“Mr Darcy, a marriage requires consummation to be recognised as complete, in the hopes that there be symbolic union and some issue.”
“And how do you know there will be no such thing?” Darcy asked in a low voice that Miss Bennet would not overhear. “It is not for me to interfere in the affairs between a man and his wife.”
The parson scowled for a full minute, glancing back and forth between Darcy and Bernard. “Very well.” To the couple, he spoke next. “Mr Wickham and Miss Bennet, are you prepared?”
Darcy looked to the lady and saw her countenance was now a nauseated shade of green. She was curling her lip in distaste as Bernard sat up and made some crude reference to her chastity.
“They are both ready,” Darcy answered for them. The look in Miss Bennet’s eyes spelled murder, but she held her tongue.
“Miss Bennet, will you stand here? And you must take your betrothed’s hand. I absolutely insist upon this much.” The parson turned a stern look on Darcy as Miss Bennet shrank from Bernard’s diseased flesh.
“Here.” Darcy produced a handkerchief and wrapped it over her fingers as she stared open-mouthed back at him. “I am a man of my word, Miss Bennet.”
She took it with a last scathing glare, and a few moments later, Mrs Bernard Wickham tossed the handkerchief back in his face with a vengeance.
Spirited, indeed.
Two
Whathadshejustdone?
Elizabeth fought down another wild surge of panic as the truth of the last four days shook her breath once more. Was she truly…? She closed her eyes and extended her left hand, then cautiously peeked at that fourth finger. That was still a ring.
Was not the husband supposed to provide such a token himself? Yet, she was somehow bound to such a poor excuse for a spouse that his friend—if that was what Mr Darcy was—had produced the gold band. And the license. And a trousseau, of sorts, if the five new gowns and the trunk full of personal apparel that had appeared in her room were truly hers.
And now, during the time in which many couples took wedding tours, she was in a carriage bound for work in Derbyshire, with a man whose expectations were a mystery and whose very presence was bewildering. She hoped desperately that his sister did not resemble him.
“Halt,” Mr Darcy ordered the driver. The carriage stopped, and he dismounted and walked away with no word of explanation. Elizabeth watched him curiously and waited.
“Mrs Wickham, the house will not improve in appearance for your delay,” he summoned.
Elizabeth leaned over the maid, a little farther towards the open door and beheld the prospect she had not seen through the window. Slowly she uncurled her stiff legs and made her careful way down from the coach. A gentleman would have stepped back to help her, but Mr Darcy only watched from several feet away as a footman performed the task.
Perhaps it was because she was no longer Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn, daughter of a man of leisure, whose name and person commanded the respect of any who would call himself a gentleman. No, she was now Mrs Wickham, a woman of reduced circumstances in the employ of others. She had thought herself prepared for all that accompanied her change in status, but it seemed she was not.
Still, her circumstances were not all bleak. Mr Darcy stood with his thumbs tucked into the pockets of his coat, as if impatient for her to catch up. When she did, he pointed disinterestedly at the stone house just below the rise on which they stood. “Corbett Lodge, such as it is.”
Elizabeth felt the warmth rising in her breast. A house—a real house, large enough for all her family! This made everything worthwhile.
“The stonemasons come next week, and the roof is to be re-tiled as soon as the rains hold off. I will have the cow shed re-thatched, as well. Bernard promised to pay me back for the expense of all the repairs.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes up to the gentleman. “With what?”
“He said I could take it out of his whiskey allowance.” Mr Darcy’s voice was perfectly flat, but Elizabeth thought she detected a curve to the left side of his mouth. He had not made a jest, had he?
“I expect the house will be habitable again in just over a month, weather permitting,” he continued. “But it may take longer to rid it of the rats.”
“Rats!”
“And pigeons. But Bernard says they are fine company, and juicy to eat.”
Elizabeth shuddered. “I hope you are in jest again, sir.”
He turned with a half smile. “Speaking of victuals, let us go.”
GeorgianaDarcydidnotresemble her brother, either in looks or in personality.
The young lady was of better-than-average height and a sturdy, long-limbed build, with fair hair and the lightest blue eyes Elizabeth had ever seen. She felt keenly the contrast to her own less fashionable appearance—darker and more shapely—but Georgiana Darcy was such an unaffected character as to make Elizabeth forget her discomfort nearly as soon as it had been conceived.
