Page 104 of His Pride and His Prejudice

“Why do you care?” Louis asked, and he seemed genuinely interested in the answer to that, tilting his head in inquiry.

“Your family are distressed,” Darcy said.

Another shrug. “They are always distressed! I am sure mama is having a fit of the vapours already.”

“She would be well suited to do so based on this behaviour,” Darcy said. “You must know that it is not at all appropriate.”

“Perhaps not,” he agreed. “But it is too late to repine on that now. I made my decision, and the action is done, and the consequences are thus. We can now only wait to see what will happen next. As for my family,” Louis added, “they need not worry for me. George will take care of me.”

Darcy wished that was indeed the case, but when he eventually sat down with Wickham to find out exactly what the other man planned, he realised quite quickly that it was not, and never had been, marriage.

“I am obliged to leave the regiment,” he said, smiling at something or another, “on account of some debts of honour, which are very pressing. I fear I had little choice and when Louis insisted on accompanying me…well…how was I to refuse?”

“You have disgraced him,” Darcy said, but Wickham shook his head.

“Louis Bennet was disgraced long before he and I began.”

Darcy stood up in an instant, pulling the other man from his chair by the scruff of his neck. “Take care with your words,” he growled.

“Even when they are truth?” Wickham asked.

Darcy tightened his grip. His overwhelming desire was to plant the other man a facer, and he would happily have done it there and then, but the rational part of his mind argued that Wickham should not attend his own wedding with a black eye, not if the aim was to prevent a scandal. “You will marry him regardless,” Darcy said.

“I have no inducement to do so,” Wickham replied, even as he leaned back from Darcy’s grip. “Besides I am hopeful I will be able to make a good marriage in another county. Someone with a fortune that I can then call my own.”

“There will be no other marriage,” Darcy insisted, and his tone brooked no disobedience, and his grip did not loosen. “You will marry and mate with Louis Bennet and save him from ruin.”

“And what could possibly convince me to do so?” Wickham asked.

And so began the negotiations to secure an alliance between the two and they did not involve Darcy giving Wickham a thrashing as he so dearly wanted to every time Wickham sat there with that ever-present smirk!

To be in this position!

Darcy had not imagined it!

When he had removed Wickham from Georgiana’s life, he had thought it would be the last he would see of the other man. It was too bad indeed that circumstances had conspired to arrange this. And so, Darcy cursed Wickham the entire time they were together, talking debts and sums to live on and commissions to be purchased. He hated every moment of it, was loath to do it at all. Darcy was sure Charles was of the same mind, obliged as he was to watch Louis Bennet lest he attempt some other exploit.

Eventually though they concluded and Wickham informed Louis they were now able to marry. The fact that he was not yet of proper age, that he had little fortune, and that their relationship was based on feelings that would soon run dry was not mentioned. Did the young omega consider any of this? Did he have any notion of how close his ruin had been? Darcy did not know. It did not matter.

He had not done this for Louis Bennet.

Not for George Wickham either.

It was Elliot.

It was all for him.

Fifty-Two

The whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet over the coming days, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him. His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and tardy correspondent, but at such a time they had hoped for some effort. They were forced to conclude that he had no pleasing intelligence to send and were left to think as much until the end of the week when, instead of a letter, Mr. Bennet himself arrived.

They all knew immediately that he had been unsuccessful in his attempts to locate Wickham and Louis, as his appearance was far from his usual philosophic composure. Mrs. Bennet, who had not come from her room since Louis’ elopement, cried quite wretchedly when he told them the whole of it. He had followed their trail until the information ceased. He had then looked in all the principal hotels and even some of the shadier ones with Colonel Forster. They had entered gambling dens and public houses and inns aplenty...they were nowhere to be seen.

“He has left gaming debts behind him to a very considerable amount,” Mr. Bennet said as he joined them all for a dreary tea. “Colonel Forster also believes that more than a thousand pounds will be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton. There is also the matter of his debts in Meryton, which we are only now becoming aware of.”

“This is thousands of pounds,” Elliot whispered.

“Indeed,” Mr. Bennet said. “And we will all suffer for it. As we should! And I and your mother particularly! This is our own doing, and we should be obliged to feel the effects of it.”

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