“Is there…” Elizabeth bit her lip, and then shrugged.“You shall need to go to Cambrai immediately, I believe, General Fitzwilliam.”
Major Williams answered for his commander, “Not so quickly, we’ll wait till all the regiment, the men left in England, come by ferry from Dover.Best to all march out in a body.That will take a deuced long time — you have no notion howslowlya large body of men can move.”
“Do you think… shall it be a great problem for me that my French is… ah less than perfectly polished?I swear, I canreadanything in the language, but while I made an attempt to teach it to my pupil, it seems I needed a teacher myself.I have not had much occasion to speak to authentic Frenchmen — this establishment is well equipped for English travelers, but—”
“Not a problem at all,” Darcy replied.“My French and German are excellent but on my Grand Tour I travelled to Russia and Poland and through Bohemia and Hungaria.You can manage well enoughanywherewith shopkeepers by pointing and showing a few coins.You must also angrily shout and wave your arms about if you think they wish to cheat you.”
“Here in France many speak decent English, the better to take advantage of our leisured classes.”General Fitzwilliam laughed and patted his Major Williams on the shoulder.“Fitz told me that you encountered your old school chum, Lord Wakefield.”
Darcy’s sour face made Elizabeth laugh.
“He is,” she said, “the sort of man who appears to have walked off a satirical drawing — it is easy for you to say I need not worry about speaking French, but I am trapped here.How isyourFrench, General?”
“I get along well enough.Always have,” General Fitzwilliam looked at Major Williams with a smile, “My governess ensured I had it pounded into my head.”
“You know,” Major Williams said, “I askedherif you were such a diligent student as you pretend you were, and while she confesses to believing you were already as charming as at present — not thatIbelieve that you are charming in the slightest—”
“I do,” Elizabeth laughed.“But how are you both acquainted with General Fitzwilliam’s governess?”
“She is my fine and fantastical mother,” Major Williams replied with a smile.
Elizabeth’s attention was drawn to Darcy drawing his breath sharply in and looking with a close frown at Major Williams.
“Yes,” General Fitzwilliam said grandly to Darcy.“My father’s bastardy.Also why she was dismissed.He’s my half-brother.”
Darcy blinked.And then he extended his hand to Major Williams.“That makes us cousins as well.As close related as I am to Richard.”
The young officer laughed.“I’ll acceptthatconnection a little more nicely than most — I’m not terribly enthused by a great many of my nobleconnections.”
“Ha,” General Fitzwilliam said, “but you are still a Fitz William.”
“Wait,” Elizabeth said with some surprise.“Your father acknowledged him?”
“No.”Both Major Williams and General Fitzwilliam laughed.
Major Williams lounged back in his seat.“My Christian name is Fitz.That makes me Fitz Williams — my mother wished to claim the old earl as my father when she Christened me, but he had threatened to remove the little support he offered her — the bare least that hecoulddo.She was not such as to stand upon noble but unadvantageous principles when the happiness of her child was at stake, and I am glad for this, for my life could have been significantly worse had she fought for the principle in the matter — what education I did receive, and my commission as an ensign and then a lieutenant and captain were purchased through that means.”
“Perhaps, as he did support you, you ought not be so angry him, as I perceive you and General Fitzwilliam to be.”
“Iam angry atdearPapa,” General Fitzwilliam said, “for certainty.”
“’Twas the normal story, as I understand it.”Major Williams said, “I asked my mother what occurred once, when we’d returned from Spain, before Waterloo.She was not raped, for she did not scream or fight as you did.But she was neither willing.Such is my belief.Perhaps I am wrong.You cannot speak with a parent in any detail about such events, but… I have never once met my father.He did not wish his wife to know of his indiscretions, and the reason why the governess was dismissed without her say so.”
“And she then named you Fitz Williams.To spite your father?”
“A joke, a two-fold joke — my mother has a fine education, her father was a poorer vicar.It has always been a common thing to name bastards by appending Fitz to the family name.My father’s line starts with a favored mistress of a king — but to name meFitz-Fitzwilliamwould have been more ridiculous than even Fitzwilliam.Fitzwilliam,” Major Williams poked General Fitzwilliam as he said this, “is sufficiently pretentious and nonsensical.”
“I would not say that,” Elizabeth replied, herself nudging Darcy.“In my ear there is a sweet sound to it.”
Darcy smiled widely at her saying that.He was her savior, so of course his Christian name had a sweet sound to her ears.
“I’ve been thinking,” General Fitzwilliam said, leaning forward, and rather viciously sawing his meat with a knife.“How to convince my loose, leaky, lecherous cousin to forget charges against you?Public pressure is the thing: The people love stories of aristocrats proving their rights should be taken away.Let’s have the story told clear and simple so everyone in London hears it and knows what sort of creature Lord Lechery is.”
Elizabeth sat straighter, her hand holding her cup of coffee.It tasted nice, but very milky with this much cream in.“I would like his reputation to be generally known, so he cannot simply hire another woman who will enter such a place unknowing of the risk.”
“Ha,” General Fitzwilliam said.“You have that fire in you, to want some revenge against him.”
“No, no.”Darcy placed his hand on Elizabeth’s elbow briefly, and she smiled at him, enjoying the comfort of his incidental touch.“Let’s not wish to splash a bad reputation for you about town.Lechery will not drop his plans that way; he will pursue them assiduously, because hemustprove that he was right.”
