Page 5 of An Offer of Marriage (Engaged to Mr Darcy #7)

MATERIALLY INJURED AND ANGRY

F itzwilliam joined Darcy in his bedchamber a short while later. Darcy lay on his back on his bed, being tended to by Fields. His cousin was silent for some time while Fields cleaned blood from Darcy’s face, probed gently at his chest, and made a poultice for the forming bruises.

“How do you feel?” Fitzwilliam enquired once Fields had completed his ministrations.

“Utterly shocked. Are we safe here tonight?”

Fitzwilliam chuckled but not happily. “That was surely something I could not have imagined. And the old bird just sat there watching! Not a word to stop her crazed daughter! I for one plan to bar the door, or perhaps we ought to stay together, just in case.”

“They are both stark, raving mad.” Darcy sat up and then winced as the shift in position reignited the pain in his ribs which Fields was certain were fractured, and which were certainly bruised, if not.

“You will need to come in here, then, for I am not wholly certain I could make it down the hall. ”

Fitzwilliam nodded.

“I intend to leave tomorrow as soon as I can speak to Elizabeth and have her trunks packed.” Darcy paused a moment to consider whether Elizabeth was safe even tonight. Anne had been dosed quite heavily with what was likely laudanum, he remembered, so she was likely asleep even now.

“Ah yes—your intended wife.” Fitzwilliam sat beside him on the bed. “I confess, you have quite surprised me.”

“Did I? I should have thought my preference rather plain.”

“Hmm.” Fitzwilliam briefly nodded his head to one side which meant nothing at all. “Do you love her?”

“A strange question.”

“Most newly engaged men will answer it readily enough.”

“Precisely. The answer to it is so obvious it need not be asked,” Darcy retorted. “But yes, I…I am in love with her. I have been for some time.”

“For some time?”

“Since last autumn. I left Hertfordshire determined to put her behind me, but?—”

“Wanting to put her behind you? Is that why you persuaded Bingley to give up her sister?”

Darcy looked at his cousin sharply. He had told Fitzwilliam about separating a friend from an imprudent attachment but not which friend or the identity of the lady in question. “What did she tell you?”

“Not a thing,” said Fitzwilliam, looking very serious. “I am afraid I may have told her something.”

Darcy sighed. “This is why I did not tell you any names. The gossiping hens of London have nothing to you!”

Fitzwilliam shrugged. “Guilty as charged, I fear.”

“What did you say to her?”

His cousin suddenly could not look at him, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees and dropping his gaze to the floor. Darcy watched him, hoping Fitzwilliam could feel his eyes upon him.

“I met her yesterday while making my tour of the park. The subject of your friend Bingley arose during that walk. Pray know that what was said was done with good intentions. I did have some notion of your regard for the lady and intended to impress upon her what a good and caring friend you are.”

“So you said what exactly?”

“I told her you had recently separated a friend from a most imprudent marriage, to a highly unsuitable lady. I did tell her that I was only supposing it to be Bingley, but she needed no further confirmation.”

“Why did you think it him?”

“Well, of those you consider friend enough to meddle in their affairs, he is the one most likely to get himself in a scrape.”

“How did she take it?”

Fitzwilliam grimaced. “She was distressed by the intelligence, and at length informed me it was her sister whom Bingley had been attached to. It was dreadfully ill-judged of me.”

Darcy sighed. He had not liked what he did, the lengths to which he had gone to separate Bingley from his infatuation with Jane Bennet.

“I do apologise, Darcy,” said Fitzwilliam in a low voice.

“No, it is not your fault. I cannot deny that I did everything in my power to separate Bingley from her sister, and must be accountable for my actions. There is no one to blame but myself in that matter.”

Darcy shifted again and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as fiery pain went through him.

“But no, it was not wholly to spare myself a future connexion to those in Hertfordshire. I would be lying if I did not acknowledge that yes, the thought did occur to me, that were my friend married to her sister, I could not truly put Elizabeth behind me. But it was not my primary motive; even I am not that selfish.”

“Then why? You had said the lady was so very unsuitable for Bingley, but that makes less sense now that you are engaged to the lady’s sister.”

“I have enough money and a secure enough position in Society for people to overlook it. We will get some comments, I am sure, and some people will not like her because of it, but it is hardly like I am marrying one of the upstairs maids or the like. Bingley, on the other hand…”

Darcy considered for a moment. “Bingley is three-and-twenty and, prior to this, has had a new love every week. He admired her, to be sure, but to find himself tied to a woman who brought him no material advantage and did not, to my eye, seem to love him… I could not watch it happen.”

“If she did not love him, perhaps she would not have accepted him,” Fitzwilliam observed. “Without your intervention.”

“Their mother would not have permitted her to refuse. She did not disguise her desire for her daughters to make advantageous marriages.”

Fitzwilliam barked a laugh. “She must love you, then!”

With a small prickle of unease, Darcy recognised that no, in fact, Mrs Bennet did not particularly like him. In fact, she had always rather disdained him, from the night he had declined to ask Elizabeth to dance. Perhaps the lady is less mercenary than I had initially believed.

“Mrs Bennet’s feelings aside, I have to conclude that Elizabeth was not so wholly dismayed by my interference between her sister and Bingley.”

“Do you think so? Her distress seemed clear to me.”

“She did not seem distressed this evening,” Darcy insisted. “When I proposed to her.”

“Is that where you went?”

Darcy nodded. “I returned to find you hiding from Collins.”

“But her headache? My concern when she did not come to dinner was?—”

“Fitzwilliam, I have weightier concerns than Bingley and Jane Bennet,” Darcy replied dismissively. “Firstly that of removing my betrothed from the county before my mad cousin attacks her.”

“A concern indeed,” Fitzwilliam agreed with a laugh, then rose. “Excuse me while I go inform my man of our imminent departure.”