“But you say she married?”
“Yes, to a young lieutenant, of no connections, but who had some bravery or talent, as he was raised to captain later following deaths on the battlefield.I do not know the details of the matter, and while Mama travelled to visit her, and see Lydia’s child, this was after Papa died, and we did not have the resources to easily allow all of us to travel so far as to Newcastle, where they were at the time, even if just by stage.”
“Not a good marriage, but respectable enough.”
Darcy was decidedly happy to hear this.Not that he would have hesitated to marry Elizabeth if Lydia was the infamous mistress of an earl.But it was much preferable in his mind for her to be married, and to have the only difficulty associated with her to be that he would likely be someday asked to do something to help establish one of her children.
Elizabeth was silent.“Better, I think, than she deserved.”
“Do you believe her to be happy?”
“She claims so.Mama was decidedly unhappy with how low she married, instead of being grateful simply that shedidmarry.That visit was before Waterloo, when he was yet a lieutenant, and an income much less than a hundred a year for a couple with a child.”
“And a captain’s salary is not so much that one can maintain a proper standard of life upon,” Darcy agreed.“But perhaps the man is such that he will succeed over time in his profession.”
“I am certain he has no connection to help him in his way, or money to purchase a higher commission.”
Darcy hummed and shrugged.“Nothing particularly scandalous in that situation, much better than if her fate was entirely unknown, except that she likely lived as the mistress of some man of barely enough consequence to keep a mistress.”
Elizabeth laughed.“I thought that to be her fate after it became clear to us that Mr.Wickham had abandoned her.Or worse.But yet… I do not think I can ever think highly of her.”
Darcy could not disagree.“Yes, and I still ought to kill Wickham.”
Elizabeth laughed.“Nay, nay.And Wickham, ill as I always have thought of him, late events make me think more kindly of him.I do not believe he had the character to be a rapist.”
“To ruin and destroy the life of a silly young girl, solely to satisfy his own lusts and desire for pleasure.I do not know that there is a great deal of distance in wrongness.”
“That,” Elizabeth replied, “is because you are not a woman.A woman knows that a seductive rake may be a danger, and the objective damage he does may even be greater, but no matter how silly and uninformed she is, the woman has some scope of choice.But when choice is taken away.When violence is used…”
Elizabeth’s voice trailed away, but she then smiled that brilliant, proud smile she had used earlier, when she talked about how she felt about successfully fighting off Lord Lechery.He thought she imagined again crushing his nose.
“Both men may be freely despised,” Darcy insisted.
Elizabeth patted Darcy on the hand with her thin, still slightly fever-warm fingers.It sent shivers up his arm.“True.”She yawned and blinked her eyes several times.“Absurd, but I am tired again, after just an hour awake.”
“You were very ill.The physician, Mr.Goldman, was deeply worried, and he bled you several times.”
Elizabeth yawned again.“I have never had so much sickness before.‘Twas not a pleasant experience.”
“For me neither.”Darcy stood up, and he hesitated for a moment, and then he briefly kissed Elizabeth upon her soft and warm forehead before he left her to her sleep.
When he glanced back at her before he closed the door to the room, her sweet eyes were closed and she had a large happy smile.
Chapter Five
The following morning General Richard Fitzwilliam stomped into Darcy’s breakfast parlor.
Darcy had been busily engaged in conversation with Elizabeth, rather than breakfasting downstairs when his guest arrived, so he hurried down to meet his cousin as soon as the servants informed him that he’d arrived.
“Where’ve you disappeared to for the last week?”General Fitzwilliam grunted as soon as Darcy entered the room.The officer was already seated at Darcy’s table, slicing a long sausage apart, while sipping a mug of coffee.“Haven’t seen your clothes nor your face for a week.And you haven’t been to the clubs either.If you were a different gentleman, I’d assume you’d fallen in with a lushly proportioned opera singer, and be happy for you, but withyouI became profoundly, and, ah, deeply concerned when you ignored your usual haunts.”
“Really?”Darcy raised his eyes sardonically.
“Notsovery worried.But your servants are all buttoned mouthed about something.”
Darcy had not been to speak with his cousin in the past days, and not just because he had been absorbed by Elizabeth.Perhaps irrationally, Darcy had avoided General Fitzwilliam because he associated the officer a little with his cousin, Lord Lechery.The two even looked similar, though Lachglass was taller and had a handsomer face, while General Fitzwilliam was his superior in every single other respect.
Should he tell Richard about Elizabeth’s presence and ask him to help with keeping her safe and hidden from Lachglass?
