“Mr Collins, your belongings should be ready for your departure at your earliest convenience. I would advise you not to linger before collecting them, for my staff have been instructed to burn anything that remains by morning. The constable has heard my complaints, and I have no doubt there are others in this company who could make use of his services. Elizabeth! Let us take our leave.”
She could not bear to look at him. He started to follow as her uncle turned away, drawing close enough to murmur for her alone, “Elizabeth, forgive me.”
She glanced to the floor at his feet… those horrid shoes… the too-short breeches, but her eyes travelled no farther. “Goodbye,” she whispered. Her uncle took her by the arm, and she did not look back.
Chapter thirty-one
She was gone. The one gambling piece and the one prize he might have dreamed, in his wildest fancies, to claim at the end of it all, and she was gone. Darcy started after the closing door for one moment of soul-splitting agony, his heart numb as the family eruption ensued at his back.
“And what had you to do with all this, Richard?” his uncle was demanding.
Darcy sighed and turned to face them all.
“I?” Richard answered innocently. “I knew nothing of it until Darcy appeared at my apartment this morning; barefoot, unshaven, and dressed like a table ornament. I did nothing more than my family duty—I mocked him, gave him a pair of shoes, and attempted to pry whatever entertainment I could from him. He is devilish sober, as he always is, but I did learn an interesting titbit or two.”
“Richard…” Darcy shook his head.
“Indeed, the fool has spoken enough!” Lady Catherine spat. “What manner of falsehood he means to tell now, I care not. We return to the present matter, which—”
“Catherine, you may save your breath to cool your porridge,” the earl grumbled. “Darcy has proof of where he was, and this… costume… he wears…. Nothing but madness or desperation would have found him in public so attired.”
“Then madness it is! It matters not what occurred last night. I am determined to see him do his duty, for he has delayed for years!”She whirled next on him. “Think you that I have no other means of seeing this done?”
Darcy felt a cold stab of fear in his stomach. Had they, after all, uncovered some knowledge of Georgiana’s error? Was there some leverage his aunt and cousin were prepared to wield against him? He spared a short glance at Richard, who was shaking his head in some denial, but it was little comfort.
“And how is it, Nephew,” her ladyship expounded, “that you abandoned all thought for what was proper and went instead to Vauxhall Gardens? This is all a fabrication to escape your duty to Anne. Miss Bennet a lady, you claim! Was your intent to bind your honour up to another so that this Mr Gardiner’s demands might be heard over my own? Who is he, that his sentiments bear any consideration?”
“Aunt Catherine,” Darcy’s tones were hard as ice, “leave my house at once.”
“Darcy, you cannot order your own aunt, a peeress by birth and my own sister, to do anything.”
“I can, and I have. She has insulted me in every possible way, and I do not desire to speak with her again.”
All in the room fell silent before his cold, bitter pronouncement. And well they might! Had he not always kept the peace, sought to please his mother’s relations and made concessions even at the expense of his own wishes? But this betrayal, this was the fracture that would sever the genial fellowship the Fitzwilliams and Darcys had long enjoyed. He glanced at his uncle, for the earl alone possessed the sense and the capacity to extend an olive branch.
The silence was broken, however, not by the earl but by a high, keening wail. He raised a brow and cynically appraised Anne. She had been weeping for some minutes, but now her sensibilities overcame her, and she was heaving and snivelling into a handkerchief.
“F-Fitzw-williamm!” she gasped, fanning herself and stumbling as if she would faint. “Y-you cannot b-b-blame m-m-meeee! It was all Mama’s idea—”
“How dare!” hissed Lady Catherine. “Wicked, treacherous girl! You would turn upon me when it was I who attempted to save you?”
Darcy looked curiously at his uncle, then to Richard, but found no help there.
“I told you he would not cooperate, Mama,” Anne whimpered. “He is too cruel and stubborn, he has never cared what should become of me!”
“If you had not been such a manipulative little fool, you could have secured him properly!” snapped Lady Catherine.
“I beg your pardon,” Darcy interrupted, “but I have been clear for years that I had no intentions toward Anne. I am offended and astonished that not only would you persist in this scheme, but that the pair of you would stoop to such deceitful means to achieve your ends. Anne, could you expect to have merited my respect, had you succeeded in ensnaring me for life? Would you truly have wished to spend an entire marriage hearing my honest opinions of your actions? And Aunt Catherine,” he turned a withering glance upon that lady, “I can but think you motivated by something truly horrendous if you could justify betraying me in such a devious manner.”
“You forced my hand, Darcy!” she scowled. “Had you only done your duty in the first,years ago, Anne would never have been permitted—”
“Mother!”
Lady Catherine narrowed her eyes. “It was notmydoing, after all.”
“Oneof you two,” interrupted the earl, “explain at once!”
“I believe I might be able to offer something of an explanation,” Richard broke in. “Darcy, there is a most interesting fellow just in the hall who wishes to speak with you. He had just arrived almost at the same moment as Mr Gardiner and myself, and I believehe ought to be heard.” He flicked his head toward the door, and Wilson, who had been among the horde of followers when Mr Gardiner arrived, opened it.
