Page 17 of A Maid of No Consequence (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

A COUSIN’S CONFIDENCE

F ollowing dinner, Darcy made an excuse to step away. He might have liked to retire save for the fact that he knew he was nowhere near sleep. Instead, he made a vague excuse about checking on his correspondence and strode down the hall to the gallery where his parents’ portraits were hung.

He stood before them in contemplation, trying to imagine what they might tell him to do. Then he sighed; they might not have wished him to marry Anne but they would have expected a celebrated match to be sure.

He had spent his life doing all that was expected of him, fulfilling duty and obligation. Did he not deserve to be happy?

He was becoming more deeply entrenched in his feelings for Elizabeth, but was he prepared to do as he liked and then live with the consequences of his actions?

It seemed impossible to imagine that after all this time, she might at last be his.

It seemed equally impossible to imagine she would not.

Could he see her married to another? Could he tolerate watching her build a school, build a life… a life that did not include him?

Much as he was tormented and torn, Darcy could not deny there was a feeling of…

completeness that he had never before felt.

Even Pemberley felt different; it was less an imposing manor, and more a home.

Closing his eyes and letting his thoughts drift, he could hear his sons walking the halls, imagine daughters in their gowns and ribbons playing graces on the lawn.

When he walked into his study, he was not surprised to see Fitzwilliam in his favourite chair, with once again, a glass of his favourite claret.

Darcy ignored him until he had poured himself a glass of something a bit stronger than claret. He sat down across from his cousin and stared intently at him until Fitzwilliam broke the silence.

“Before you lay into me with your indignation, I am to tell you that Cook has set aside apple tarts for you. Apparently, Mrs Reynolds and the whole of downstairs noticed you barely ate anything at dinner.”

Darcy remained quietly brooding over his Cognac as Fitzwilliam carried on. “I know that you are not pleased with me for bringing my brother and his wife, but you must own, it is a bit of good fortune that they came when they did.”

“You did not know that when you chose to involve them.”

“I needed reinforcements to?—”

“It was an ambush, and you know it,” Darcy growled.

“After we spoke in London about your feelings for Miss Bennet, I was afraid at what could happen if the situation was not handled in a delicate manner. ”

“Because everything I do is, what? Indelicate?”

“I believe you may not be thinking with your head, as your heart is presently engaged.” Fitzwilliam sipped his claret before hesitantly adding, “Do you believe keeping her at Pemberley is the best choice? Truly?”

“It is one night. She is my responsibility, as are the maid and groom who accompanied her, as far as I am concerned.”

“It will do you no good to have her in such close proximity.”

“And why not?”

“You know why not.”

“I know one thing, and one thing only,” Darcy said fiercely.

“I have loved that woman for nigh on six years. I cannot give her up now, not for anything. No matter her current station, there is nothing to keep me from trying to be worthy of her, regardless of practicality or the opinions and demands of my family.” He sighed.

“Elizabeth has my heart, and there has never and will never be another.”

Fitzwilliam looked at his cousin long and hard. “She is not the wife that society will think appropriate for you. She was not so, even when her father was alive, and now? There are always rules, Darcy. You know that better than I.”

“Rules never made anyone happy. They have never made me happy despite strict adherence to them for thirty-three years.”

Fitzwilliam was quiet for a few more moments before downing the rest of his claret.

He set the glass aside and stood. “I will tell you this: when our headstrong aunt and our cousin arrive here—as you should expect when they learn you have hied off to Pemberley when you are meant to be wooing Anne—I will be gone before they are shown to their rooms. ”

Darcy hoped that such a prediction was wrong but it was his cousin’s pained expression that caught his eye. Fitzwilliam usually looked jovial. “What is it?” he asked. “What are you not telling me?”

“It is nothing.”

Fitzwilliam turned towards the door as if to leave. Darcy moved quickly, walking over to stop him. He put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. Something niggled at his mind, a question he needed to ask.

“You have not been to Rosings with me for at least five years. Before the army, you attended faithfully.”

Fitzwilliam moved away and picked up his empty glass. Filling it once again with claret, he replied, “I am a soldier, you know. My time was not my own for many years.”

“Napoleon was defeated more than two years ago. You are retired on half pay.”

Fitzwilliam swirled the drink in his hand, watching the liquid move in his glass. “It was not agreeable to me to see Anne pushed at you so vigorously.”

It was on the tip of Darcy’s tongue to thank him until he realised that it was possible Fitzwilliam had not done so on his behalf…but on Anne’s.

“Were you protecting Anne from her mother, or from my disinterest?”

Fitzwilliam shrugged, clearly uneasy.

“You love her.”

Fitzwilliam started and almost spilled his claret.

Darcy swallowed. “For how long?”

An unusual flush rose on Fitzwilliam’s countenance. “Since I kissed her the summer I left for my commission in the army. ”

“Eight years?” Darcy exclaimed, feeling how insensible he had been of his cousin’s feelings. “I think you had better sit down and tell me all.”

Fitzwilliam’s face took on a curiously sheepish look. “Must I?”

“I believe a wise man once told me that confession was good for the soul.”

Fitzwilliam scowled. “I hate it when you use my own words back at me.”

“Likewise.”

They stared at each other for a few awkward moments, before Fitzwilliam broke the silence. “Do you truly want to hear this? What good does it do now?”

“Indulge me,” Darcy said with a foreboding look in his eye.

They settled back into their chairs and Fitzwilliam continued. “It was Anne’s twenty-first year. I had just been assigned to my commission and paid a visit to Rosings before leaving for my posting. I decided to take a walk with Anne to the pond near the hawthorn trees—you know the ones I speak of?”

“I do.” Darcy’s eyebrows raised. “Quite secluded, I remember.”

“Well, it was not my intention to kiss her,” Fitzwilliam asserted as Darcy eyed him sceptically.

“It was not. You know she and I have always got on well. We spent many a summer together as children, and when she was so ill, and was almost lost to us…” He paused to catch his breath.

“I spent hours upon hours while she was convalescing, reading to her, and trying to make her smile. We were more than cousins, we were friends. Close friends.” He paused again, and his voice gr ew quieter.

“As it happens, I was merely saying my goodbyes, before leaving the next morning for my commission. I did not know when I would see her again…and then it just happened.”

“You were speaking, and then…?”

“And then we were not.”

Darcy coughed and roused his cousin from his memories. “And what then?”

“I told her I would write to her when I was able. She begged me to stay safe, and perhaps there were one or two more affectionate moments.” He turned to his cousin and smiled softly, his cheeks flushed; it was an expression Darcy had never seen on his cousin’s countenance.

“We walked back to the house, hand in hand. I remember feeling very content, as if we had silently agreed to something more in the future, an unspoken possibility that if I survived whatever I would need to face, Anne would be there waiting at the end of it.”

“And?”

“And then, nothing.” Fitzwilliam paced across the room, and back again. “At supper that evening, she would barely look at me. And when I tried to speak to her alone, there was not a chance. She went to her rooms early, claiming a megrim, and when I left in the morning…”

“I was the only one at your carriage in the morning.”

“Precisely.” He sighed deeply, perhaps relieved to get eight years of wondering off his chest. “And needless to say, there were never any letters from her. I sent a few, with no replies in return. I was not surprised. But I was disappointed.”

“Maybe she was trifling with you.”

“You know Anne. She was never a silly creature. She was livelier then, but never silly. I truly thought…well, it does not ma tter now, does it. It is more likely our aunt discovered what had occurred and thundered about your ‘engagement in the cradle’.” Fitzwilliam sat back down in his chair and swallowed a drink.

“And it has come to fruition. The newspapers say that she is your betrothed.” He gave Darcy a look, equal parts consternation and pity.

Darcy felt flushed with guilt. “I did not know. Had I any idea of your sentiments I should never have allowed?—”

“In all honesty, it does not signify. It was one moment in a life, one of many. Not a very momentous one, I now believe. At least, not for Anne.”

“And you?”

“You know me,” Fitzwilliam chuckled, “a rough and tumbled soldier. Toughest skin in the Matlock line.” He turned towards his cousin. “I am well. I am truly completely well. Do I not look well to you?”

“Methinks you doth protest too much.” Darcy raised his brow at him.

Fitzwilliam shrugged. “What will you do about the engagement?”

“There is no engagement!”

“Not according to the gossips in the broadsheets, and you know, that is all society cares about. You had better think about how to handle that. Sooner rather than later, I say.”

“An engagement notice cannot be binding, otherwise you would have ladies printing the names of whosoever they wished to marry and it would be done. I will have my solicitor look into the legalities of it. My man of business in London will seek out the source of the rumour. I have my suspicions, as you do as well. For now, my immediate attention is on Pemberley. ”

“And the beautiful woman within it?”

He meant to disregard Fitzwilliam’s sarcasm and yet he could only say, “She is quite beautiful, is she not?” before a small smile lifted his lips.

There was a knock on the door. Darcy called out for the footman to enter. Marcus handed a missive, not to Darcy, but to his cousin, raising Darcy’s curiosity. He could not decipher the look on Fitzwilliam’s countenance.

“Good news?”

“In many ways, I suppose it is.” Fitzwilliam refolded the letter, stood up, and handed it to Darcy.

Darcy opened it, read it, and then rubbed a hand over his face. “So, his end has finally come.”

Fitzwilliam nodded. “I assumed it would be at the hand of an outraged father, or from a noose, but not that.”

Darcy set the letter down, “It said the ship has been lost at sea. Do we have certain confirmation he was actually on it?”

“General Timney would not have sent this if it were only hearsay. So, we may take it as truth.”

Darcy stood and went to the hearth, grabbed the poker, and started mindlessly stoking the fire. He remained standing for a few minutes longer, before returning to his chair to stare into the fire. “George Wickham is out of my life for good.”