“We shall be leaving in the middle of March.”
“Beware the Ides of March.”
“Superstitious nonsense.”
“Maybe.” Richard shrugged.
“Enough foolishness.” Darcy gestured to a stack of correspondence. “I have work.”
The colonel offered Darcy a mock salute before he left the study. “I am off to find my amiable cousin, Georgiana.”
However, Darcy did not return to the mountain of post and business papers he had to look over. His mind was more agreeably engaged as he thought of fine eyes, dark ringlets, and rosy cheeks from walking three miles…
March the fifteenth brought rain. But that did not deter his or Richard’s determination to fulfil their duty to their aunt.
Would marrying Anne be so wrong? Was he shirking his duty by not fulfilling the desire of all the family? Pondering these questions, he was haunted by a pair of fine eyes. Darcy was so preoccupied with his contemplations that he hardly noticed his cousin, who seemed in a dark study as well.
While Jane Bennet’s wedding festivities took place, George Wickham lay low, knowing Colonel Fitzwilliam was in Meryton—such rotten luck. A pretty heiress who excited him, and he could not go near her.
Well, he was known as Wily Wickham amongst his school friends for a reason. He waited patiently until he was at liberty to work his charm on Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
He kept himself warm all winter with thoughts of how he would marry her, what a sweet wife she would make. It was wonderful that she had been chosen to inherit out of all her sisters, of anyone in Meryton, for the only other chick to pluck was Miss Mary King, a nasty, freckled little thing with nothing to say for herself but her ten thousand pounds.
Lieutenant Wickham had informed Colonel Forster that he had a dying aunt and was begging him to join her side. Once he was given leave, Wickham had wasted no time in going to Hunsford where he booked a room at Frog and Toad on the outskirts, a place of ill repute that he had stayed in before. Once Wickham had secretly observed the day-to-day goings-on in the parsonage then he would act. It vexed him that she seemed to be in company with either Darcy or the Colonel, but he patted his gun that he kept concealed at his hip by his brown coat.
Wickham was ready and would begin his campaign on the morrow. Soon he would be drinking fine wine, in fashionable attire, in a comfortable study with his rich wife—just how it should be.
The poet Thomas Grey said ignorance was bliss, and his wit did him credit.
MrDarcy and Richard were ignorant of Wickham’s presence. Elizabeth was ignorant that three different men were courting her, and all three were unaware of the serpent writhing in the grass.
MrDarcy was ebullient, believing his walks with Miss Bennet had produced tender feelings. She seemed to understand his need for peace, not filling his ears with inane chatter, clutching his arm, or flattering him. Miss Bennet was considerate of his reticence, and she put him at ease in a manner no one else had since his mother was alive.
How could he have known?
He was almost whistling on his walk to encounter Miss Bennet, somewhat prepared to propose to her as he knew his heart. The smile vanished from his face the moment he turned the corner, expecting to see her—only to find Miss Bennet standing beside the man he hated most in the world.
Not only that, but an equally irritated Richard came from the opposite direction.
“Wickham!” Richard shouted, his face purpled with rage.
Trouble always comes in threes. Trouble always comes with Wickham.
“Why, Colonel Fitzwilliam! Darcy! What… What…do you do here?”
“My annual visit to Rosings. What doyoudo here?”
“Courting, Fitzy, what does it look like?” Wickham sneered.
Darcy said, “I am courting Miss Bennet,” as Richard declared, “Miss Bennet and I are in a courtship.”
“What?” all three spoke at once.
Miss Bennet stepped back and coughed into her handkerchief. “I was not aware I was courting anyone.”
“What do you mean you were not aware?” Darcy asked. He caught her furrowed brow, and her lips thinned. “We walked every morning these past weeks. You must have known I was courting you.”
“If your silence and displeasure with my company is your idea of courting.”
