“Mr. Darcy, wait,” Cogsworth called as I headed for the stables. He and Lumiere had followed me outside. “You should not go alone.”
I stopped. “This must be done.”
“It will mean your death,” Lumiere said.
“If I do not return, go to my study,” I said. “In the top drawer of my desk is a letter. Read it.” Elizabeth would receive a large sum of money, but Pemberley would belong to all who lived there. They could remain, or sell and split the earnings, I did not care. It was all I could do for those who had remained loyal to me in my darkest moments.
“But sir—”
“I am sorry about the agonies you’ve had to endure. Truly sorry.”
They continued to call out to me but I ignored them, leaping onto my horse and galloping for the village, ignoring the pain that increased when I rode. The road was dusted with snow but the sky was clear and crisp. My cloak streamed behind me, but I slowed as I neared the village, pulling my hood up to conceal my face.
I headed for the village square. The mirror had shown me enough to indicate Wickham and Lydia were at the inn facing the square. I left my horse at the village mews, and tossing a coin to a young stable lad, I strode towards the inn.
I pressed myself against a shop that lay opposite the inn, and peered across to the windows above for a glimpse of Wickham but saw nothing.
As it was market day, the village was busy.
I could draw Wickham out, but then others might be harmed. If I could discover which room they were in, I might be able to take him by surprise. I could not afford to wait. Stealth was my best option. If I could but sneak past the innkeeper, then I might try every door . . .
“Darcy!”
I flinched.
Wickham stood in the doorway of the inn, a smile on his comely face.
He had gained the attention of some villagers as he slowly crossed the square, his cloak billowing around his legs. My heart beat wildly as I pressed into the wall behind me.
Wickham stopped at the fountain in the center of the square.
“Darcy. I knew you would come.”
Trembling, I straightened to my full height. Wickham had taken so much from me; he would not take my pride.
I stepped out of the shadows and into the square.
Wickham smiled. “There you are.” He cocked his head. “And yet, is it you? Let us see that face of yours. Let everyone see it.”
My cloak flew from my face. People around me gasped; a child screamed.
“Monster!” Wickham hissed. The cry was taken up by the villagers.
Wickham’s expression was too knowing, too satisfied. If he wanted more revenge on me, this was it, and he had to do so little to get it.
Fear and self-loathing filled me, but my righteous anger ruled. The monster was not me. Elizabeth had helped me to control my temper. She had seen me beneath the scars.
The true monster stood before me.
I unleashed my bow, cocked an arrow and aimed it at Wickham’s heart. A hush fell over the square.
“Give Lydia back to her family.”
Wickham threw his head back and laughed. He muttered under his breath and flicked his wrist. My bow and arrow were wrenched from my grasp.
I pulled my sword, gripping it tight. “Give Lydia back to her family.”
His lip curled. “Her family can have her. She has satisfied my need.”
So, it was as I had surmised. He had taken Lydia to draw me out.
“When will your vengeance be satisfied?”
“When you are dead. When Pemberley and all you hold dear is mine.” He cocked his head. “Including Elizabeth.”
A scream tore from my throat, and I lunged at him.
A force hit me, and I flew backward, my breath knocked from me as I landed on the ground. Shouts rent the air. Villagers were running. Some were being hurled to the ground like I had been, as Wickham tossed them aside to stand before me.
My scars were aflame, but I ignored the sensation. I lashed out with my sword. He grunted as it grazed his shin. My satisfaction was short as he once again threw my body with his power as if I weighed nothing. I smashed into a market cart, crushing fruits and bowls under me. My sword slipped from my grasp.
“Your mother denied me. But now I will finally have it all.”
Clenching my teeth, I rolled off the cart to my knees. I struggled to stand, but Wickham placed his foot on my back and pushed me to the ground. He dug his shoe into the scars he knew rested beneath my clothes.
I grunted, pressing my lips together to keep from screaming.
“You cannot win.”
“I know.” It came out as a gasp.
Wickham bent over me. “What was that? Are you giving up already?” He lightened the pressure on my back slightly.
“I cannot win against your magic.”
But I cannot let you have Elizabeth, I thought, and plunged my dagger upward.
It never reached its mark. Wickham knocked the dagger from my hand. I had failed. Wickham’s foot disappeared from my back, and I looked up at him. He had turned away from me, laughing.
“You brought reinforcements!”
Arrows started to fly at Wickham, but he knocked them aside. He moved away from me; his laughter turned to words I could not understand.
Someone was there . . . a shaking hand . . . helping me to stand.
“Mrs. Reynolds,” I said in surprise. And then I saw them—the servants of Pemberley—shooting arrows or throwing rocks at Wickham. Cogsworth, wielding an axe, had the lead of this ragtag army.
A tiny army that would soon perish, for they were no match for Wickham’s power. He knocked them down, bodies crumpling to the ground. But they stood again. They continued to fight, these people who had become intimate with pain. And that’s when I knew. They were not only fighting for me, they were fighting for themselves.
“Make sure Elizabeth is safe!” I said to Mrs. Reynolds. I quickly located my sword then ran for the wizard.
He stopped me before I could strike, knocking my sword away. I managed to keep my grip and swung again. Again, he threw me backward.
I struggled to my feet. A body lay crumpled beside me. Lumiere. Blood leaked from his mouth, trickled into the scar on his neck. His eyes were closed. Gritting my teeth, I lunged back into the fray.
We could not beat his dark power. The servants of Pemberley were falling around me. They did not rise again. Soon it would be only me against Wickham once more, and I did not know how to defeat the wizard.
I attacked, but Wickham was ready. My sword spun from my grip. I lunged at him, throwing my body against his. He did not expect it, and I tackled him to the ground.
We struggled. I reached for a hidden dagger, the hilt brushing against my palm. His fist punched into my thigh just as I freed the dagger from my boot and brought the blade upward. His mouth opened in surprise. I leaned away to see the blade buried into his side. Wickham’s eyes met mine.
“Why the ruse with Lydia?” I implored. “Why not just take Pemberley?”
He coughed, blood forming at his lips. “I cannot touch Pemberley. I cannot even enter the grounds.”
“But the dark magic? The servants?”
“Loyalty and love to the Darcy name bound all to you. If it had not been for your mother’s protection spell . . .”
My mother. Her magic had protected me all this time, and I had not known. If I had ventured outside Pemberley, I was vulnerable. But my wounded pride had protected me from ever leaving the grounds. Wickham could not get to me. Thus, he had taken Lydia.
And before that even . . . “The wolves.” He had sent the wolves to attack Elizabeth. He knew I would come after her. He had probably anticipated the wolves would finish me off.
Wickham began to laugh, a choking sound, drawing my eyes to him.
He still lay on the ground but the blood was gone from his mouth.
I heard a scream from behind me.
“No!”
My heart froze a
t Elizabeth’s voice.
My own dagger plunged into my belly.
“No!”
I fell back, my hands gripping the hilt of the dagger. Wickham rose to his feet and stood over me, grinning.
“I will not be denied,” he said. “Everything you have will be mine. Including—”
Elizabeth.
He lifted his hand and muttered a spell, casting a blinding light at Elizabeth. She leapt past me, the mirror in her hand, and she swung it at Wickham.
The reflected spell struck Wickham in the chest. His mouth gaped in a silent scream as the light consumed him, then blinked out.
Wickham fell to the ground.
I felt my own lifeblood draining away.
“Elizabeth.”
She stood with her back to me, frozen, the mirror still raised. I wanted her to turn around so I could look at her.
“Is he . . . did I . . .?” Her arm dropped to her side.
Wickham did not breathe.
“He’s dead.”
She finally turned at my words.
“It was the mirror,” I said, then clenched my teeth at the pain. “Not you.” Either Wickham’s spell had hit the mirror and rebounded on himself, or my mother’s magic was still protecting me and those I loved. I wanted to think the latter.
Her eyes moved to the dagger protruding from my belly; tears began to fall. She knelt at my side. “I am so sorry . . . I’m sorry I was too late.”
I touched the curls that had escaped down her neck, ran my fingers along her cheek to her lips.
“I never wanted another but you.” My thumb grazed her lips; they parted under my touch. “I am sorry for what I did, but I will never regret the time you spent at Pemberley as my wife.”
The pain was becoming nothing now, and I knew I was slipping away.
She held my hand to her lips and kissed it. “Please,” she cried. “Don’t leave me. Not now.”
I wanted to do as she asked, but my eyes grew heavy, and it became difficult to draw breath.
Elizabeth leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Mr. Darcy.” She kissed my cheek. “Fitzwilliam.”
She had never called me that before. I would not regret if my name on her lips was the last I heard.
Her lips touched my chin. “My husband.”
I opened my mouth to reply, to call her “wife” and “my Elizabeth”, but she captured my last breath in her mouth. She kissed me with lips as soft as a rose petal.
As my eyes slipped closed, I heard her voice once more.
“I love you.”
Death was not how I imagined. I had lived in the darkness, and pain had been my friend. I had been proud and conceited, then ashamed, angry, and full of hate.
Death should be cold, but I was warm.
Death should be dark, but I was surrounded by light.
Death should be lonely, but my eyes were open and Elizabeth was before me.
“Fitzwilliam?”
My heart beat beneath my chest; blood flowed through my veins. I breathed, and it was life.
By some miracle, I was alive.
The light around me had faded, the warmth gone with it. I shivered at the sudden cold, my fists clenching, anticipating the pain of my scars.
But there was no pain.
I looked down at my hands. I raised my sleeves, lifted my shirt.
“No scars,” I said in wonder. My gaze met Elizabeth’s. Her eyes were on my bare chest, and she blushed. I grinned.
“Mr. Darcy!”
Cogsworth was running toward me. Running, with no limp! Behind him came Lumiere—alive—pressing a handkerchief to a wound, but his neck was unscarred. Mrs. Reynolds and Plumette were hugging, Plumette’s laugh ringing through the village square. Everywhere I looked, the servants of Pemberley were smiling, free of pain at last.
I rose to my feet. I grabbed Elizabeth’s hand, searching, but there was no trace of her scar left. I kissed the unmarred skin. “You did it. You freed us from the dark magic.”
She shook her head. Her lip trembled. “I am sorry.” She touched my cheek, and I knew it was there. Her fingers traced one jagged scar that cut across my left cheekbone. I smiled and felt nothing. I moved my hand to her hand, drawing her palm to my lips.
“Elizabeth.” I wanted to reach for her, to take her in my embrace and kiss her. My lips remembered hers, my ears the words she had spoken. Had it all been a dream? A last wish of a dying man?
“You have given me everything, and I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my days giving you all that I am in return.”
She opened her mouth, but I stopped her from speaking.
“You said once you would never forgive me for the things I did. I will always want you for my wife, but I set you free. If that is your wish? My wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”
“Mr. Darcy.” She placed her hands on her hips. “I am your wife. You are my husband. You cannot be free of me.”
“I will not have you stay out of obligation.”
Her fingers pressed against my mouth.
“I love you,” she said. “I hardly know how, but I know why. And while you spend your days giving me all of you, which I very much look forward to by the way”—she raised an eyebrow and my whole body lit aflame—“I will spend my days telling you why.”
I grabbed her hips and pulled her close. She wrapped her arms around my neck.
“I am still scarred.”
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
I shook my head.
She pressed her lips to the scar, and I felt like she was sealing us together, more than our marriage vows ever had.
I took her lips in mine. Her mouth was soft and warm, and I wanted to lose myself in her. But she pulled away.
“Take me home,” she said. “To Pemberley.”
And I obeyed my wife, my Elizabeth. The beauty who had tamed the beast of Pemberley.
Melanie Stanford reads too much, plays music too loud, is sometimes dancing, and always daydreaming. She would also like her very own TARDIS but only to travel to the past. She lives in Canada with her husband and four kids. She is the author of Sway, a retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and the short story “Becoming Fanny” featured in the anthology Then Comes Winter. Her second novel, Collide, inspired by Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, is coming soon. You can find her at melaniestanfordbooks.com, on Twitter @MelMStanford, and on Facebook at MelanieStanfordauthor.
A Resentful Man
Lory Lilian
“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Mr. Darcy to Miss Elizabeth, Chapter XXXIV.
The sound of the piano suffused the room, throwing a spell over those listening. My heart filled with love and pride for my sister, who seemed enraptured in her music and oblivious to the twenty pairs of captive eyes.
Georgiana’s talent was only equalled by her sensible soul, and together with her diligent practise, had raised her proficiency to the rank of art. She, of course, was not affected by such praise. She loved music and—most of all—I knew that she aspired to please me. Every time our eyes met, I felt my sister’s affectionate heart. And I sensed her sadness.
Though I knew myself to be a good, older brother, I often bore the guilt for the time I left her alone. Consigned to the company of our relatives and the amity of Mrs. Annesley, Georgiana was lonely, and her smiles were rarely more than polite.
My chest tightened as I realised I could not remember the last time I had heard her laugh. Other girls of sixteen seemed more playful, lively. An unwelcome vision of the youngest Bennet girls dancing and laughing at Bingley’s ball flitted through my mind. Such careless behaviour I have witnessed, even in Town, of other young women of the same age. Why was Georgiana different? Was I at fault that she grew up restrained, so reticent? Had I not offered her enough
affection, kindness, attention? She was always modest—and I could not recollect her ever asking for anything for herself.
I knew I must be to blame that she lacked confidence—that she could be so easily deceived by the scoundrel Wickham, that she had believed herself to be in love with him! But it was entirely to her merit that she was strong enough to remember her duty and reveal the mischievous plan soon enough for me to interfere. What if I had not visited her in Ramsgate that day? Too often I had envisioned that ghastly outcome and praised God for His intervention! Had I carried any hope that Wickham was an honourable man, that he possessed deep and genuine affection for Georgiana, would I have opposed him courting my sister and perhaps even marrying her? Surely not! Knowing Wickham as I did, I could do nothing but break the connection—hopefully forever. . . . My deepest regrets were the heartache and the turmoil that unfortunate happenstance brought upon my dear sister. I would do anything to take her despair upon myself. And I would never forget Wickham’s betrayal, nor would I ever forgive him. For Georgiana—and many other reasons.
The music stopped and several guests ventured to congratulate the performer. I knew she was uneasy in company and was tempted to hurry to her side but resisted the urge. Everyone in attendance was a family intimate: the Matlocks, their elder son with his wife, Bingley and his two sisters, Mr. Hurst, and Mrs. Annesley, as well as two young ladies—Lady Matlock’s nieces. Georgiana was in no danger.
“This is a lovely party, Nephew,” Lady Matlock said, from such a small distance that I startled.
I took her gloved fingers to my lips, feigning composure. Like my mother, she could ascertain my temperament despite my efforts to conceal it. “I thank you, Your Ladyship. I thought Georgiana deserved to celebrate her sixteenth birthday before we depart for Pemberley. We do not intend to return to Town next Season nor to travel during the winter.”
The Darcy Monologues: A romance anthology of Pride and Prejudice short stories in Mr. Darcy's own words Page 17
