Page 55 of The Lost Prophecy

Chapter Nine: A Bright Idea in a Dark Room

WICKHAM REMAINED AT the Philips residence for twelve minutes after Miss Elizabeth left.

He spent five of them staring at the door, three accepting Mrs Philips’s concern for his sudden pallor and four waiting for a cloud to settle over the High Street. The performance required patience. A gentleman could not flee from a drawing room after kissing a woman’s hand merely because her blood had awakened an ancient hunger and turned his eyes black. People noticed that sort of thing, especially in Meryton, where a silence of eight seconds qualified as an event.

When the sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud, Wickham excused himself on the grounds of military duty. Denny and Carter accepted the explanation because neither had enough experience of the militia to identify a military duty when one appeared. Wickham bowed to Mrs Philips and left before Mr Collins returned with a bishop, a crucifix, or whatever else clergymen employed when their instincts exceeded their understanding.

His rooms lay on the upper floor of a house near the officers’ lodgings. Reaching them required the careful negotiation of three shop awnings, a covered passage, and twenty exposed feet of pavement. Wickham crossed the final distance under the cloud, entered the house, and climbed the stairs without acknowledging his landlady’s attempt to discuss supper.

He closed his chamber door, turned the key, and drove the bolt into place. The shutters had been left drawn, but a narrow thread of daylight entered between them and lay across the floorboards. Wickham seized a blanket from the bed and wedged it into the opening until the light disappeared.

Darkness filled the room.

The lodgings contained a bed, a washstand, a wardrobe, and two chairs, one of which existed chiefly to obstruct him. Wickham struck it with his knee while crossing the room, kicked it aside, and resumed pacing.

His charm had lasted until the door closed. It deserted him now with the same efficiency it had shown whenever no one remained to admire it.

Darcy had threatened him in the High Street, Hurst had mentioned debts which should have remained buried with the men who held them, and Elizabeth Bennet had refused to believe a perfectly respectable accusation unsupported by fact. Of the three offences, hers was the most irritating.

Wickham had not demanded unquestioning devotion. He had simply expected her to hear that Darcy was proud, unjust, and responsible for the loss of a fortune, then arrange the details herself. Most people were grateful for the opportunity. Give them an injured expression, a dead benefactor, and a refusal to speak from motives of honour, and they constructed the gallows without requiring further assistance.

Miss Elizabeth had asked questions. Worse, she had defended Darcy.

Wickham turned at the wall and paced back to the bed, replaying her answer in a voice made unnecessarily intelligent by memory. Darcy might seem proud, she had said, but she had witnessed honourable principles in him. Wickham could tolerate a woman admiring Darcy’s estate, appearance, or ten thousand a year. Those were ordinary failures of judgement. Admiring his principles suggested that the man had been conducting himself well in private, which was both unlikely and personally offensive.

Darcy had also apologised to her.

That detail had disturbed Wickham’s smile, because his nemesis apologised with the frequency of solar eclipses. If he had surrendered one voluntarily, Elizabeth Bennet mattered to him.

Wickham stopped in front of the washstand. His reflection failed to appear in the small mirror above it, leaving the dark room agreeably free of criticism. He poured water into the basin, dipped both hands into it, and remembered Darcy stepping beneath the milliner’s awning.

Your time has come. Prepare to meet your creator.

The word returned with the force of a command.

Creator.

Wickham lifted his wet hands and watched the droplets slide across skin which had not warmed in fifty-one years. Darcy had created him in 1760, although Wickham had required several months of argument to persuade him.

At the time, Wickham had been young, mortal, and burdened by the offensive knowledge that other men had things he deserved. Darcy had Pemberley, rank, authority, wealth, and a life which was unlikely to end. Wickham had charm, excellent teeth, and expectations which refused to become income.

Immortality had seemed the obvious correction.

“Turn me,” Wickham had demanded one winter evening in Darcy’s library.

Darcy stood at the window with his back to the room, watching snow settle over Pemberley’s lawns. He had not moved for so long that a mortal man might have mistaken him for part of the architecture.

“No.”

Wickham poured himself another glass of Darcy’s brandy. “You have not considered the advantages.”

“I considered them before you entered.”

“You require men you can trust.”

Darcy turned from the window. “That argument would improve if made by a man I trusted.”

Wickham had laughed because offence was less useful than persistence. He followed Darcy through the library, positioned himself between him and the door, and began listing the services he might perform across centuries.