“But I did nothing to her! She came searching for me! I only put her up somewhere safe—”
“Oh.” Darcy shrugged again. “Then, I suppose there is no harm done. I will bid you a good day, then.” He stood, tossed a few coins on the table, and started for the door.
“Wait a minute, Darcy!” came a half-petulant cry behind him. “I have not yet done. I have complaints—proofs!”
Darcy turned round and stared at the man who had been a bane to his adult years. “You have nothing. And, as you were so eager to believe the commonly held myth that my father sired Bernard—which is false, and even if it were true, he was still illegitimate—I know now that any ‘proof’ you claim to have is nothing more than a fabrication meant to divert me.”
Wickham sputtered, then hastened to catch up with Darcy, kicking a few chairs from his path. “But I do have Miss Lydia! What have you to say to that, Darcy?”
Darcy opened the door leading out into the street, nodded to the man who stood just outside, and called for his horse. Wickham followed, pushing aside the door that nearly closed in his face, until he stumbled into the very man waiting on the step.
“George Wickham,” Colonel Fitzwilliam growled. “I bring you greetings from my wife.”
Theroundvalleyrangwith the scraping of steel upon steel. Darcy stood beside the horses, who placidly flicked their tails as they gazed disinterestedly at the two struggling men at the centre of the valley.
“You have grown old and fat, Fitzwilliam!” Wickham taunted—yet it was he who appeared to be battling the most for breath. Sweat beaded his forehead in the cool air, but he was too distracted to wipe it away.
“Try me and see if your blade will sink,” Richard shot back. “You will find me a more difficult mark than the one whose honour I am here to avenge.”
Wickham turned his head and spat as he bent forward, leaning his palms over his thighs in a momentary respite. “You do not even like the woman! Why all this fuss and bother over a spoilt heiress who—”
Wickham never finished his insult, for an enraged Richard Fitzwilliam barrelled down upon him and knocked him asunder with the brass hand guard of his sword hilt. Wickham lay back, dazed and bleeding from a missing tooth and a split lip, while Richard calmly cleaned his sword. Darcy remained where he was, leaning one arm against the mane of the nearest horse and examining his pocket watch.
“Do you submit?” Fitzwilliam demanded.
Wickham felt his jaw and visibly winced as he sat up. “Submit to what?”
Richard’s blade caught the sun as he carefully turned it over—a bit of intentional theatrics, Darcy thought, but effective, nonetheless. Wickham closed his mouth.
“These are my terms, Wickham. Either you sign up at once with the next regiment to be deployed on the Continent, or I test the sharpness of my steel against the skill of your tailor. How well do you like the weave of your coat?”
Wickham swiped the blood from his chin and glared—first at Fitzwilliam, then at Darcy. “Are you in accord with this, Darcy? You would truly send a man to his death on the battlefield?”
Darcy replaced his pocket watch. “No. I would send you to prison, as soon as I had gathered your debts.”
Wickham stared, as if expecting Darcy to recant his resolve, then tossed his sword on the ground at Fitzwilliam’s feet. The oaths he uttered as he marched from the field of honour were scarcely fit even to be heard, much less repeated, so Darcy turned a deaf ear and merely prepared to mount his horse.
“I thought you meant to run him through.” Darcy passed his cousin the reins to his chestnut as Richard walked back from the field.
Richard mounted with a grim expression. “No sport in slicing rodents. My dignity would suffer too greatly. Besides, I believe my second would object to cleaning up the body.”
“I would have, yes. Better to let Napoleon teach our old friend a thing or two about valour.”
Fitzwilliam settled into his saddle with a heavy groan. “If he even enlists, rather than leaving the country. What do you think, will he run to America instead?”
Darcy shook his head and turned his mount. “If he does, I hope he takes his mother. So long as he never troubles my family or yours again, I no longer care. What will Anne say?”
“Oh! She would not speak to me for a month if I told her. Remember, ‘nothing ever happened,’ so I will avenge the insult without her knowledge, thank you. Mayhap now, I will be able to look at her without hating myself for failing to do as I wished I had done before.” He glanced thoughtfully up at the sky. “I could… you know, I just might.”
“Might what?”
“Make a decent enough husband. I am not fooling myself into thinking we will develop any romantic feelings—such a thing is rarely to be found, though…” he gave Darcy a peculiar grin. “I have seen it once. Nevertheless, I expect we will rub along well enough. Who knows, I might even have a son one day. But I do think it time I took certain measures to ensure better harmony, and I shall begin by removing my wife and sister to Matlock on the morrow.”
“To Matlock? I hope you know that you are still, and always shall be, most welcome at Pemberley.”
“And I am most grateful, but it is time we began behaving as man and wife, not bickering cousins. Moreover, I expect your life might be simpler without Sophia about, am I right? My father and mother ought to have come away from London by now, anyway. And what do you mean to do?”
“To catch up to Bingley and Miss Lydia, of course. You said they departed for Corbett at once after the two of you found her? And he did send for the apothecary to keep up the illusion of her illness, did he not?”
