Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (57 page)

Spying a slightly inebriated trio of red-faced, well-dressed men, Wickham bid to join them. He always wore his uniform in public houses, fancying it bought him a little unearned respect. Still able to charm those whom he pleased upon occasion, they immediately acquiesced and offered to buy him a drink as well.

“Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence, and straw for nothing!” Wickham recited with congeniality.

This nigh worn-out chestnut was met with semi-inebriated guffaws, which influenced Wickham that the group was full to the bung and ripe for a little fleecing.

Although a faro box sat upon the table, Wickham took the liberty of suggesting a game of commerce instead. The men were in fine, if not exuberant spirits, thus, they saw no reason not to accommodate someone they, if sober, would have considered a bit of a cock-a-hoop.

Wickham won steadily, losing just often enough and so amiably his fellow gamblers could feel no ill-will. As the drink took greater hold, they bantered heartily and one of the men, clear-headed enough to know him not from town, inquired after his home county.

“Pemberley in Derbyshire,” Wickham told him, never one to seek false modesty. “I went to school at Cambridge…”

One man made the aside, “A tuft-hunter, no doubt.”

Wickham wavered over whether to take active offence at the insult or let it pass.
Cravenness more a learnt response than inborn trait, he deduced he was out-manned, out-moneyed, and possibly outwitted. He ignored the aspersion. And he considered that perchance the men were not as dim as he thought if they nailed him for the truckler of the well-born that he was. He did not have time to ponder the problem long, somewhat grateful that the third man interrupted his unhappy deliberation.

“Derbyshire? Pemberley, you say?”

“Yes, indeed,” answered Wickham.

“Then, no doubt, you know of it?”

Confused, Wickham shook his head he did not.

“It was quite a row, I heard. Quite a row.”

Wickham did not have to encourage the man for more information. The other two did for him.

“Why, yes. Surely, you have heard of it. That family at Pemberley? What is their name?”

“Darcy,” Wickham told him.

“Yes, that is it. Darcy. He dispatched them all, you know. Three men. Killed them all. Unaided.”

“Darcy killed three men?” Wickham repeated, incredulous.

“You know the man then? I say, I would stay in his good graces. Pray, see you there what befell those who did not!”

The man thereupon shook his head at such audacity.

Astonished, Wickham bid the particulars. The man said he heard it was a robbery. He heard it might have been more than merely a robbery, for there was no formal hearing.

“He killed one by blade, but it was not a duel. Shot the other two. I fancy the man was put to anger in some fashion.”

“Angered, indeed!” another pronounced and they all laughed.

Wickham, too. He laughed, but he was not amused. He felt uneasy and lost the next three hands. He knew his mind would not find further interest in the game. Hence, he took his sparse winnings and excused himself from the table. Pocketing the money, he kept out a coin, walked to the bar, and asked for another drink.

Nursing it, he stood there for a time thinking about his good friend Darcy. He simply could not imagine composed, collected Darcy killing three men. That gambler must have been mistaken. Talk is loose. Exaggerations occur. Surely that must be what bechanced. An exaggeration occurred. Perchance Darcy was merely present when three men were murdered. No. That seemed hardly more likely than Darcy doing the deed himself.

A slight, but unseemly, shudder fled down Wickham’s spine. For he recollected that Darcy had more than a little wrath against himself (that unfortunate Georgiana matter). If the punctilious Darcy could actually become incensed to murder, was anyone safe?

Yet, Wickham reconsidered the facts carefully. Darcy was ill-tempered. He was ill-tempered and unyielding. But murder? A proud man, Darcy prided keeping himself under good regulation beyond any other conceit. Even in his anger at Wickham over Georgiana, he had not been enraged. Not visibly enraged. He had not drawn his blade.

In his contemplation, Wickham idly flipped a bob, but he espied a familiar reflection in the ornate looking-glass over the bar.

Col. Geoffrey Fitzwilliam sat alone at a table upon the far side of the room. His back was to the wall, but he did not look about. Dishevelled and drawn, he stared, with great concentration, into the half-empty glass of clear liquid sitting before him. Accompanying that glass were a half-dozen others, identical except that they had already been drained.

From the bung-eyed look of him, his sheets had been flapping in the wind for some time. It was an odd sight to see Fitzwilliam unkempt, much less sozzled. The man was never known to bend his elbow immoderately.

Fitzwilliam was not yet blind-drunk, but near enough that Wickham was not afraid to turn about and look at him directly. He wondered just what could have precipitated Fitzwilliam embarking upon a gin binge. It occurred to him that the history about Darcy might be linked to Fitzwilliam so suddenly taking to drink. Perhaps it was Fitzwilliam who killed three men rather than Darcy. But that seemed little more likely than the first premise.

In spite of Wickham’s certainty that Fitzwilliam, as her co-guardian, knew of his attempted seduction of Georgiana, Wickham thought it safe to approach his table. Georgiana was not his sister and, most important, he appeared to be unarmed.

Wickham set his glass down and drew out a chair, taking a seat before Fitzwilliam’s unsteady gaze focused upon him. Under the circumstances, Wickham forsook pleasantries.

He leaned forward conspiratorially and said, “There is a great deal of hearsay about the doings of our friend Darcy…”

Enlisting a steely-eyed (if slightly unfocused) glare, Fitzwilliam stared at Wickham. Was it that it took that long to identify who sat before him or to process what he said, one can but conjecture. Nevertheless, he did blink several times. Quite abruptly, he stood, grasping the edge of the table, his knuckles white under the pressure.

Thereupon, with a single, violent motion, he upended it, sending all of the many glasses crashing to the floor.

At the ruckus, whoever was tinkling upon the piano stopped. The dice ceased to roll, the card players quit shuffling, and a barman stopped pouring mid-drink.

Trumbell’s was a respectable gaming house; brawls rarely occurred. To Wickham, it was an eerie repetition of the previous night’s mortification, but at that time, he had not feared mortal retribution.

However, Fitzwilliam did not make a move to call Wickham out. He stood there frozen, staring at Wickham (whose mouth had become suddenly quite dry). Then, with the same dispatch as his fury had erupted, it vanished. Fitzwilliam tossed some coins down and stomped from the establishment.

When Fitzwilliam hurled the table, Wickham had instinctively picked up his own glass, thus saving it from being dashed. With it yet in his hand, he gathered what tattered dignity he could muster and walked back to the bar. Music began to play and talk gradually resumed. Once out of scrutiny, Wickham tossed the remainder of his rescued drink down his throat and called for another.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “speaking to Fitzwilliam was a misjudgement. The colonel was obviously piqued yet about that Georgiana business.”

As to why he was so roundly ploughed, Wickham had little notion. So long as he had escaped injury, he had no particular interest in uncovering the reason. He
dismissed Fitzwilliam from his mind. When he thought again of the scuttlebutt about Darcy killing three men, he disregarded that matter as well. No, it simply was not possible. Darcy was far too disciplined, far too punctilious to dirty his hands by such a base act. If he wanted murder done, he would hire it. It was all an enormous exaggeration. It was simply not possible.

That was how Wickham had always found favour in a situation. He gave no consequence to that which did not conform to his own reasonableness.

He would learn to side-step Lydia more adeptly. He would manage to scrounge enough to bribe his way safe from battle. However, he would not see what he did not want to see.

Wickham was, and ever would be, true to himself alone.

W
ith Jane’s confinement speeding toward fruition, the Darcys had become an increasing presence at Kirkland Hall. Elizabeth would not allow her sister’s delicate constitution to go unguarded during such a perilous time and Darcy would not allow Elizabeth’s person to be without watch, either. Thus, it was necessary for him to concoct a series of convoluted excuses to accompany her every single time she visited.

It had taken several weeks for Darcy to allow Elizabeth out of his sight, invariably trailing her into her dressing room. After a time Hannah had become positively
blasé
about Mr. Darcy perching himself behind a folding screen whilst Mrs. Darcy compleated her toilette. She never once faulted Mr. Darcy’s relentless monitoring of his wife’s whereabouts, for Mrs. Darcy seemed to have little qualm about it herself. They moved about as if joined at the hip.

Hannah did not know it for fact, but believed nonetheless, that Mrs. Darcy was humouring her husband’s necessity of keeping her under close scrutiny. As independent in spirit as she knew Mrs. Darcy to be, the forbearance with which Mrs. Darcy withstood her husband’s smothering protectiveness was indicative of their esteem for each other.

In truth, although Elizabeth protested she harboured no emotional trauma from her abduction, her husband’s constant presence was a comfort. She was not yet so collected as to ride in the carriage alone.

When they stayed at Kirkland, Darcy was afield during the day with Bingley and Mr. Hurst after black grouse. Thus, he was diverted with game and Elizabeth could enjoy company with Jane, both able to enjoy a respite from trepidation.

Kirkland Hall was quite beautiful. It was not quite so fine as Pemberley, but sumptuous all the same. Elizabeth and Darcy knew it well for they had visited Bingley there before Jane had come to stay permanently. He encamped early because, still anxious for her approval, Bingley wanted everything to be in order before she arrived.

Bingley’s sisters were still much in tow—Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst understood that Jane was carrying either the Bingley heir apparent or presumptive. Whichever she bore, if they wanted to continue enjoying the largesse of their brother, their single guarantee of tenancy insisted upon a reconsideration of their haughtiness to his wife.

Elizabeth did not speak a word of her own miscarriage to Jane.

“I did not even know I carried a child,” she explained her reticence of the matter to her husband. “Excessive sorrow would be self-indulgent.”

With that rationalisation, Elizabeth continued to bury her misfortune in the dark recesses of her mind. She stalwartly refused to let it haunt her (except upon the occasions of being introspective, self-critical, self-pitying, or alone). As deeply as her martyrdom was imbedded in her subconscious, another niggling disturbance was welcomed to be her surrogate
idée fix.

Jane told Elizabeth that she and Charles no longer shared a bed. This was not a disbandment by reason of the general annoyance of sharing one’s sleeping space. It was biblical. They copulated not. (Nor did they fondle, finger, mousle, nor grope. But as they had not employed these particular variations of love previously, they must be dismissed as irrelevant.) They had ventured not into amorous embrace since Jane had first determined herself in a maternal condition. The door betwixt their bedrooms was locked.

Aghast at such a notion, Elizabeth, with no undue disconcertion, inquired of the reason.

“So Charles will not walk in his sleep and come to me accidentally,” Jane said using her own peculiar logic.

“I mean,” Elizabeth said patiently, “why do you not share a bed?”

Jane told her their mother had advised her that it was not good for the baby. Elizabeth countered (with a little more acerbity than she intended) that she did not think it particularly wise to take marital advice from one whose own marriage was so unhappy.