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“And of course, word that we were coming hadn’t made it down to the rank and file, so they thought they were seeing a band of enemy infiltrators. In their inebriated condition, it seemed eminently logical to use the cannon.”

Darcy was stunned. “Are you saying that you were fired upon by your own side?”

Richard tried to smile. “And I have the scars to prove it. For better or worse, their aim was off; they overshot us by a fair bit.”

“And thus you were closest. ”

“I was indeed. Tried to jump into a ditch but as I went in headfirst, it protected my handsome face, but not much else.”

“I knew you returned because you had been wounded, but never heard any specifics.”

Richard smirked. “Ah, yes. Let us just say that I spent most of my time in the hospital lying on my belly, shall we? So there I was, stretched out in a muddy, Portuguese ditch, bleeding from my backside, when whose ugly face should pop up like some nefarious chipmunk?”

Darcy was so lost in imagining the nightmarish scene that he didn’t respond.

“It was Dunn, of course. After realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to walk out, he started dragging me.

Unfortunately, the cannon blast had woken up the enemy sentries and one of them came poking around in my ditch.

Before we knew what was happening, Dunn had a bayonet stuck through his shoulder. ”

Richard stood and looked into his whiskey as if it held the answers to all the world’s questions.

“But what happened? How did you get away?”

“I shot him,” responded the Colonel plainly.

“When I first received my commission, Father gave me a little pocket pistol, really too small to do any good except at close range. The lads used to tease me about it but I kept it dry and primed. As soon as I saw that bayonet go into Dunn, I twisted around and fired.”

Richard took a swig of whiskey, wishing it could numb the memory.

“He was just a boy, Darce. Somehow I’d fired into his open mouth, blew the back of his head off, but when he fell, it looked like he was just lying in the grass, staring up at the sky.

He could have been any of the lads we’d ever played with growing up.

” He bit his lip; lately too much whiskey made him maudlin.

They were quiet for some minutes until Darcy finally spoke; “Did Dunn survive?” He was surprised to hear Richard chuckle.

“Oh, nothing could kill that old rat catcher. I pulled out the bayonet and we did our best to wrap up the wound. Then we set about getting ourselves into camp. Used the bayonet as a cane; I had two good arms and shoulders, but my bottom half was a right mess. He had two good legs but couldn’t use his arm.

We made a sorry pair, carrying each other.

I suppose that’s why the sentries didn’t shoot us when we dragged our sorry asses into camp.

But the way we were giggling like a couple of schoolgirls might have been a contributing factor. ”

“What on Earth did you have to laugh about?”

Richard actually smiled at the memory. “We were both nearly bled out, so just about anything seemed amusing.” Seeing his cousin was dumbfounded, he explained, “We’d been in some tight spots over the years but neither of us had ever gotten much more than a scratch.

Now here we were— I’d been blasted by my own side and Dunn had been stuck by some beardless drummer boy with a pigsticker.

I remember telling the surgeon that we had just about enough working parts between us to make one good man. ”

“But you both made it back.”

“More or less. Dunn didn’t lose his arm but it doesn’t work all that well. I may not need a cane but I won’t be winning any footraces.” Richard stopped there. His pride made it impossible to speak of all his injuries, even to the cousin he loved more than a brother.

“What will you do now? Have you thought of resigning your commission?”

Richard shrugged. “Not just yet. I’m due for another promotion in about six months and until then they have me trying to dribble a bit of common sense into these striplings with their morning milk. I was able to keep Dunn with me, at least, and he’s got the barracks humming in rare form.”

The Colonel stood and the effort it took made him decide that he had had enough for the night.

“After that, who knows? Obviously I don’t have an estate to settle down on…

and though they’d take me in, we both know I’d go crazy cooped up with Mater et Pater , trying to be a proper social accoutrement. ”

After their chuckles subsided, Richard continued. “Actually, Dunn and I have been talking about going into a partnership.”

“A business?”

Richard smiled crookedly. “No, politics. I’d be the front man—second son of an Earl, decorated officer, all that rubbish.

And Dunn would be my manager—the puppet master.

Make sure I’m always in the right place at the right time.

Remind me who’s who and keep me from offending them.

Make sure a crowd shows up and cheers whenever I’m to give a speech. The usual.”

Richard shrugged off the serious tone and waggled his eyebrows at his cousin. “But then again, someone from the War Office has been sniffing around. Can you see your old cousin in military intelligence?”

Darcy laughed but there was an edge of worry in his eye. Not wanting to deal with his cousin’s concerns that night, Richard herded them both off to bed.

Will awoke gradually the next morning feeling warm and fuzzy. He couldn’t quite remember how he had made it to his bed but his aching head was enough to remind him vaguely of the evening before. Then the sun peeked from between the drapes and sent a bolt of pain into his skull.

“When will I learn? Never, never drink with Richard,” he moaned. Fortunately, his valet had anticipated him and there was already a glass of water and a packet of headache powder on the bedside table. “Bless you, Hawkins.”

Darcy forced himself to sit up and, leaning against the headboard, drank the concoction.

After several minutes he began to feel more like himself and ventured to open his eyes again.

Almost immediately he made the embarrassing observation that, although he did have his nightshirt on, it had been pushed up above his waist while he slept and he had spent the night wrapped around one of the large pillows that his head normally laid upon.

Added to this were several other observations equally mortifying.

Bits of a dream came back to him, remarkable in its vividness and, glancing down at the pillow that was still resting by his knee, he noted a damp stain that was no doubt the cause (or rather, the result) of his warm and fuzzy feeling.

Darcy groaned and slumped back down onto his (clean) pillow. He hadn’t lost control of himself in such a way since adolescence. What was happening to him? And yet, he could already feel himself stiffening again as he recalled the dream of Elizabeth.

He had been riding through a meadow and fallen.

Elizabeth, with her sparkling eyes and amused expression had come upon him and helped him up.

He had barely made it to a standing position and wrapped his arms around her when he had seen Elizabeth’s expression change.

Turning, he had been confronted with George Wickham in full regimentals and charging at them with a bayonet.

Without a thought, Darcy had pulled a small pistol from his pocket and shot Wickham in the heart.

Elizabeth had been grateful and appreciative…

and they had made love there, out of doors in the sunny meadow, for hours.

Will groaned again and, after retrieving an old handkerchief from his nightstand, covered his eyes with his arm and went about relieving an almost painful tumescence.

When Darcy finally made it downstairs, he was irritated to see Richard already seated, attacking a mountain of eggs, kippers, and toast as if it were any other day.

His uniform looked clean and pressed and his boots were polished to such a sheen that his cousin thought he might get another headache.

Selecting some dry toast and a large mug of coffee, Will seated himself with only a mild glare at his cousin. Richard chuckled. “Ah, civilians. Forgot you were such a lightweight, Wills, my boy. I should have cut you off earlier.”

Unable to come up with anything suitably abusive, Darcy responded with only a grunt.

Finishing his plate, Richard watched his cousin carefully for several minutes before speaking again. “Well then. Are we still going to this wedding?” At Darcy’s short nod, he continued, “Capital! If we leave at eleven we should arrive in plenty of time to get good seats for the performance.”

Darcy rolled his eyes but remained silent.

Putting his napkin aside and standing, Richard chose his words carefully.

“You are still coming to Mama’s dinner party tomorrow evening, yes?

It should be fairly small—just the family, more or less.

I spoke with Georgiana earlier and she seemed eager to attend.

” He did not repeat what else his youngest cousin had intimated about how little she had seen of her brother in the weeks since his return from Kent.

When Fitzwilliam mumbled his agreement but did not appear to note the implied reproof, the Colonel squared his shoulders and allowed the force of command to trickle into his voice.

“And Darcy— if you continue to ignore your sister as you have recently, I shall be forced to take her to stay with Mama for the indefinite future.” Richard was pleased to see Darcy’s head jerk up from his coffee.

“She is lonely and miserable, and worse, she believes that you are angry and disappointed with her because of the Ramsgate affair. In short, she is worrying herself sick and I will not stand by if you continue to mistreat her.”

Satisfied by the stunned look on his cousin’s face, Richard moved to the door.

Before leaving, he couldn’t resist one last dig.

“You should introduce Georgiana to Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She’s just the sort of young lady who could help our girl build up the confidence to face Society.

” And with that, he ducked out the door and chuckled all the way up to his room.

When the two men met again at the front door, Richard was pleased to see his cousin looking better.

Darcy was still very quiet as they traveled to the church but it was a thoughtful silence rather than the melancholy of before.

After the service, Darcy declined an invitation to the wedding feast and farewelled his family.

Richard helped his mother into the Fitzwilliam carriage and, just climbing up after her, glanced down the street.

He was pleased to see his cousin wave off his carriage and begin walking east along Cannon Street.

In truth, Darcy had been struck by the words of the wedding vows as much as those of his cousin.

“I, John, take thee, Cecily, to be my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance.”

Only the Christian names were used, emphasizing the union between those two individuals before God.

Marriage was meant to bond man and woman in mutual support, through good times and bad, for life; not just for the acquisition of wealth and connections.

In considering the words, Will was finally struck by how right Elizabeth had been to reject him.

He might love her but he had never demonstrated that he cherished her; he had not even considered her need to be respected as well as adored.

Darcy sent his carriage ahead, telling the driver to meet him in two hours at Wren’s monument to the Great Fire.

He took a circuitous route that eventually had him walking south along Gracechurch Street.

He did not see Elizabeth but he did take note that the neighborhood was perfectly respectable.

Although the houses were certainly not as large as his own, they were clean and well-kept, and the neighborhood had a sense of vitality.

Children played in a small public park, nurses pushed prams along gravel walks and a well-dressed young man was expounding his philosophy to a group of listeners in a speaker’s corner.

That evening, Darcy made a point of dining with his sister and then joining her in the music room where she exhibited a new piece on the pianoforte.

He was still quiet and thoughtful but Georgiana was somewhat comforted by Richard’s reassurances that her brother’s behavior did not reflect some error of hers. It was a beginning.