“Seems he has other things on his mind than his play,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said sagely. “Hint of the shakes before battle maybe?”
“I am not anxious about my marriage to Elizabeth,” Darcy replied.
“Oh?”
“You encouraged me to drink more than I ought, and I, in the celebratory mood, consumed it.”
“Headache on the wedding morn?” Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “Bingley, how was it for you the day you married?”
“A bit sad to be honest — I thought about Caro, and you both, and how I wished you all were here, and that matters had not gone so poorly. But no headaches.” Bingley cackled evilly. “I’m managing at last to punish Darcy, and just through saying again and again, ‘A drink to your health’.”
“I still have beatenyouwith every game we played,” Darcy replied haughtily.
Bingley laughed harder. “By one point that last one. I do not think I’ve ever come closer to touching you at billiards than that. Never.” Bingley refilled his own glass of brandy, and Darcy’s, and then handing the tumbler up to Darcy said cheerfully, “A drink to your health!”
Darcy looked down his nose at his friend. “I may be a fool, but I’ve enough wisdom to know when it is time to cease.”
“Be a good fellow, Darcy,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, refilling his own glass and holding it high. “Just one more.”
“No.” Darcy had a very strong sense of certainty that however entertaining it would be to get wholly and entirely foxed with his closest friends this night, Elizabeth would not approve of it if he stumbled through their wedding ceremony with a headache and a terrifically bad mood.
“But Darcy, it is to your health,” Bingley said, giggling. “For your health!”
“To ruin it, you mean?”
Bingley smirked at Darcy. “Maybe…?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam put his own glass down, after drinking half of it, and took up the cue stick again to take another shot. Another excellent strike.
He’d lose his third game against his cousin tonight if he did not improve the play immediately, and that was simply too many.
Darcy took up his own stick, and he knew he needed to focus.
Unfortunately, what came to his mind when he tried to focus was Elizabeth’s breasts. He hadn’t seen the wedding dress, but he imagined it as a lovely lacy construct, made of the finest silk. They would be in the carriage alone, on their way back to London, and he could slide his hand around, and—
Crack.
The shot, again, missed and bounced off three of the walls.
Darcy sighed.
After this he’d need to hit each of his marks, and Colonel Fitzwilliam still might win with simply decent play.
“Caroline surprised me,” Bingley said, as he watched Colonel Fitzwilliam prepare to take his shot. “She has changed a great deal. I never thought she’d marry anyone who brought less fortune to the marriage than she did.”
“She has not changed so much,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied. “She is in essentials the same as she ever was.”
Darcy grimaced, both at that speech, and at the point that Colonel Fitzwilliam scored.
Only one at least. It left a little space open for him to match Richard’s score, if he played perfectly for the rest of the game. Which he wouldn’t.
“If you insist,” Bingley said skeptically to his prospective brother-in-law. “But it is your business.Iwouldn’t marry her.”
“I should certainly hope not, given that she is your sister.”
Bingley choked on his brandy as he laughed. “A score! A score!”
“How did you come to fall in love with Jane?” Darcy asked. “I recall that Elizabeth was quite surprised by that.”
