Darcy and Deception

by Victoria Kincaid

  “I await your pleasure.” His gaze met hers with such intensity that she feared she might burst into flames. Oh my.

  She knew not how long they stared at each other, but finally Mr. Wickham cleared his throat rather forcefully, and the spell was broken. Mr. Darcy stood, placed his hat on his head, and nodded to everyone in the room. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  Elizabeth sighed with relief when the door closed behind him.

  ***

  Stepping onto the street, Darcy reassured himself that he only felt as if Elizabeth had stabbed him in the chest and torn a jagged rip in his heart. His chest ached as if she had, but any wounds were symbolic. Get a hold of yourself, Darcy. You are being overly dramatic.

  He walked unsteadily toward his curricle, untied the horses, climbed in, and took the reins to set the carriage in motion, unconcerned about the direction. Georgiana teased him about being too dour: “Always search for the bright side, Will.” Was there a bright side despite Elizabeth’s rejection? Was there some glimmer of hope? Darcy’s mind worked furiously to find one. She did not accept a proposal of marriage from Wickham. He did not declare his undying love. They did not kiss.

  “Bah!” Darcy chastised himself. “I am grasping at straws.” Elizabeth might not have declared her devotion to Wickham, but her decision was tantamount to it. Darcy had arrived first. Darcy had been the first to offer an outing. Darcy had had the stable hands polish the carriage and brush the horses until they shone. As he had staggered from the colonel’s house, Darcy had spied the rig Wickham had rented; such paltry nags could not compare to Darcy’s matched bays.

  But none of these considerations had swayed Elizabeth.

  His hands squeezed the reins until his knuckles turned white. The obvious reason was that she truly loved Wickham. Darcy found this difficult to accept, but perhaps his own wishful thinking prevented him from perceiving her dispassionately.

  I have so much to offer her! Darcy could not help recalling all the women he had encountered through the years—beautiful, accomplished ladies who wore the latest fashions and the finest jewels. Not one of them made his heart race as Elizabeth did. Her smile, her wit, her conversation… He had never known a woman who was her equal. It did not signify that she lacked the latest fashions or the finest jewels…or the matched bays.

  “Damnation!” His exclamation was loud enough that a few heads turned on the street. If she truly loved Wickham, Darcy could not change that. He could offer his carriage, his home, his name, his hand on bended knee—and nothing would sway her. Inconstancy was not in her nature. Many women would forsake a poor suitor for a man of greater fortune, but Elizabeth was not such a woman—or she would not be a woman Darcy could love.

  But why was she so constant to Wickham?

  To Darcy’s—admittedly biased—eye she did not appear particularly besotted with Wickham, and the idea of a drive with Darcy appeared to tempt her. Yet she had most definitely chosen Wickham.

  What I need is a good stiff drink or two…or three. His rig had been wandering the streets of Brighton aimlessly; miraculously he had not completely lost his bearings. Now he scrutinized his surroundings. By chance he was not too far from his lodgings, but he would find no libations there. Unfortunately, he had not thought to bring brandy during his frantic race to the coast.

  Ah…yes! There was a pub: the Three Ships. It appeared reputable enough, and at this time of day it would be sparsely populated. Darcy could enjoy a table to himself.

  When he appeared in the doorway, the barkeeper hurried up to him and inquired as to his pleasure. The establishment likely did not see many men dressed in so fine a fashion. However, Darcy was in no mood for company, obsequious or otherwise. He merely requested a private table.

  The pub was relatively clean, and he was the only patron. The barkeeper sat him beside a window, with glass that was rippled and distorted but covered in only a superficial layer of grime. The table itself was pitted and scarred and showed the remnants of spilled ale and past meals, but Darcy had visited worse pubs.

  A barmaid bustled over. Quite a bit older than most in her profession, she was buxom and matronly with a broad smile on her face. “Och!” she exclaimed immediately. “What did she do to you, lad?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Darcy asked. Nobody had addressed him as “lad” for quite some time.

  “She broke your heart, didn’t she?”

  Darcy was unsure whether he was more startled by the woman’s effrontery or her perspicacity. Usually he was loath to discuss his private concerns with anyone, particularly strangers, but for some reason the idea held some appeal at this moment. Perhaps it was the sympathetic tilt to her head. Perhaps it was simply that he had no one else with whom he could discuss them.

  “I suppose she did,” Darcy answered slowly.

  The barmaid shook her head slowly. “Tell Peg about it. Did she go and marry another fellow?”

  Darcy’s hands clenched involuntarily. “Not…yet.”

  “Then there’s still hope!”

  “I do not believe so.” His heart ached at the admission.

  The woman stuck her hands deep into the pockets of her skirt. “And why would that be?’

  “She chose to take a carriage ride with him today. He is a thoroughgoing blackguard, and she knows it and yet…”

  “Hmm.” The barmaid tapped her lip thoughtfully. “Have you asked her about him?”

  Of course, he had! This was a waste of time, but out of politeness Darcy answered, “Yes, but she told me almost nothing.”

  “She knows he’s a scoundrel?”

  “Yes!” Darcy suppressed a desire to tell her everything. “I had thought her of better discernment than that.”

  “Did you talk with her when there is nobody around to hear you?”

  Darcy rolled his eyes. “No. It would not be appropriate to be alone with her—”

  She waved this objection away. “Psh! Folks of quality have such strange ideas! Appropriate? Who would care?”

  “Her father, for one.”

  “Very well, but—” Peg slipped into the chair opposite Darcy’s and lowered her voice. Her presumption should have offended Darcy, but he found it rather amusing. “Perhaps you might get a few moments alone with her on a walk or at a dinner. Give her a chance to tell you the whole story.”

  Darcy sighed, tracing one of the grooves in the table with his finger. “I fear that the whole story is that she is in love with the scoundrel.”

  “Did she tell you that?” Darcy shook his head. “Why would she love him if he is a blackguard?”

  “In my experience, love rarely makes sense.” Darcy himself was proof of that.

  “But she’s a sensible, clever woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps there is another reason for her behavior.”

  Darcy frowned, unsure what Peg meant. “Such as…”

  The barmaid shrugged expressively. “I don’t know, do I? But my niece Becky once was in a fix. Her papa told her to be nice to a fellow she didn’t much like. He was courting her, and she had to smile and dance with him and pretend as though she enjoyed it.”

  Darcy leaned forward, intrigued despite himself. “Why?”

  The woman’s hands fluttered. “Oh, her papa owed the fellow some money, and Becky is a pretty thing. The man said he’d forgive the papa’s debts if she married him. Becky continued for months being friendly to this man when she couldn’t stand the sight of him—until finally she ran off with a fisherman.”

  Darcy slumped back in his chair, staring at Peg, aware that his mouth was hanging open. He had never considered the possibility that Wickham exerted some sort of hold over Elizabeth.

  Did Mr. Bennet owe money to Wickham? Unlikely. But there were many other reasons Elizabeth might be compelled to show friendliness to the officer. Half a dozen ideas occurred to Darcy immediately. Perhaps—fearing an elopement—she sought to distract Wickham’s attention from Lydia. Perhaps Wickham knew something damning about a member
of the Bennet family and was blackmailing her. Perhaps he held some other monetary inducement over her head. As Darcy well knew, Wickham was capable of any number of unsavory schemes.

  Elizabeth could be desperately in need of Darcy’s assistance, not his condemnation.

  Peg waggled her finger in his face, chuckling at his no-doubt stunned expression. “See, you hadn’t thought of that, had you?”

  “No,” Darcy admitted. He could easily resolve most difficulties with money. Elizabeth could indeed be suffering without such resources.

  Peg gave a decisive nod of her head. “That’s why you need to speak to the young woman—alone.”

  Darcy could only nod mutely. Why had this not occurred to him before?

  The woman stood with a grin. “Now, what can I get you to drink?” Suddenly getting foxed had no appeal.

  “I must depart.” Darcy reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. It was far more than he would pay for a whisky, but no matter. “I thank you for your excellent counsel.” After dropping the coin into her palm, he hurried from the pub. There was no time to waste.

  Chapter Seven

  Elizabeth Bennet had enjoyed many carriage rides in her life. This was not one of them. Mr. Wickham drove too fast and too recklessly, no doubt under the mistaken impression that swaggering would impress her. Instead, she clutched the edge of her seat with one hand and her bonnet with the other while forcing a grin as though she were having the time of her life. Occasionally she stifled a desire to scream for him to stop the curricle so she could climb down and walk back to the colonel’s house.

  This was not the sort of danger she anticipated when agreeing to become a spy. One boon of the ride was that fear for her life occupied her thoughts so completely that she stopped thinking about her regrets over rejecting Mr. Darcy. She feared she had hurt him badly.

  Elizabeth earned a temporary reprieve from the anxiety-inducing drive when they reached the cliffside road. Declaring that she wished to walk along the clifftops for a better view, she insisted that Mr. Wickham stop the carriage. Indeed, it was a lovely sight; the stark whitish gray cliffs contrasted against the luminous blue of the sky. Golden sunlight sparkled through many layers of ocean water. Seabirds whirled and dove through the air. Grasses on the top of the cliffs rippled in the wind.

  At the colonel’s house, Mr. Wickham suggested that Mr. Denny had told him about the cliffside walk, but it quickly became clear that he was quite familiar with the area. After a few minutes on solid ground, Elizabeth’s heart had stopped thundering in her chest, and she proceeded to calculate how she could pry some information out of Mr. Wickham. The colonel was particularly interested in discovering where Wickham met with his French compatriots; most likely it was in one of the caves that lined the cliffs.

  She peered down at the craggy, white chalk cliffs. “Is it true that there are caves along these cliffs?”

  Wickham had one booted foot propped against a boulder, no doubt believing he made a very dashing picture. “Caves? Aye, hundreds I have heard.”

  “Really?” Elizabeth opened her mouth in a perfect “o.” “Do you suppose any of them are used by smugglers?”

  Wickham adjusted his hat to a slightly jaunty angle. “No doubt they are. There are smugglers all over this part of the country.”

  Imagining how Lydia would react, Elizabeth gasped. “Do you think so?”

  He smirked at her innocence. “I know so. The navy patrols the Channel, but there are too many smugglers to catch them all.”

  She gave a little excited shiver. “And they could be using the caves right here—beneath our feet?”

  “I suppose. Although most of the caves are small and shallow. They would not be of much use to smugglers.”

  “But surely there are some which are used by smugglers?” Elizabeth shuffled closer to the edge, peering downward. She casually grasped Wickham’s forearm to steady herself and heard him hiss in response. Good. His attraction to her might help cloud his judgment. “Do you know of any real smugglers’ caves?”

  Mr. Wickham paused, clearly torn between the need for secrecy and the desire to impress a young woman.

  She allowed excitement to show on her face. “You do! I can tell. I would love to visit a smugglers’ cave! It would be like a scene in a novel!”

  “I do know the location of a few caves,” he conceded.

  “Would you take me to see one? Please!”

  “The climb down is long and dangerous.”

  “I do not mind. I like a long climb. It will be an adventure!” How could she overcome his reluctance? “Oh, I can just imagine it!” She pitched her voice lower, more enticing. “You and me…alone in a cave…”

  Mr. Wickham swallowed hard before seizing her hand. “Very well, I will take you to the cave. But I did warn you about the climb.”

  The path down to the beach was indeed steep. Although she had worn her sturdiest half boots, Elizabeth’s feet slid on the loose dirt more than once. Mr. Wickham held her hand, and she did not fall.

  The beach was narrow and completely deserted, too rocky and inaccessible for casual visitors. Waves crashed onto the shore with magnificent sprays of water—far more ferocious than at the ladies’ beach. If only she could stay and admire the sight; under other circumstances and with different company she would have loved to linger. But Mr. Wickham was already tugging impatiently at her hand.

  They tramped along the beach for several minutes until they came to the cave—its entrance almost completely concealed by a large boulder. Elizabeth had to turn sideways and squeeze between the boulder and the cliff face to enter, but the interior was surprisingly large and dry, with a sandy floor and craggy stone walls. Surveying the space, Elizabeth focused on memorizing the details of the location—only belatedly realizing she should be “impressed” with her companion’s cleverness.

  “Oh my!” she exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth and imagining how Lydia would react. “This is a real cave. I do not believe I have ever encountered a real cave before! How thrilling!” Wickham preened. “It is ever so much larger than I thought it could be,” she warbled as she explored the space, hoping to find useful clues for the colonel. Deeper into the cliff, the cave narrowed and disappeared into darkness. “What is back there?” She gestured.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps others have explored it, but I have not,” Mr. Wickham responded.

  Elizabeth’s shiver was not entirely feigned. “Perhaps there is a secret passageway.”

  The officer smirked. “Perhaps.”

  Finding nothing else of note in the back of the cave, she returned to the cave’s mouth. Unfortunately, this also brought her into greater proximity to Mr. Wickham. When enticing him, Elizabeth had weighed the danger that the scoundrel might make improper advances. She did not believe he would try to force her while she was under the colonel’s protection, but still…

  As he drew closer, she whirled away, searching for some distraction. She pointed to a pile of crates stacked against the cave wall. “What is the purpose of those?”

  “Don’t touch them!” he said with a hint of panic in his voice. “Who knows what the smugglers might do if we disturb their wares.” Hmm. That would definitely be of interest to the colonel.

  Elizabeth giggled as if thrilled by this thought. “Have you ever seen the smugglers? How do they appear? Are they at all like pirates?”

  “No. They’re a rather rough lot.”

  She faked a shiver of fear. “They could arrive at any moment. Perhaps we should leave!”

  Mr. Wickham chuckled. “I believe they mainly work at night.”

  “Oh.”

  The officer was close to her—far closer than was appropriate. Before she could duck away, his lips were on hers. Suppressing her natural revulsion, she drew upon every ounce of thespian skill to act the part of the besotted lover. The man did not make it easy. His lips were dry, the stubble of his beard scratched her chin, and his breath stank of gin.

  She attempted to return h
is kisses with equal ardor but found that attraction was difficult to feign in such close proximity. Mr. Darcy would be more pleasant to kiss. His lips looked quite soft, and he would no doubt hold her gently and lovingly—not roughly as if he wanted to possess her. Indeed, kissing Mr. Darcy would not be a hardship.

  The man she kissed moaned, and Elizabeth was jarringly reminded that he was not Mr. Darcy.

  Why am I thinking of Mr. Darcy now? Why am I thinking of him at all?

  Lost in fantasies about the master of Pemberley, she had apparently returned Mr. Wickham’s kisses rather enthusiastically. His tongue was in her mouth! His hands had wandered up her legs and over her thighs to her waist—and threatened to travel higher. This needed to stop immediately.

  Pulling her mouth from his, she said, “Mr. Wickham, perhaps we should—”

  He continued to trail kisses along her shoulder. “Elizabeth, don’t you love me?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  He regarded her with a soft, wounded expression. “It is only a matter of time until we are married—until I have the funds to marry. What does it matter if we anticipate the vows?”

  How many women had succumbed to such promises from Mr. Wickham? He was so very practiced in the art of seduction. Elizabeth refused to be his victim. But I must deter him without giving the least suspicion of the disgust he provokes in me.

  Mistaking her silence for assent, Mr. Wickham pulled her closer as his hands ranged up her body from her waist to her—

  “What is that sound?” she asked suddenly, pushing him away and allowing her very real anxiety at the situation to color her voice.

  “What sound?” The man continued to nibble her neck. It tickled, but perhaps some women liked the sensation.

  She pushed him away more forcefully. “I heard voices and footsteps! The smugglers are returning!”

  The officer cocked his head to one side and listened. “I hear nothing.”

  She shook her head frantically. “The sound of the waves has swallowed it up again. But I tell you, the smugglers are coming!” She scrambled for purchase in the sand as she hurried for the exit.