“Your ambition to kill him must be my excuse. He is in the militia under a Colonel Forster.”
He stood abruptly, grasped his head, and sat back down with a hard thump. “Lord, my head! Darcy, are you certain?”
“I am.”
“I could be back in London in good time for Georgiana.”
“Might you spare yourself the noose? I mention his whereabouts only because I want him ruined in that neighbourhood. They think well of him…Miss Elizabeth Bennet thinks well of him.”
This last I had muttered below his hearing, and he was, by that point, utterly preoccupied with his own thoughts.
“Consider it done,” he said. “I should resort to the soldier’s remedy for this head and be off at first light.”
I politely declined his offer to send Donaldson to me with a questionable brew of spirits, rhubarb, and myrtle, and I, too, retreated to my room. I slept a little, stared out the window, read two letters, and drank cups and cups of tea. The reality sat heavily upon me throughout my recovery from my appalling drunkenness—I had nearly offered for a woman who hates me!
By what failure of judgment had I come so close to such a humiliating encounter? Was I stupid? It boggled my mind. I saw no way forwards, nor could I see any way back to some blissful time when I did not love her.
“Sir? Are you well?”
“As well as can be expected. Why do you ask?”
After a brief pause, Carsten said, “I misheard you, sir.”
“Misheard me? I did not speak—did I?”
“I am certain you did not. Only I heard what I thought was…”
“Well? Out with it, man.”
“…a moan, sir.”
“It is possible you did,” I finally admitted, wishing only that he thought the cause was my thumping head, not the shocking truth I had just owned.
I love her. I confessed this to myself again, and then another thought took hold.
My God, could anything be worse?
CHAPTER 8
Could anything be worse?This had apparently been a fatal question, since I was soon to discover the answer was unquestionably yes.
In the morning, I met Fitzwilliam at the steps under cover of a light but persistent rain. If the sun had come up, which the clock said it must have done, it did not illuminate the scene. His carriage stood ready; he had his caped greatcoat slung carelessly over one shoulder and the gold brocade and buttons of his uniform shone in the light from the open door behind me. He clasped my hand.
“Try not to murder him,” I said warmly, glancing at the sheathed sword he held in his other hand.
He made no promises. “Tell Georgie I shall wait upon her with my whole heart when I get to town.” He turned to step into his coach but looked back at me and said, “And tell Lady Catherine you do not mean to marry Anne, Darcy. It is past time she knew.”
“She knows already.”
“Aye, she does. Yet, she still believes.”
I made him no promises either. He was certainly right, but given how shaken I was, I could not conjure a sufficiency of willto apply to that situation. I felt so strangely weak, and I watched a little helplessly as Fitzwilliam’s coach disappeared down the drive.
Even after I was alone, I stood there, reflecting that the only good that had come of the last two days had taken place at the previous night’s dinner.
Though our aunt had harangued him for some time, upon finally realising she could not sway Fitzwilliam to stay, Lady Catherine had invited Mr Collins’s party to dinner as a begrudging gesture of farewell to her favourite.
I shall not parse words, for Fitzwilliam would always be her favourite. Not only was he the son of an earl, but he was trained as an officer of Wellington’s to be socially charming and deftly conciliating while never giving away a particle of ground. I, on the other hand, was ‘not warm’, and I had only been placed provisionally higher because I, or more precisely my fortune, had a particular use to her.
