by Pamela Aidan
“Richard, how do you account for Wickham?”
Fitzwilliam raised a blank face. “Account for him?”
“Explain him.” Darcy bit his lower lip, then let out the breath he was holding and expanded on a question that had plagued him for over a decade. “He received more than he could have dreamt of from my father and was put in the way of advancing well beyond his origins. Yet he squandered it all, even as it was given, and repaid all my father’s solicitude with the attempted seduction of his daughter.” He paused, took another swallow of the port, then continued in a lowered voice, “Would you call it a ‘natural frailty’?”
“Natural frailty! He’s a blackguard, and there is the beginning and end of it!” Fitzwilliam roared. He stopped then and mastered himself before continuing in a more subdued tone. “And so he was from the start, as you have cause to remember. I may be only a year older than you, but I saw him playing his hand against you even when we were children.”
“My father never saw it.” Darcy swirled the liquid in his glass.
“Humph,” Fitzwilliam snorted. “As to that, I am not entirely convinced. Your father was an unusually perceptive man. I cannot help but think he had Wickham’s measure, although why he did not act, I cannot say. But in one thing he was deceived. I do not believe he could ever have conceived of Wickham’s harming Georgiana. Nor could any of us! We knew him to be a sneak thief, liar, and profligate, but” — Fitzwilliam pounded the arm of his chair — “even we, who suffered his tricks, could not guess the depths of his viciousness!”
“Perhaps he only fell into it accidentally. The pressures of his debts…time against him…” Darcy recalled the morning’s sermon.
“Accidentally fell into it! Fitz, it was a cold-blooded, carefully planned campaign! Probably was about it for months!”
“But, Richard.” Darcy faced his cousin directly, his countenance awash with confliction. “Human frailty cannot be so summarily dismissed. I make no claims to be immune from its effects, and you, surely, do not, as you appeal to it regularly! We all hope that, given its consideration, the balance will weigh out in our favor for our attention to duty and to charity.”
Fitzwilliam cocked his head to one side and looked deeply into his cousin’s eyes. “That is true, Fitz,” he replied slowly, “and I am no theologian…or philosopher, for that matter. That is rather your line than mine. But if you are asking me whether we are to excuse Wickham’s behavior to Georgiana because he could not help himself or if, in the end, his scale will be tipped to the good, I beg leave to tell you, Cousin, you may go to the Devil! For, barring sudden and immediate sainthood, the creature’s a rogue of the deepest dye and will remain so. Even the Army can’t change that!”
A knock at the door prevented Darcy from addressing his cousin’s position. He called permission, and Witcher entered, carrying a silver tray on which lay a folded note.
“Sir, this just came, and the boy was told to wait for a reply.”
“Thank you, Witcher,” Darcy replied, plucking up the note. “If you would wait a moment, I shall pen a reply directly.” The seal broken, he unfolded the sheet and immediately recognized his friend Charles Bingley’s scrawling hand.
Darcy,
It is the strangest thing, but Caroline has removed to Town and shut up Netherfield saying she cannot be happy in Hertfordshire! Intends to stay in London for Christmas — Louisa and Hurst as well. Needless to say, I have removed myself from Grenier’s and am now comfortably at home. (As comfortably as may be, in all events.) Therefore, please present yourself in Aldford Street for dinner on Monday evening, as I will be quite absent from the hotel. That is, unless you would rather dine at the hotel. Please advise me!
Your servant,
Bingley
Darcy looked up at Fitzwilliam. “It is from Bingley. He desires my advice on whether we should dine at his home or elsewhere.” He rose from the chair and went to his desk.
“Thunder an’ turf, can’t the puppy decide even where he will eat without your help?”
“It would appear not.” Darcy chuckled mirthlessly. “But I cannot fault him at present as I have been the instrument of his mis-doubt.” He reached for his pen, inspected the point, and dipped it into the inkwell.
“You have been encouraging him to depend upon you far too much, Fitz,” Fitzwilliam warned him.
“That is the irony of it.” Darcy wrote his reply that Aldford Street was acceptable. Bingley’s sister Caroline would, he knew, be quite incensed with him if he avoided her at this juncture. “Until a few weeks ago, I was pushing him out from under my wings. But something arose in Hertfordshire that proved beyond his powers, and I am forced to play mother hen once more. Here, Witcher.” Darcy sanded and folded the note, then placed it on the tray. “Now, let us leave the subject!”
“I am yours to command, Cousin!” Fitzwilliam sketched him a bow. “What do you say to a few racks of billiards before I must report back to the Guards? And perhaps,” he added slyly, “we might agree to a little wager on the results?”
“Shot your bolt already this month, Cousin?”
“Blame it on the ladies, Fitz. What’s a poor man to do? Natural frailty, don’t you know!”
“A few racks of billiards” later, Darcy found his purse a bit lighter and his cousin’s smile correspondingly broader. Although, for Richard’s benefit, he made a show of chagrin at his losses, he was in nowise displeased to part with the guineas that would see Fitzwilliam comfortably through to the end of the quarter. Darcy knew his cousin to be generous to a fault with the men — boys, really — under his command, particularly those who were younger sons, as he was. The Colonel looked after them rather like a mother hen himself, making sure they wrote home, rescuing them from scrapes, and roughly cozening them into creditable specimens of His Majesty’s Guard. But such shifts required expenditures that his quarterly allowance could not always cover without curtailing Fitzwilliam’s own varied activities. Applying to His Lordship for additional funds was not a course his cousin desired to pursue on a regular basis. Therefore, Darcy unfailingly made his box available to his cousin for interests that they shared, such as the theater and opera, and for those they did not, the occasional wager on the roll of a ball or turn of a card provided what was lacking. This arrangement was never acknowledged by either, of course, but was understood, the funds needed being generously lost on the one hand and graciously received on the other.
“Well, old man, I shall display some unwonted mercy and take myself off to the Guard before I win Pemberley from you.” Fitzwilliam stretched out his shoulder muscles before reaching for his regimentals. He slid the guineas into an inner pocket and shrugged into the scarlet.
Darcy feigned a grimace. “So you keep saying, but the day has not yet come, nor will it, Cousin.” He picked up his own coat and led the way out to the stairs, Fitzwilliam behind him. “You will come, then, Christmas week?” he asked.
“Depend upon it,” Fitzwilliam replied as they descended the stairs. “You have me confounded with this news of Georgiana, and even did I not share guardianship of her, I should be concerned on the basis of our close relationship alone. Besides, it has been too long since we have shared Christmas! Her Ladyship will be in high gig to have me home and spend Christmas at Pemberley again.” They reached the hall, and Fitzwilliam turned a serious mien upon his host. “She has been concerned about you, Fitz — about both of you, really. This invitation will, I am sure, ease her mind.”
“My aunt’s solicitude is appreciated,” Darcy assured his cousin, “and I confess I have been negligent in my correspondence with her of late. That will be remedied. I shall write her tonight!”
“Then I’ll leave you to it. Do me a kindness and tell her that you saw me today and that we dined together, et cetera, et cetera.” A sudden thought seized him. “And don’t fail to mention I was in church, there’s a good fellow! She will be glad to hear from you, of course, but doubly glad to know her scapegrace of a son spent a sober Sunday. I w
ould write her myself, but she will believe you.”
Witcher opened the door at his master’s nod, and the cousins gripped each other’s hands in a firm, familiar manner. “I shall so write, Richard,” Darcy promised solemnly but then laughed. “Although retrieving your character to my aunt seems rather a lost cause at this late date.” At Fitzwilliam’s answering crow, he added mischievously, “Perhaps if you made attendance a habit…”
“Ho, no! Thank you, Cousin. Just write your little bit, and all will be well. Good-bye, then, until Christmas! Witcher!” Fitzwilliam nodded at the old butler and, pulling his cloak tight, ran down the steps of Erewile House and into the hack summoned for him while Darcy turned back to the stairs and the not unpleasant task of writing his Aunt Fitzwilliam.
The sun had long surrendered in its battle against the clouds and fog. Vacating the field to his sister moon, he had already retired to observe what she could make of it when Darcy committed the final syllables of his letter to paper. As he sanded and blotted the missive, he noticed the darkness with regret. Now not only the weather but also the light was against any notion of a brisk turn about the square to work out the cramped sinews of his limbs and the perturbation of his mind. He laid the letter on the silver servier for Hinchcliffe to post in the morning and arose from his desk with a groan.
“Wickham!” Darcy went to the window and, leaning one arm against the frame, peered out into the night. The square before him was unnaturally silent, the sound of any passing horse or carriage being muffled by the pervasive fog. The morning’s sermon had caught him off his guard and unsettled what had previously been a fixed disposition of mind. The sensation was most disagreeable, and his attempt to reason it out with Richard had proved utterly useless. The question still remained: How did one account for Wickham and men like him? Further, was he prepared to believe that Wickham was in little worse a position in the eyes of Eternity than himself?
Richard had not understood, thinking Darcy wished to find excuse for Wickham’s actions. But the truth was that Darcy’s hot resentment of the man had been re-animated because Wickham seemed to be intimately involved in Elizabeth Bennet’s poor opinion of him.
Darcy straightened, walked back to his desk, and blew out the lamp upon it. Standing motionless in the dark library, he wearily reviewed the morrow’s duties. In the morning he must clear his desk of any remaining items of business. Then, at half past two, present himself in Cavendish Square and commission Thomas Lawrence to paint Georgiana’s portrait on their return to Town. Last, he was expected at Aldford Street for dinner with Bingley and his sister.
He closed his eyes, and another groan escaped him. Bingley! If all went well, that coil, at least, would be cleared. He prayed that Caroline Bingley had followed his directions precisely and restricted herself to disinterested affirmations of the doubts he had planted in her brother’s mind. If she had tried to bully him into giving up Miss Jane Bennet, Darcy knew that all his own subtleties of suggestion would have been for naught and he would be confronting a Bingley with heels dug in and head lowered in mulish obstinacy.
The thought chilled him. He had not considered failure. If, against his family and friend, Bingley insisted upon Miss Bennet despite her unsuitable standing in Society, would he cut the connection or stand by Bingley? Stand by him, surely! But at what cost? Perhaps very little. It well might be that Bingley the married man would no longer be interested in the attractions of Town and, as relations between the wed and their bachelor fellows did tend to thin…Darcy shook his head. No, Bingley would remain Bingley. Although his company at some events might fail, Darcy could not doubt his continued warm regard. And that would mean…
“Elizabeth.” He had not meant to think of Miss Bennet’s sister, let alone to say her name aloud, but it echoed in the darkness of the room and fell softly against his ear. Darcy gripped the edge of his desk with painful force and commanded himself not to be a fool. “She dislikes you, idiot! That should provide proof enough against being in her company.” Before he could berate himself further, the door suddenly swung open, and the blaze of a lamp held aloft caused Darcy to blink and cover his eyes.
“Mr. Darcy!” The lamp was lowered and set on a hall table. “Your pardon, sir. I heard a sound, and as the library was dark, we could not think what it could be.” When his eyes had finally adjusted, Darcy was able to discern his butler in the doorway with one of the sturdier footmen behind him armed with a kitchen faggot. “With that business in Wapping, sir. All those poor souls murdered in their beds.”
Darcy looked askance at his staff. “It is quite all right, Witcher. Understandable, I suppose, but we are a goodly distance from Wapping!”
“Yes, sir.” Witcher bowed his head. “I guess it is the fog, sir. Has everyone a bit nervous not knowing what is behind or afore you. Just the kind of weather for mischief.” He motioned the footman away to his post and then bowed to Darcy. “Your pardon, again, sir. Shall I leave you this lamp?”
“No, you may take it with you. Good night, Witcher.”
“And to you, Mr. Darcy.” Darcy waited until the elderly servant had descended the stairs to the servants’ floor before starting up to his bedchamber. Sleep would be his only escape from the piercing uncertainties of this day. “‘To sleep’ but, dear God, not ‘to dream,’ I beg you,” he murmured.
Chapter 2
The Hand of Providence
Darcy settled back into the dark green squabs of his traveling coach as the tollgate at Hampstead vanished behind them in the half-light of early morning. Unbuttoning his greatcoat only enough to reach inside his waistcoat, he pulled out his pocket watch and held it up to the feeble light. It was a quarter past seven, which meant that they had taken less than an hour to navigate the streets of the city and pass through the toll. Now, the road before the horses lay wide and free. The smart snap of his driver’s whip cracked against the approaching dawn, assuring Darcy that James, his coachman, was not unaware of these excellent conditions or of his master’s impatience to be home. The coach surged forward.
Home! Darcy closed his eyes and relaxed into the dip and sway of the coach. He had barely allowed himself to think of Pemberley or even the journey there until the truth of his departure made itself apparent to all his senses. Now he could think of it, for the obstacles had all been swept away yesterday as if by miracle.
Hinchcliffe had laid the last bit of business before him by eleven, giving him ample opportunity for a light luncheon and an invigorating turn about the square before his appointment with Lawrence. That interview had gone surprisingly well, and Darcy left Cavendish Square for his club with the famed artist firmly commissioned to see Georgiana for preliminary sketches within a week of their arrival in Town. A multitude of carriages in the street and servants about the doors forewarned him that Boodle’s would be crowded, and for distaste of more undesired attention, he almost turned away. But as he made his way around the salons and card tables, the talk had been all of a young peer newly returned from the Continent whose maiden speech before Parliament had sent the Tory majority into a choking fury.
“The fellow’s a lunatic,” more than one of Darcy’s fellow members had voiced. “Or worse,” had been the usual rejoinder concerning the impassioned but ill-judged speech in defense of the loom-smashing followers of “General Lud” against the current Bill that called for their summary execution.
“He must relish living dangerously,” Lord Devereaux ventured as he threw down his hand in response to Darcy’s king of diamonds, “for he also is in a fair way of becoming Lady Caroline’s new pet…and Lamb’s latest humiliation. Did you observe them at Melbourne’s on Friday?” Darcy’s ears had pricked up at the reference to the scandalous evening of his, or rather, his valet’s triumph.
“Good Lord, yes! What a display!” Sir Hugh Goforth replied, “Thought Lamb would call the fellow out for encouraging his wife in such an outrageous start. If she were my wife, the lady would now be stitching handkerchiefs behind locked doors on my remot
est estate, and my Lord Byron would be awaking about this time in the hold of an India-bound ship.”
A chorus of nods had agreed with this avowal, and not long after, the game broke up. Darcy called for his coat and took his leave shortly thereafter without even one inquiry about the accursed knot. As Boodle’s door closed behind him, he’d thanked Heaven that the actions of the dangerously foolish Lord Byron had so quickly displaced his notoriety in the public mind.
The last appointment of the day had been the one he had most dreaded. His preoccupation with the coming evening could not have been more obvious. Fletcher, while carefully preparing him for dinner at Aldford Street, had been forced to issue discreet instructions in order to get the task done. All his concentration on the evening ahead of him, Darcy had not noticed his funereal appearance until he had entered Bingley’s drawing room at the appointed hour and was greeted by a pair of startled looks.
“What is this, Darcy! No bad news, I hope!” Bingley had risen and quickly come to his side, while his sister had laid a hand to her heart and brought a handkerchief to her lips.
“Bad news?” Darcy stared at the two in confusion. “I should think not! Why should you think that?”
“Your dress, Darcy.” The worry on his friend’s face changed into amusement. “For a moment I thought the King had died! What is your man thinking of, turning you out like a great black crow?” He’d laughed as he circled round his friend to observe the entire effect.
Darcy had looked down then at the unrelieved black of his costume and pursed his lips in ire at Fletcher, but there was naught he could do. What cannot be mended must be borne, he had reminded himself, but his valet’s message was very clear.
“Mr. Darcy looks like nothing remotely resembling a crow, Charles.” Miss Bingley had recovered herself and advanced toward them. “It is the fashion now for gentlemen to dress with such understated elegance, à la Brummell. Mr. Darcy is merely in advance of the style, which you would do well to emulate, Brother.” Darcy bowed over her hand and was surprised to feel it grip his own in signal, but of what, he knew not.
