General Fitzwilliam glared angrily at his vile relation, but when Darcy started speaking he twisted his face fractionally in confusion as he glanced at Darcy.
“The woman who beat my head in!That damned whore.I can’t believe,” Lachglass sneered viciously, “cannot believe you offered marriage to such a pathetic creature.Though she is skilled at refusing her betters what they deserve from her—” Lachglass erupted in laughter.He grinned at General Fitzwilliam.“Nice to see you here too, Soldier Dickie, such a lark — and Wickham.Old dear, George Wickham.Letting him run off with that sweet little skirt Georgiana.Both of you.”He made a series of kissing noises.“Little Georgie has turned out pretty, pretty.A pretty pity that she has such a fondness for men likethat.”
Darcy went pale and cold.
He now recognized the paper Lachglass waved in his hands.The letter he’d written to Elizabeth after she refused his offer of marriage.
“Lech,” General Fitzwilliam drawled.“I am quite put out with you at present.If you say anything, of any sort, about Georgiana, I will challenge you.”
“Nonsense.You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
Lachglass blinked at the officer staring at him with his calm eyes, but General Fitzwilliam sat in a coiled manner that hinted at violence at Darcy’s breakfast table.The officer’s hand still gripped his sharp breakfast knife.
Lachglass pointed at Darcy again.“Our idiot here — he offered marriage to a governess, and she turned him down!Down straight.”Lachglass laughed again.He paced from side to side in the dining room, rather like an angry tiger in a menagerie going from one side of its cage to the other, the tail wrapped around the haunches.“Did she come to you?Did she!”
“I certainly have never,” Darcy replied severely, “offered marriage to a governess.”
“Ha!You have!Tomygoverness.Mine.I’m going to have her hung for stealing from me.Hung you hear?Hung.”He stuffed the pages in Darcy’s face.“Remember this?Remember asking Swinging Lizzy to marry you?”
“Perhaps if you let me examine those papers,” Darcy replied as he reached his hand out to grab the letter.
“Nope, nope, nope.Upon my honor, I’ll never give them back to you.Mine now.Jove!What a fool you were in love.”
“I do recognize my handwriting on the page,” Darcy said.“It is quite possible I did write whatever you think I wrote.But I am quite certain this was not a letter addressed toyou.So you have added the theft of correspondence to your other sins.”
“Damn you, Darcy.We are almost related.You ought to help me find her and punish her, for family sake—”
“I am tempted to shoot you, straight through the head, for family sake.”General Fitzwilliam calmly poured himself another cup of coffee as he spoke, making that statement as decidedly and casually as he might state a plan to go for a ride in Hyde Park.
Lachglass sidled away from General Fitzwilliam.“What has gotten into you, coz, of late?You weren’t always such a mud stick.”
General Fitzwilliam made not reply.
“So!Elizabeth Bennet.Darcy, you are damned going to tell me if the woman who tried tomurderme sought refuge here.Swinging Lizzy hasn’t visited her relations, nor any friend I can track, but her aunt and uncle did receive a letter written on fine, expensive stationery, and delivered through a poor beggar boy who disappeared before he could be questioned by the constables.Someonewith resources is hiding her and protecting her.”
“Ah, Elizabeth Bennet.NowI remember who you are talking about.”Darcy quirked his head.“Shedid that to you?A woman.”And Darcy laughed with a pretense of good humor.“What a silly sight you make.IfI’dbeen banged over the head by a slight short girl stealing twenty pounds from me, I’d just salute her for her success and never tell anyone that I let awomanget the drop on me.What say you, Fitzwilliam?”
The officer grunted and sipped his coffee.His cold blue eyes never left his cousin’s face, and his right hand loosely lay over the handle of his knife, in such a way that it was clear he could grab the weapon and stab Lachglass in a single fast motion.
Lachglass looked carefully at General Fitzwilliam and paced to the opposite side of the room from his cousin.It was only when the table was between them that he began to shout again.“Over the head!She beat me over the head.She tried to kill me, just so she could steal a purse full of coin from me.She stole twenty pounds off my body.So did this murdering thief come to you and sell you some story about being raped, needing refuge, and a lie about how she now wanted you—” Suddenly Lachglass broke into high-pitched giggles.“I laughed out loud for twenty minutes when I found this letter.Marriage!To a governess.You offered hermarriage.”
“If I ever did, it is certain that I would trust her story above yours, had she come here to ask for my aid, which Miss Bennet didnot.”
“I’ll need to inspect your rooms.Let me wander round them.Let me wander round.”
“I shall not.And I would kindly ask you to return that letter.It was ill conceived for me to have written it in the first place, and Miss Bennet ought to have taken closer care of it to prevent it from falling into the hands of those who had no business being privy to my affairs.In the unlikely case that I ever meet Miss Elizabeth again, I will reprimand her for doing so.”
“Haha!You’ll meet her again!You’ll meet her when you watch Swinging Lizzy walk the gallows walk.I’m going to have that slut hung.”
“Cousin.I think you’ve stepped past the boundary with that last insult against Miss Bennet.”General Fitzwilliam had silently stood, and then he quickly moved so that it seemed it had taken but an instant for him to step inches away from Lachglass, who awkwardly shuffled backwards from General Fitzwilliam.“I too have met Miss Bennet.It is my duty as an officer of the crown to defend all British womanhood.I am challenging you to a duel.Apologize publicly to Miss Bennet, or we will face one another across the field of honor, and I will blow your brains apart.”
Lachglass paled further.
And then his face became red.“You are just, just…” Lachglass sneered and turned up his nose.“Soldier Dickie, I have never heard such a ridiculous excuse for duel.I am fully in my rights to not accept such a challenge.”
“No?You admit then to being an honorless coward who hides his rapes behind accusations of theft.I shall tell everyone of our acquaintance that you refused to meet me if I do not hear either an apology to Miss Bennet’s character, or if I do not see you tomorrow morning on the field of honor.”
