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“Sir! Wake up!”

Darcy’s eyes flew open. Finn was standing over him, shaking his shoulder.

“What is it? Are we sinking?” asked Darcy in confusion, wrenching himself from his dream.

“No, sir. All is fine but you seemed to be having a nightmare.”

Darcy remembered his ‘nightmare’ very well—the succubus. Hoping he had not been doing anything embarrassing before his valet roused him, Darcy met Finn’s eyes. They were unfathomable, his valet’s face an expressionless mask.

“Thank you, Finn,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster. “What time is it?”

“Eight, sir. Would you like some more sleep? They will not be serving breakfast until ten.”

“No, Finn, I think I shall go up on deck. Enough sleep.”

“Very well, sir. I will nip down to the galley to tell them to put the coffee on the hob while you get up. I will be back in a jiffy.”

Finn returned and, after propping the chair-back against the door, proceeded to help his master dress. As Darcy was drawing on his boots, the coffee arrived on cue. He was about to depart his stateroom, cup in hand, when Finn pulled his beaver from the cupboard.

“It’s cold and foggy out there, sir.”

“Thank you, Finn. You do look after me.”

Emerging from the cabin into the grey light of a fog-bound morning, Darcy felt the moist air kiss his face. He promenaded on the deck, peering through the mist to try to catch a glimpse of the bank, but air and water seemed to make up the universe that morning. Darcy found the captain in the bows, leaning against the rail, smoking a pipe. They fell to talking until the ship’s bell announced breakfast.

In the early afternoon, they reached Nimeguen, the city at the confluence of the Waal and the Rhine. As the captain had earlier advised they would need at least an hour to repair the damage the paddlewheel had sustained, Darcy had decided to take the opportunity to view the city. He knew it to be one of the most ancient in the area, having been occupied by the Romans and the Franks in antiquity. Bingley was eager to see the ruins, even if they were not classical. The whole party set out to walk to the highest point in the city to view what remained of Charlemagne’s Palace, built around 700 AD, and the Chapel of Saint Nicolas, rebuilt four centuries later. At over 800 years old, the church was deemed the oldest in the region.

“Well!” said Bingley, looking askance at the octagonal brick structure. “It’s no great thing, is it?”

“Probably, it is all that is left that has not sunk into the mud,” observed Caroline, twirling her parasol.

In vain did Darcy try to convey some of the history of the site, talking of the Romans as well as the Christmas the King of the Franks had spent there before ordering the palace be constructed.

“I expected there would be a few statues, even if they were missing an arm or two,” opined Charles.

When Hurst spotted a coffeehouse nearby, Darcy gave up, and the party repaired there for refreshments. After disposing of a large plate of delicious tiny pancakes, Hurst declared the outing had been worthwhile after all. He was soaking up the last of the melted butter and powdered sugar with his few remaining poffertjes when a boy ran in with a message from the captain—the paddlewheel was repaired and the ship ready to depart at their discretion.

On returning to the boat, Darcy ensconced himself in the mathematical papers he had brought with him, convinced the combination of Caroline’s nocturnal visit and an idle mind had fuelled his improper dream of Miss Elizabeth. He knew he had no business thinking of a maiden that way. Certainly, he did not wish chancing a repeat of his erotic visions when his valet was staying in the same room.

His program of intellectual distraction was successful. By the time they steamed into Duisburg by the afternoon, Darcy believed he had made progress on the proof of Fermat’s last theorem he had abandoned after his father’s death, when all academic pursuits were dropped as he scrambled to step into his father’s shoes. Estate business and investments had largely filled his mind ever since.

Darcy was also pleased with the ground they had covered so far in their journey. At their current rate of progress, he thought they might possibly be back in London well within the six weeks that had been allotted for their trip, allowing him plenty of time to help prepare Georgiana for her come out in the New Year. This thought, however, prompted less satisfactory reflections. Although he had made it clear to his little sister that she was under no pressure to make a match in her first season, it was very likely she would be snapped up. With her large dowry, good looks and pleasant manner, Georgie could not fail to please. She was also a very accomplished young lady, not that it would make a fig of difference to many. But Georgiana’s inevitable success in the marriage mart would just demonstrate how horribly remiss her older brother, at twelve years her senior, had been in not marrying.

Even more than his sister, Darcy was highly eligible—being heir to a tolerable fortune and an enviable estate. But there was the rub. Darcy was handsome, an intellectual leader and a good sportsman, but he believed he could have been a hunchbacked idiot and still have ladies jumping at the chance to wed him. That was why he had rejected all those who dangled after him. Their overtures came on fast and strong before he had even had a chance to appraise them—he suspected them all of being mercenary. Nonetheless it was his duty to marry and produce an heir.

Miss Elizabeth had been such a breath of fresh air. At first, he had thought she was just like the others when she flashed him that cheerful smile as they were introduced at the Meryton Assembly. Bingley, very much taken with the golden-haired Jane Bennet; had even tried to encourage Darcy to dance with her sister. Darcy was not about to raise the expectations of a country miss. He knew his worth. But during their subsequent interactions, when Miss Elizabeth had scarcely even looked in his direction, Darcy had also begun to realise that under that charming exterior lurked an interesting mind. Certainly, it could not be a first rate one, since she had not had the benefit of a university education. But Darcy had discovered during a subsequent conversation with Sir William Lucas that her father had been a fellow at Oxford before coming into the estate in Hertfordshire. Presumably she read her father’s books. Piqued, Darcy had felt his first ever tug of attraction during her short stay at Netherfield. It was something beyond the fond feelings he felt towards the Duchess of Wingham. Dare he say it? At the Netherfield ball, it had even occurred to him that he might be in love. It was disappointing Miss Elizabeth had exposed herself as the commoner that she was, leaving him at point nonplus. Nonetheless, Darcy felt that Georgiana’s come-out put the onus on him to finally settle down. His union would have to be a cold-blooded decision after all. He resolved to start making a list.

Darcy’s high hopes of making Bonn by the following afternoon were dashed when Hurst announced he wished to shop for cigars in Duisburg. This prompted Caroline to suggest that in all fairness the ladies should be allowed their choice of tourist destinations also, and the ship was subsequently obliged to stop in Cologne for perfume and Bonn for patisserie. These delays had Darcy gnashing his teeth in frustration. While the ladies sampled the scents in the emporia of Cologne, Darcy looked wistfully at the impressive Cathedral and tapped his toe, impatient to be on his way. He realised it had been a tactical error to have suggested the outing in Nimeguen, but when he threatened to abstain from the search for a superior bakery in Bonn, Caroline offered to stay behind to keep him company on board.

Having raided the town for croissants, the tourists barely made it back to the boat before it started raining. From Bonn, it was a day’s journey to Koblenz, the city at the mouth of the Moselle, guarded by the ruined Ehrenbreitstein fortress, which had been destroyed by Napoleon’s troops in 1801. Darcy had gone on deck to view this site. Despite the heavier rain, he lingered in the stern afterwards, held by the beauty of the picturesque landscape as mile upon mile of church spires and castles drew his eye, each fortress inspiring him to imagine himself ruler of that eyrie. Pemberley seemed a rather bland domain in comparison. One of the crew pointed out the Lorelei Rock and recited a popular German ballad he had got by heart, telling of the lovely German maiden who bewitched so many men she was put on trial by a bishop and chose to fall to her death from the rock rather than continue her wicked ways. Darcy, who was not much taken by poetry, listened initially from politeness and to practise his German, but he was strangely struck by the fate of the Lorelei. One line in particular seemed to echo in his head: “I have loved only one man, and he abandoned me and left for a distant land.” Without knowing why, Darcy became pensive, pacing up and down the deck for half an hour before impatiently throwing off his mood.

Darcy’s attempts to lure Charles on deck to share the sights of the Rhine gorge were unsuccessful until they finally reached Bingen, a town which Charles laughingly claimed to adopt as his own. Thanks to the continuing inclement weather, Bingley did not feel the need to set foot there, contenting himself with having one of the crew run his shirt up the flagpole as a joke as they passed the town. When Caroline poked her head from the cabin to reprimand him for his schoolboy behaviour, he told her she should be glad he had not chosen to hoist one of her petticoats instead, as had been his original intention.

“I am sure the sailors would have got a good laugh out of it, Caroline!”

His sister only sniffed in reply.

Darcy tried to smooth the contretemps by relating what he knew of Saint Hildegard, who had started a nunnery in Bingen. Hurst had replied he did not hold with papists and retreated back inside.