by Pamela Aidan
“Nothing of your concern, I assure you.” Darcy shifted his gaze away from his cousin’s intense examination. “I have called for the carriage to be at the door by nine tomorrow. Can you be ready?”
“We do leave tomorrow then?” Darcy raised a sardonic brow at his cousin before turning to divest himself of his coat and gloves. “You have changed your plans once already without bothering to consult me,” Fitzwilliam protested to his cousin’s turned back.
“We leave tomorrow at nine. There will be no change of plans.” He turned and faced Fitzwilliam. “I find myself quite desirous of getting back to London as soon as may be possible. I have left Georgiana to Lord Brougham’s care long enough,” he offered.
“I cannot disagree with you there,” Fitzwilliam relented. He threw his hands up at the frown on Darcy’s face, then cocked a brow at him. “It will not do, you know. You cannot intimidate me with that frown of yours. Oh, it is an excellent fierce one, I assure you; but you forget that you are dealing with the Highly Disappointing Issue of His Lordship, the Earl of Matlock. Not even in the same race as Pater, Fitz.” He returned to the hearth chair and fell back into it. “So pack it away, and tell your old Father Confessor. What is it, Cousin?”
“I am sure that I have not the slightest idea…”
“Damn and blast, Fitz,” Richard cut him off, “do not poker up at me like a missish old maid. Here.” He leaned forward on his elbows and looked at him earnestly. “It has to do with Miss Bennet, does it not?”
A thrill of apprehension coursed up Darcy’s spine, stiffening his jaw and adding coolness to his reply. “Miss Bennet?” Richard’s answering grimace and exaggerated sigh clearly displayed his disappointment. Knowing his cousin to be capable of a ferocious tenacity when his interest was piqued, Darcy cast about in his mind for some means of diverting him. Richard could not know how far he had carried his foolishness with Eliza — Miss Bennet. And, Darcy determined, he never should; but he did need Richard’s help. Should she ever apply to him for the truth of his letter, Richard would die rather than reveal anything that touched upon Georgiana. Darcy quickly laid hold of the bone that would answer for both of them. “Yes, Miss Bennet,” he repeated slowly and paused, eyeing Richard’s alerted countenance. “I find myself in need of your assistance.”
“Yes,” his cousin replied encouragingly, “go on.”
“You may have noticed that Miss Bennet and I have a tendency to quarrel,” he began tentatively.
“Ha!” Richard snorted. Darcy glared him into an embarrassed cough and an “I beg your pardon; continue, Fitz.”
“Miss Bennet and I have, unfortunately, stumbled into a tangle of misunderstanding that could be resolved with honor on both sides only by the revelation of our family’s past dealings with George Wickham.”
“Wickham! Good Lord, you do not mean…” Fitzwilliam looked at him in shocked disbelief.
“Yes, Georgiana.” Darcy allowed his revelation to sink in.
“I knew she was angry with you.” Richard shook his head slowly. “But…Georgiana?”
“What!” It was Darcy’s turn to be surprised. “She told you she was angry with me?”
“Yes, well, in so many words. Yesterday, when I was touring the park, I encountered her by chance; and in the course of conversation, it became apparent that you were not in her good books. I tried to warn you.” So, Darcy thought, she had been overset before he had even left from Rosings, and probably by the rendition of his efforts on Bingley’s behalf he had suspected was courtesy of Richard. “But what does Georgiana have to do with it?”
“Nothing directly!” Darcy sighed and rubbed at the insistent pain centered between his brows before continuing. “Richard, it is all a veritable Gordian knot; and you must believe that only a matter of vile slander would induce me to breathe a word concerning Georgiana.” He walked to the mantel and, grasping its edge, leaned down to stare into the embers glowing upon the grate.
“I know, Fitz,” his cousin quietly granted him. “In what way do you wish my help?”
Darcy solemnly looked up at his cousin. “Should Miss Bennet ever apply to you for the truth of what happened last summer, you are to tell her. In your own words and with nothing held back, tell her.”
Fitzwilliam’s eyes did not waver from his cousin’s. “You trust her that much?”
“I do,” he answered him, withdrawing his gaze.
Fitzwilliam turned away, paced the room in thought for a moment, and then looked back. “And it will restore your honor in Miss Bennet’s eyes?”
“Perhaps,” Darcy answered quietly, his eyes glancing up from the glowing embers, “your testimony and time will prove the just mind I believe her to possess.”
“Then do not fear, Cousin.” Fitzwilliam advanced upon him and thrust out his hand. “She shall have my word on it — today!” The firm assurance of Richard’s clasp was like balm to Darcy’s wounds, the first indication that survival of the soul-wrenching events of the last twenty-four hours was more than a dream.
At his cousin’s insistence, Darcy retrieved his coat and gloves, and once Fitzwilliam’s were procured, the two set off for Hunsford. The distance was traversed in a companionable silence. Darcy, though dreading a second meeting and the proof it would likely afford of the ineffectual nature of his written words, kept pace with the determined gait of his cousin, whose face was almost beatific in its focus on the knight errantry upon which he was set. Sooner than Darcy would have believed, they were mounting the steps at the parsonage door. Fitzwilliam, in the advance, gave him a bracing grin as he pulled at the bell.
“It shall be all right and tight, Fitz. I promise you!” he assured him. “Should I say anything further on your behalf ?”
“I pray you, do not,” Darcy answered him quickly, “else this errand will have been for naught!”
Fitzwilliam shrugged and turned back to the door, which was now opening. “Good day!” he greeted the serving maid. “Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy to see the ladies and Mr. Collins.”
“It shall be done, Your Ladyship.” Darcy bowed over his aunt’s hand, bussing it with his lips before stepping back to allow Fitzwilliam the same honor. He was desperate to be gone, but Lady Catherine was in no temper for their expedient removal. A vast and varied number of remembrances to other family members had been pressed upon him literally at the last moment. Commentary and recommendation had followed on any aspect of their imminent travel that might delay the departure Her Ladyship so lamented and Darcy so keenly desired. There had been nothing for it but to take matters quite actually “in hand” and grasp Lady Catherine’s extended fingers with a curt promise to do as she bid him. It was now Richard’s turn, and Darcy stepped away to allow him his full opportunity as object of Her Ladyship’s concerns, messages, and lectures.
The day, to this point, had seemed to tick forward at half its usual pace. From Fletcher’s call this morning through breakfast and the packing of the carriages, everything and everyone had seemed determined to draw out the process of departure when, in contrast, his every motion and thought had been performed to the beat of an insistent, internal drum call to leave. Darcy’s forbearance was wearing perilously thin. Looking out the window while Richard suffered their aunt’s instruction, he saw the first carriage swing onto the drive, the horses already in unison as they pulled away from Rosings for London. Fletcher and Fitzwilliam’s batman, Sergeant Barrow, both well versed in the requirements of their gentlemen, had seen to its packing with a military precision and were now on their way. But even Fletcher had seemed to move through his duties at a dull pace. “Friday-faced” had been Richard’s accurate description of his usually confident and prescient valet. Although Richard could not know why Fletcher looked so, Darcy did; for his own failure to secure Miss Bennet’s hand had doomed his valet’s hopes for matrimony as well. Fletcher’s fiancée had been quite adamant, it seemed. Until her mistress Miss Bennet was happily married, she would not be parted from her, despite all Fletcher’s considerab
le skill in persuasion. Darcy had, of course, spoken not a word to his valet on the subject of his interview with Miss Bennet, nor had Fletcher alluded to the fever that had overtaken Darcy this last week or its sudden demise. Aside from such a thing being the height of impertinence, there had been no need. Fletcher had surmised the truth almost immediately, and it had taken the heart right out of the man. Excepting the days surrounding the death of his father, the last thirty-six hours had been the most silent in their nearly eight-year relationship.
“Thank you, Ma’am; His Lordship shall be delighted to hear it! Incredulous, but delighted.” Darcy turned back to the room and his cousin’s last bow over Lady Catherine’s hand. Evidently, their aunt had called a truce of some sort. She usually did so after having amused herself with tormenting her Matlock nephew for the entirety of their visit. Darcy suspected that her condescension had more to do with securing their annual return for the relief of her frightful loneliness than with any real conciliatory motions on her part.
“Farewell, then.” Lady Catherine conceded the ceremony to be at an end. “I look to see you in the autumn. Anne is so wonderfully improved that I venture to say we shall attempt to join you at Pemberley!” At this she looked meaningfully at her daughter and then back to Darcy. He briefly glanced over at his cousin. Her aspect continued leaden and withdrawn, but he knew it now for the subterfuge it was. He had waited on her earlier to tender his good-byes, knowing that nothing of the true state of their understanding could be expressed at his formal leave-taking. Anne might be frail, but beneath the façade beat a heart filled with passionate, beautiful words the world would never have suspected. If any good had come of this visit, it was this revelation.
“You are welcome at Pemberley any time, Ma’am,” Darcy returned. “Fitzwilliam?” he queried Richard, who cheerfully nodded his readiness.
“Ma’am, Anne.” Fitzwilliam bowed quickly in his cousin’s direction, and they were finally away.
“Heigh-up!” James the coachman flicked his whip, snapping the end just above the leader’s ear. The carriage jerked forward once, twice, and then settled into a rhythmic sway as the horses brought their efforts into accord. Darcy swallowed hard and set his eyes straight ahead. He was leaving, finally leaving this scene of the worst humiliation of his pride and the deepest wound to his heart he had ever thought to experience. In minutes, they had swept down Rosings’s drive and now were slowing briefly to take the turn into the road that skirted Hunsford village. In moments they would pass the parsonage. Darcy’s heart began pounding loudly in his chest. He would not look, by God, he would not!
“Look, Fitz! It appears we shall end as we began!” Richard’s bark of laughter forced him to look up.
“What is it? What do you mean?” Darcy leaned over, reluctantly following his cousin’s gaze out of the window.
“Old Collins, waving like mad from the parsonage gate. Now I call that a proper sendoff! I only wish…” Fitzwilliam’s voice fell silent as the carriage whisked them past their aunt’s ducking and waving clergyman.
Darcy leaned back against the squabs. “You ‘only wish’ what?”
Fitzwilliam colored. “My curst tongue!” he castigated himself and then looked over apologetically to his cousin. “I only wish I could have done you the service you requested of me and spoken to Miss Bennet yesterday. Had she been home, I would have, at once! I am that sorry, Fitz!”
“Do not be hard upon yourself.” Darcy shook his head. “In the end, it likely will matter little.” He looked away then, his gaze ostensibly upon the passing scenery. “I doubt I shall ever have occasion to encounter her again.”
Chapter 4
A Hell of Time
“Fitzwilliam?” Georgiana’s voice, lifted in soft query, drifted across the wide expanse of the breakfast room table of Erewile House, mounted the hurdle of the Morning Post Darcy had erected between himself and his sister, and settled with tentative, questioning grace squarely on the page before him. The concern he detected in it was very like the look that had shaded her face the night before as they had once again dined in a silence dictated by the distraction of his thoughts. He was home, but his journey, rather than a return to London, had taken on the nature of a flight from Kent; and Darcy had mounted his own steps more with relief at sanctuary found than with joy at family and friends rejoined. In truth, since that humiliating evening in Hunsford’s parsonage, he desired nothing more than to be left alone. Not even Georgiana’s gentle presence, or her quiet efforts to make him comfortable, could he tolerate for long. His anger with himself for holding his duty so cheaply and his indignation with Elizabeth for doing the same with his honor seethed continually within his brain and held his chest in a steel band. No, the anguish of it was for him to bear alone; it was certainly not for the ears of a much younger sister! Perhaps, if he considered his reply long enough, she would take the hint and press him no further.
“Brother?” her voice gently probed again.
Reluctantly, Darcy lowered the paper and looked cautiously into the sweetly deferential but determined countenance at his right hand. This particular dual aspect of Georgiana was appearing with an increased frequency since his homecoming. Darcy had no difficulty in putting it down to Brougham’s doubtful influence while he had been away in Kent, for it had been “Lord Brougham this” and “His Lordship that” ever since Darcy had descended from the carriage Saturday evening. It was now Wednesday. He was heartily sick of it.
“Yes, Georgiana?” The tight irritation in his voice did not go unnoticed, and he would gladly have strangled himself to prevent the wilt and withdrawal that now shadowed his sister’s eyes. Darcy carefully laid the paper aside and reached deliberately for her hand. “Forgive me!” He sighed. “I fear I have not been myself.” He was answered with a wry little smile and the delicate squeeze of her fingers.
“No, dear brother, you have not.” Georgiana regarded him with pitying curiosity. “Was Aunt Catherine very difficult this year?”
“Her Ladyship was…herself…” Darcy shifted uneasily as he released her hand and leaned back in the chair. “Or, perhaps, a little more ‘herself’ than usual. It was well that you did not accompany us,” he added and then fell silent as another’s face crossed his vision. Rigid with anger, Elizabeth’s contemptuous eyes slashed at him. “Your arrogance, your conceit, your selfish disdain…” Good God, how many times had he relived that galling litany? He closed his eyes. Thank Heaven, Georgiana had not been witness to it! The thought alone made his stomach turn. Now, for the first time, he experienced the burning self-reproach with which his sister had had to contend after she was made to understand Wickham’s betrayal. At least Georgiana could plead naïveté; whereas he — how had she put it? — a man of sense and education, and who had lived in the world, had no such luxury! How could he have been so besotted, so taken in? No, he had not been, nor was he yet, himself; and Darcy was in nowise confident that he would ever know that particular state again.
“Fitzwilliam?” Her deepening concern, now painfully evident in Georgiana’s voice, almost made him wince. Her solicitude he knew to be tender and unquestionably prompted by love, but that his demeanor had exposed him, given her cause to pity him, mortified him to the bone. Sorely tempted to ward off her solicitude with another ungenerous reply, Darcy abruptly pushed away from the table. Clearly, he was not fit company for anyone today!
“I beg you will excuse me,” he said over his shoulder as he made for the door.
“But, Mr. Lawrence!” Georgiana’s reminder stopped him just as the servant opened the door. Blast! They were to make a final examination of Georgiana’s portrait today. The appointment had been set before he had gone into Kent. He turned back.
“Two o’clock, is it not?” Darcy returned her affirmative reply with a curt nod. “I shall wait upon you at one-fifteen.” Signaling the end of their conversation with a bow, he escaped her unwanted pity for the sanctuary of his study, where he could entertain his brooding anger in peace.
As he drew near the study door, a furious scrabbling followed by a galloping patter forewarned Darcy of an imminent assault upon his person. This soon? He had instructed Hinchcliffe to send the summons only days ago! Slowing, he cautiously approached the threshold and peered within. But instead of a brown, black, and white cannonball launched in wild greeting, there just within the door, sat Trafalgar at perfect attention save for a foolish grin upon his canine jowls. “So, you have arrived; have you!” The first real smile to touch Darcy’s face for almost a week slid across his features as master and hound beheld each other with satisfaction. “And whence come these pretty manners, Monster?” Trafalgar’s hindquarters wriggled but managed to stay, for the most part, on point. Darcy lifted an amused brow at this almost Herculean effort, provoking an undignified whine deep within the hound’s chest. The wriggle became more pronounced.
“For pity’s sake, pet the beast!” Darcy started up, his hand inches from Trafalgar’s broad, silky ears, to behold Brougham leaning comfortably against the study’s mantelpiece.
“Dy!” Darcy straightened, an accusatory tone in his voice. How had his friend gotten past Witcher and entered unannounced? Following Darcy’s look, Trafalgar glanced briefly over his shoulder but then looked back to his master with wide, beseeching eyes. The whine grew louder.
Brougham straightened as well and motioned toward the hound. “No wonder he’d such disreputable manners. You tease him unmercifully, Darcy. It took our entire journey down to bring him to some semblance of order!”
“You brought him down?” Darcy stared at his friend in surprise, but recovering, he added, “And I do not tease him!” Trafalgar’s whine threatened to escalate into an unpardonable bark.
