The Plight of the Darcy Brothers (39 page)

“Did.”

“Didn't.”

Despite everything, Darcy found himself laughing. He found Wickham joining him, until they were both too exhausted from the process. That did not take very long, and then they were quiet again.

“I love Elizabeth,” Darcy said. “I want those to be… my last words.”

“I love… uhm…”

“… Money?… Gambling?… F-Fratricide?”

“My… best qualities.”

It was getting late. It was still early in the afternoon, but it felt so very, very late.

“I didn't… mean for—I just wanted money… Darcy.”

“I know.”

“I didn't—kill Gregory… did I?”

“Grégoire.”

“Whatever.”

“No… I don't know… I can't—get up.”

He heard George slowly rise to his feet. It was a concentrated effort, and when he stood, he was hunched over, one hand desperately clutching the wound in his chest as he towered over Darcy. “If I don't survive… I'm sorry about Georgiana,” he stopped to grunt, as if his very insides were shifting around in him. “I didn't know.”

“I didn't either,” Darcy said. “Where are you going?”

“To get… some help.” He tried to straighten up but failed. “Agh!” He made his way to his horse, where he leaned on the animal and tugged weakly on the stirrups. Finally he was able to climb into the saddle. Darcy saw little more than a shadow. He was seeing little more than shadows and darkness now. “Darcy.”

“George.”

As the shuffling of the hooves of the beast disappeared into the distance, Darcy sighed and let the last of his strength flow out of him.

IT WAS LATE IN the day, and Elizabeth Darcy realized she and Georgiana needed to be home for dinner, but first she had to find her son. This, of course, was no easy task. The Bingley twins were running now, and she had to carefully sidestep them to avoid their collision in order to find her son somehow on top of a very large bookcase.

“I don't even want to know. Come to Mother.”

Geoffrey eagerly obeyed, though she was glad to put him down when she had him safely out of danger. “Now don't bump into your cousins. Really, someone should be watching them.”

But the entrance of Georgiana Bingley, who ran up to him and whispered something in his ear, distracted him enough.

“Coming!” said Bingley, either having heard Elizabeth or following his fatherly instincts. “Eliza! Charles!” He picked up his daughter, handed her off to her namesake for the sake of convenience, and then scooped up his son. “Now! What did I say about running in the house?”

Elizabeth looked down and noticed her son was tugging at her skirts. “What? What is it?”

“Georgie wants to tell you something.”

“Well, she can very well tell me herself. I am her aunt.”

“But it's our secret. No one else saw it.”

“Georgiana?” Bingley looked at his daughter. “What is it?”

“I was going to tell Geoffrey,” his elder daughter said. “There's a red horse on the road.”

“A red horse?”

“It's a horse, and it's all red.”

Elizabeth and Bingley exchanged glances. “Can you tell us where you saw it?”

She nodded eagerly.

“See, just delayed,” he said, referring to her speech. “All right, you're both very good children for telling us. Let's go.” He handed his son off to Nurse, who had appeared behind him, and Elizabeth dropped her niece off as well before they followed Georgie through the hallway and out the front doors of Chatton. She broke into a full run, and Geoffrey kept pace with her.

Not far down the road, they saw it. It was indeed a horse, shuffling aimlessly about, masterless and not tied to anything. Its saddle and back were covered in blood, obviously not its own.

“Regimentals,” Elizabeth said, looking at the markings on the saddle.

“Wickham,” Bingley guessed. “He was here a few months before. I recognize it.”

“Lydia is inside.”

“I mean Mr. Wickham. Yes, he was invited, and it's a long story. But—where is Wickham?” He turned to his daughter. “Go back to the house and tell the servants to get Dr. Maddox here at once. And take Geoffrey.”

“But I want to see!” wailed Geoffrey.

“Go with her,” Elizabeth said in the sternest possible voice, which was quite stern. “
Now!
”

By the time they were off, Bingley had already found the trail of blood. It led down the road towards Pemberley, and they ran to follow it until it curved off the road. There was the obvious spot where the rider had fallen off and then a smaller trail leading into the tall grass. Resting in the foliage was a wounded George Wickham. Bingley stepped forward first and turned him over, which did not rouse him into consciousness. Bingley took the pistol in Wickham's belt and smelled it. “It's been fired.”

“Oh God. Darcy!”

“I know.” Fortunately, people were arriving, and Bingley slapped Wickham until he woke. “Where's Darcy?”

“Darcy… what?”

Elizabeth took the pistol from Bingley's hand and cocked it at Wickham's head, so that there could be no mistake about her intentions. “Where is Mr. Darcy, Wickham?”

“Oh.” He put a bloodied hand to his head. “Yard. Graveyard. God, I hope… I haven't killed him.”

Bingley had to hold Elizabeth back from physically attacking Wickham as Dr. Maddox arrived with Jane and servants. Maddox knelt beside the patient with his bag and pulled open the shirt, but Wickham angrily tore him away. “Get going, you glass-eyed son of a whore!”

“You need medical attention, Mr. Wickham,” Maddox said sternly.

“I'm not here for me! I didn't… come all this way… I'm regimental; I know wounds. Forget me, and find Darcy and his pet monk before they both die!” He cried out as if something inside was bothering him and turned over to hack blood into the grass.

“Doctor,” Bingley said. “He's telling you to go.” He turned to a servant. “Horses! We need horses! And a carriage for Elizabeth! Now, man!”

“George!” Lydia Wickham had finally caught up with them. “Dr. Maddox—”

“Let the doctor… go about… his business,” Wickham coughed. “I'm no loss to you, anyway.”

It was only three miles to Pemberley. They left Wickham with his wife and the many servants of Chatton to help him back to the house, but he would not be carried inside. A strange sense of dignity presided over him as he asked to see Georgiana Darcy, and with Mr. Bennet giving him a stern glance, she was brought forth, having been unaware of the proceedings so far. “Mr. Wickham!”

“Georgiana!” he reached out, but his hands were unable to catch anything. He had lost all coordination. “I'm so… I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I wouldn't have… I did love you, but not… Thank God, not as a woman. Just a little girl that I loved.” She finally offered him her hand, and he kissed it. “Sister.”

“Darcy isn't here to say it, so I shall,” Mr. Bennet said. “Don't bother this poor woman any longer.”

“I'm not… I wasn't told…” he closed his eyes and then opened them again. “All this time… I was a Darcy. I should have…” He leaned over and coughed on the ground before straightening up again and leaning on the front steps. “I should have acted… like one. Forgive me.” He swallowed. “Please forgive me.”

“I—forgive you,” Georgiana was confused but not ignorant. She already had one bastard brother, so a second was not terribly hard to imagine. And he seemed so sincere. “George.”

He smiled. “Go to your brother… the one who acted like one.”

With Mr. Bennet's nod of approval, she called for a carriage and was off to Pemberley, but not before granting Wickham a kiss on his forehead. As she disappeared down the road, he slumped further onto the steps and refused offers to be carried inside.

“George,” said Lydia, the only one now at his side, at least closely. “What have you been up to?”

“Terrible… unforgivable things. But… I have been forgiven… by the most wounded person of all.” His grim smile faded, and he leaned into his wife. In her embrace, George Wickham died.

Darcy's first impression back in reality was the uncomfortable notion of being wet. Cold and wet. Where were his manservant and his properly heated bath?

But the discomfort did the job of waking him admirably.

“Darcy,” Elizabeth said desperately, wiping his face. “Can you hear me?”

The ground that he had found so comfortable was now hard and uninviting, yet he could not find the strength to move. In fact, he could barely open his eyes and focus on the two figures in front of his face, the sky behind them. One was his lovely Elizabeth; the other had the easily recognizable spectacled face of Dr. Maddox.

“Mr. Darcy,” he said, “if you can, I need to you to lift up your arms and your legs. It does not have to be all at once or very much, but I need to see you move before we attempt to get you on a cot. Do you understand?”

He did try desperately to say yes, but it came out incomprehensibly, between his limited ability to speak and his parched
throat. He did succeed in barely lifting his limbs, which was enough for the doctor to have him moved. Elizabeth kept whispering things to him, but what he heard seemed to go right through him. Only when he was back on a bed in Pemberley, and properly given food and drink, did he become aware of the pain, specifically when Maddox unwound the blood-soaked bandage around his hand. “Ow!”

“You're going to need stitches, but I think I can save the hand,” the doctor said, turning it over and looking at the still-bleeding exit wound. “The bottle, please. On your left.”

Someone, somewhere, was helping him. Were they asking Darcy questions? He wasn't entirely aware. He managed to ask, after his own mouthful of horribly tasting medicine, “My brother—”

“Grégoire is patched and will be sewn shortly, but he is comatose.”

“He was—he was shot,” Darcy said.

“Then it didn't hit. You might have heard a shot, but his injury is head trauma from landing against a tombstone.”

“Will he wake?”

“I don't know, Mr. Darcy. Now take some deep breaths, and try to relax.”

Relax? Yes, he could manage that. After all, wasn't he dead and this was purgatory?

It was late in the night when Dr. Maddox was finished with both of his patients. Aside from the servants, no one bothered him. Elizabeth held Darcy's other hand, but he was largely unresponsive, and what details they managed to glean from
him of the events that occurred earlier in the day were contradictory. The real story, obviously, would not come forth until someone recovered.

Around midnight, a sobbing Georgiana Darcy and a teary Lydia Wickham arrived with the news that Wickham had passed on to the next world and that arrangements were being made, but there was some question as to where he would be buried.

“Elizabeth,” Georgiana said. “You can decide this as Mistress of Pemberley.”

“If it can possibly wait until Darcy wakes and we have the whole story, or he can make the decision himself, then it will,” she announced, and everyone heeded her decision.

“Why didn't someone
tell me
?” Georgiana said, giving no explanation as to what she was alluding to. It was too obvious.

“Because—because Darcy was waiting for the right time.”

“And he thought
this
was the right time?”

Elizabeth, exhausted from a long night of worry, could only manage, “Your brother is not perfect, Georgiana. Do you wish to hear the latest from the doctor? Because I do.”