Page 4 of An Offer of Marriage (Engaged to Mr Darcy #7)
HELL HATH NO FURY
“ E ngaged to be married to Miss Elizabeth Bennet?” Lady Catherine scoffed at his announcement.
“Yes. I have not yet gone to her father, so I would ask that?—”
A terrible, ear-splitting scream pierced the room.
His gaze jerked from his aunt to Anne, seeing she had thrown off the shawls she wore, had turned her face to the ceiling and howled.
Her keening wail was positively bloodcurdling, and went on seemingly forever; Darcy found himself frozen in place with the shock of it.
Fitzwilliam half-rose from his seat. “Shall I go for Mrs Jenkinson?” No one replied to him.
Darcy forced himself to stand and go to his cousin. He knelt by her chair, and took her hand which happily made her stop howling and look at him. “Anne, I do apologise. Forgive me for having injured you, it was not?—”
“Ruined!” she shrieked, sounding hysterical. “You have ruined me, Darcy! ”
“No, I have not?—”
“I am six-and-twenty! Had I any notion at all that you would throw me over, I could have had other suitors!”
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but you must admit I have never indicated, in any way, that I had intentions towards you, nor have I ever discouraged you from seeking the attentions of other gentlemen.”
“Mama has always said we were to wed! Tell me how I was to go seek a suitor when I believed myself promised to you!”
“Anne.” Darcy tried to speak very reasonably, even as his position kneeling by her felt increasingly awkward. He rocked back on his heels a little to relieve it. “No matter what your mother has said of it, we never spoke of it.”
“Do not blame Anne,” Lady Catherine intoned from across the room. “She is the victim here and should not be held to account for your malfeasance.”
Darcy turned his head to look at his aunt. “And I should not be held to account for your misguided beliefs, or the things you have led your daughter to believe, that have never been in any way grounded in reality.”
A fierce blow to his face toppled him backwards, his head ringing from the astonishingly forceful strike. A warm trickle on his cheek suggested she had cut him as well. No wonder; Anne favoured massive, glittering rings as her mother did.
He winced, raising his hand to his cheek as he pulled himself to a seated position. Anne stood over him, breathing hard and looking like she might scream again. Fitzwilliam had risen from his sofa, but Darcy waved him back even as he removed his handkerchief to dab at the wound on his face.
“Anne, what the devil was that?” Fitzwilliam asked sternly .
“No less than what he deserved,” Lady Catherine retorted.
“Any attempt to physically beat me into an engagement is sure to fail,” Darcy replied angrily.
He moved to stand—or at least he believed he did—but next he knew, another blow had come to his head, sharper and more painful, frighteningly close to his eye, and he was on his back on the rug once again, a keening weight pinning him there.
He would never strike a woman of course, and only raised his arms to protect himself.
“Get off of me!” That earned him a knee between his legs and a punch to his ribs that was so fierce it nearly caused him to faint.
Then Anne was suddenly pulled away, shrieking and howling like a madwoman, and he realised Fitzwilliam had leapt to his aid and yanked her off.
Fitzwilliam carried her, writhing, towards the fainting couch in the far corner of the room.
“Get Jenkinson,” Fitzwilliam roared to someone nearer the door. A servant, Darcy supposed through the haze of dull agony in his head and ribs. He carefully pulled himself into a seated position on the floor.
Fitzwilliam had laid Anne out on the couch.
Her anger had subsided into ineffective swipes of her hands and arms, accompanied by sobbing and cursing.
Mrs Jenkinson ran into the room seconds later holding a phial aloft.
She handed the phial to Anne who drank it amid her tears but then immediately turned her head and spat, spraying it all about her, some of it landing on Fitzwilliam who had remained close.
Lady Catherine and Mrs Jenkinson cried out, and Mrs Jenkinson pushed the phial towards her once again.
“Come now, Miss de Bourgh,” she crooned.
“I know the taste is dreadful, but it will help soothe you.”
“How can I be soothed when my own husband will be married to another woman!” she exclaimed furiously, but took the phial from Mrs Jenkinson’s hand, drinking from it. Drinking all of it, Darcy noted.
Anne rested a moment, eyes closed; then she raised up slightly and gave Darcy a glittering glare. “This is not over. You may think you can simply ruin my life and go on your merry way, but you are not safe and neither is she. Elizabeth Bennet will rot in Hell before I shall see this stand.”
Lady Catherine nodded vigorously from the chair where she had watched the proceedings with no effort whatsoever to soothe her daughter. “Pretentious upstart! Who is she to insert herself into this family?”
“What are you saying, Anne?” Darcy tried to chuckle but intense pain in his ribs stopped him. “You intend to leave the house for once to go threaten Miss Bennet?”
Anne thrust one pointed finger towards him even as Mrs Jenkinson begged her to remain supine. “See if I do not.”
“This is absurd,” Fitzwilliam said, throwing his hands in the air. “Anne, you are upset and do not mean a thing of what you say, I am sure. You have attacked Darcy?—”
“And I would attack him again,” Anne retorted. An unbecoming brick-red flush was laid over her customary greyish pallor. “And after that, her . A fine and fitting punishment for him, to take away the woman he loves!”
“You have lost your wits,” Darcy informed her, then managed to rise to his feet.
Everything ached, his ribs definitely felt broken, and his groin throbbed in a way that was making him nauseated.
He turned towards the door and began to walk out of the room, only to be stopped by a phial hitting him in the back of the head.
He heard it clatter to the marble floor and turned back to look at his cousin with unhidden astonishment.
“See that?” Anne said with a smirk. “I would bet you had no notion that I could throw so far or with such accuracy. Do not doubt me, Darcy—I am capable of far more than you could ever imagine. Miss Bennet had better watch her back. Hell hath no fury like a woman who has had her husband stolen.”