wanton behavior and still wanted to make her his wife.

  The children were delighted to see her. They had missed her terribly. Elizabeth had missed them too.

  It was all rather dreadful, though, truth be told. Here she was, back in disgrace from her husband, and the gossip had barely cooled on their marriage to begin with. Also, she was with child, and Elizabeth was worried. Would Darcy not give up his mad idea that the child was not his? Would he deny his own son or daughter?

  What if she bore the Darcy heir, and Darcy would not claim him?

  On the other hand, if Darcy continued in the manner he was with the laudanum, it was perhaps best that the child never become acquainted with his father. She would tell her little boy or girl stories of her father’s bravery. In keeping with his own practice, she would make them up entirely. Darcy lied enough as it was. He would not mind.