Page 59 of Yearning

“What did you see?”

“Your leaving her house the night before his funeral!”

“Well, that doesn’t mean that I… it doesn’t mean anything other than that I was there.”

Mr. Darcy took another sip of his brandy and simply stared at his cousin.

Richard sank into a chair. “All right, all right, but it’s not my child.”

“What do you mean?”

“I did not spend in her, so it is not.”

“That is not foolproof, and you know it,” said Mr. Darcy. “You and I have both heard of it, of women falling with child after such things.”

“Yes, but that’s after time and time again with a man, and it was only once, and anyway, it was sort of… well, it was not exactly… I find I do not want to speak to you about this!”

Darcy took a larger drink of brandy. “It must be your child, Richard.” He furrowed his brow. “Wait a moment, how do you even know she is with child?”

“Oh, I have made inquiries. I am paying one of the members of her staff to get what information he can get from her maid. I go and meet with him every two weeks, pay him, and he tells me… she is with child. And I did not spend in her, so that means she was with someone else, because she told me that it had been some time since her husband touched her.”

“That’s nonsense, Richard,” Darcy murmured. “That’s absolute nonsense.”

Richard downed all of his brandy and set the glass down with a clatter. “Likely, yes.” He blinked at the glass. “I have tried to get the maid to ask her who the father of the babe is and she is insistent that it is her late husband’s. None of the other servants remember there being any other man there at any point, besides me.”

“Why have you not gone to her?”

“Why have you not gone to her?” Richard lifted his gaze to his.

“Well… Georgiana and the little babe, little Henry, and I thought they might both leave us, so I was preoccupied.”

“You had time before that.”

“I did,” he admitted.

It was quiet. Richard poured himself more brandy. Darcy regarded his. Moments passed.

“All right,” said Richard, “the truth is, she was not exactly present when I took her to bed. She was there, but she was not there.”

“When you took her to bed in the wake of losing her husband, she was not as demonstrative as you like, so you are punishing her?” Darcy was going to hit his cousin. He was going to hit him very hard. He really wanted to hit him for getting Elizabeth with child and not marrying her, anyway. He wanted to hit him for going to bed with Elizabeth at all, in fact. He very much wanted to hit him.

“No, no, no. This is why I did not wish to speak of it with you.” Richard ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “It was difficult to do it. It began to feel… like I was rutting into my sister or something.”

“You do not have a sister.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do not. At all. What a thing to say.” Darcy grimaced.

“This is why I did not spend in her. I felt… I don’t know… she did not seem to want me, and I found I could not want her, not if she did not want me. I do not know why it was such a worry. I have had no trouble with any number of bawds who likely were simply counting their money in their heads as I grunted over them, but with her… it was not that sort of desire between us, that is all. And I do not think she wishes to marry me, and I thought you were going to… why have you not gone to her?”

“What if she does? Want to marry you, I mean?”

“Here is what I think,” said Richard, picking his brandy glass. “I think you must go to her and ask her to marry you, and if she refuses you, then I shall ask, but only if we are certain she does not want you.”

Mr. Darcy’s heart squeezed. It hurt. He actually put his one good hand to his chest. “You think she might want me?”

“I have never wanted to be in the midst of things between the two of you, and I am always in the midst of things.”