Page 23 of Leave Her Wild
“I listened to Aunt Gardiner and to what the colonel said,” Elizabeth admitted, though she did not tell her sister she had made it her business to learn something of the man who had once snubbed her. “Are you better now?”
“I suppose I am as good as any woman who has agreed to marry a man she does not affect.”
Elizabeth knew great sorrow at Jane’s admittance. It was as she had suspected. Rather than commenting on her sister’s words, she suggested, “You must not permit him to frighten you or upset you. Just think of him as a spoiled child, as if he is one of the Gardiner children at his or her worst.”
“You are the best sister ever,” Jane said. “I shall sleep better now.”
Elizabeth gave Jane another hug and slipped from her sister’s quarters only to turn and see Mr. Darcy alone in the hallway.
>>
Darcy had stayed in the stables long enough to permit the household to claim their beds before he entered the house and quietly locked the front door. He had silently made his way up the stairs to his quarters, only to be brought up short by the image of Miss Elizabeth Bennet in a nightgown and robe and barefoot and her hair handing down to her waist and . . . Dear God, she was more lovely than he had imagined, and his imagination had been quite active of late regarding the woman.
Doing the only thing he could under the circumstances, he opened the door to his chambers and gestured her in. She paused, at first, refusing to move, and so he had shrugged his supposed indifference and started in, but, predictably, she darted past him. It was Darcy who paused this time, for he knew, next to having once trusted George Wickham, this was the most dangerous choice he had ever made. Even so, he followed her inside and closed the door behind him.
He turned slowly and attempted not to permit her to know how much he wanted her in his arms. Even when she accused, “You brought my sister to tears,” he still wished to reach for Elizabeth Bennet.
“And I have been manipulated into accepting a person as a brother who I loathe with every beat of my heart. Miss Bennet’s tears are minor in comparison. Her tears may be mended with a simple apology. Being asked to accept as a relation a person who has betrayed me at every turn since I was four years of age is a true tragedy. I have spent nearly two decades covering up Mr. Wickham’s faults so as not to break my father’s heart. Now, I am to accept him as my brother-in-marriage.”
“Were all Mr. Wickham’s tales a lie?” she asked softly.
“In my experience, if Mr. Wickham is talking, he is lying,” Darcy retorted in hushed tones and leaned closer.
She looked up to him with those eyes in which he had always wished to lose himself. “My family should have told you,” she began. “I should have . . .”
“At the moment,” he interrupted her acknowledgement, which was more than he had expected, “George Wickham is not on my mind,” he groaned. He used his fingertips to lift her chin and was rewarded with a hitch in her breathing. “I do not know if you are always this enticing or if you are only as such with me, but you must hear this. Your plan to spend your life as a spinster would rob the world of one of its . . .”
He meant to kiss her, whether it was ethical or not, but a soft tap at the door had him taking a giant step back.
A second tap sent him looking about for a place to hide her. She placed her finger to her mouth in a “shush” signal and crossed to an interior door. Without a word, she disappeared before he knew what was what. Turning to the outside door, Darcy opened it to discover his cousin. “I have a message from the general,” Fitzwilliam said without preamble. “I must report the day after tomorrow.”
Darcy nodded his agreement. “Miss Bennet and I must call upon Mr. Williamson tomorrow. You and I may depart afterwards.”
Darcy said for Miss Elizabeth’s benefit, for he knew the lady was listening at the adjoining door. “Mr. Wickham has ruined the youngest Bennet sister. Even so, I would be worse than he is if I jilted Miss Bennet now. She would be destroyed and so would be the remaining sisters, for she would be considered a ‘tease.’ I have no choice but to perform my duty to the woman.”
“And what of your duty to Wickham?” his cousin asked.
“I will not provide Mr. Wickham even one pence, even if the future Mrs. Darcy begs me on hands and knees to do so. As Mrs. Darcy, the lady will have a large discretionary ‘purse’to use as she sees fit. However, if Miss Bennet chooses to use those funds to support the Wickhams, then she must do without for her personal spending. If I must be made to ‘tolerate’ having Wickham as a relation, I will insist he be a ‘distant’ one. I will not parade the man around as a ‘brother.’ Poor Georgiana must know I will keep her safe even if that means I must ostracize my own wife.”
>>
Elizabeth listened to what Mr. Darcy said. She knew much of it was for her benefit. Mr. Darcy wished her to explain “things” to Jane, and Elizabeth supposed, also to her father and mother. To save their mother, Jane had made a contract with the Devil himself. Though Elizabeth knew that characterization was too strong, she wondered why Mr. Darcy was set to protect whoever the young woman known as “Georgiana” was from Mr. Wickham? Was the girl someone who held the gentleman’s heart? The idea brought tears to Elizabeth’s eyes. Mr. Darcy loved someone, who was not Jane, nor would it ever be her.
The door between the two bedchambers opened, and he stood in the muted light of one candle. “I suppose you heard all I said?” he asked. A crisp sharpness had returned to his tone. He was warning her—warning her family what he would and would not tolerate.
“I did,” she said simply. “You wish me to relay your words to Jane and my parents: You will not have anything to do with Mr. Wickham and my youngest sister.”
“I would not say your youngest sister,” he corrected, “but Mr. Wickham has been a blight on my family since he was a youth on the estate. My father was blind to Mr. Wickham’s real nature, for George Darcy greatly admired Mr. Wickham’s father, who served honorably as Pemberley’s steward. My father stood as godfather to the younger Mr. Wickham. He paid for George Wickham’s education at university and meant for him to takeorders and be presented with a valuable family living as soon as it became vacant. You know of the living, for it was the curacy Mr. Ericks held for several years before becoming the vicar at Bakewell.”
“The one at Kympton?” she asked.
“Yes, I presented it to Mr. Ericks, not only because of Samuel Ericks’s character, but because of his sense of duty to the community. He is cut from the same cloth as was his late father and brother.”
“Yet, it was promised by your father to Mr. Wickham, which is what the lieutenant claimed when he spoke of it,” Elizabeth argued.
“I imagine Mr. Wickham omitted the part of how he was to receive a legacy of one thousand pounds after my father’s death. His own father did not long survive mine, and within half a year from these events, Mr. Wickham wrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders, he hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more immediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he could not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal. I knew Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman; the business was therefore soon settled—he resigned all claims to assistance in the church, were it possible he could ever be in a situation to receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection between us seemed dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him to Pemberley or to admit his society in town. In Town, I believe he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretense, and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation. For about threeyears I heard little of him; but, on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in question—of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not have forgotten my revered father's intentions. You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty or for resisting every repetition to it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances—and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others as in his reproaches to myself. After this period every appearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived I know not. But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice.”
He sighed heavily, “I know you heard me mention Georgiana.”
