Page 1

IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO

D arcy had taken but one step into the room before he was brought up short.

Stifling a startled exclamation, he retreated and silently eased the door closed.

Perhaps unwisely, he did not immediately leave, but he could not quite bring himself to believe what he had seen.

Instead, he remained at the door, fingers wrapped around the handle whilst he questioned his sobriety, his eyesight, even his sanity.

“Well, I know I am not drunk!” he muttered irritably. He had deliberately abstained all evening to ensure that every future recollection of his dance with Elizabeth be unpolluted by the haze of intoxication. A quick glance along the passage confirmed that his eyes were working perfectly well.

“Perhaps I have gone mad.” Though, even if he had lost his wits somewhere between the main party and here, he did not think his addled mind could have concocted a more improbable occurrence than that which he had just witnessed in Netherfield’s library.

As quietly as he could, he eased the door open again and, wincing against what he feared he might see, peered into the room.

He reared backwards and tugged the door shut, too appalled to care whether he was heard.

There was no mistaking that ! With a quick shake of his head to banish the unsavoury vision, and a sharp exhalation of sheer incredulity, he stalked towards the stairs, taking them two at a time in his haste to reach his own bedchamber.

There, he lit a few candles and jabbed angrily at the fire with the poker to reignite the embers.

What in blazes was Bingley playing at? Such an indiscretion was inexcusable—and so wholly unlike him that it almost beggared belief. Except, in retrospect, Darcy thought he could have a reasonable stab at what might have induced his friend’s aberrant lapse of honour.

“Miss Coltrane,” he said, shaking his head.

Of all the many ladies with whom Bingley had thought himself in love, she had held his attention the longest, and her defection had wounded him the deepest. To this day, he maintained he was at peace with her decision, but Darcy had witnessed his dismay earlier that summer when Miss Bingley read the announcement of Miss Coltrane’s engagement to another in the newspaper.

Perhaps, in the circumstances, a misstep of this nature was not entirely surprising.

Good God, though—had it been absolutely necessary for him to choose that woman to assuage his hurt feelings?

Darcy would have thought his modest, good-humoured friend might wish to find a woman who would value his character and restore his sense of worth.

Apparently, Bingley had been desirous of an altogether shallower kind of fulfilment.

The evils of such a recourse were scarcely less of a concern than the when or where, but every consideration was rendered insignificant in the face of the who .

A more ill-suited contender for a clandestine rendezvous one would be hard pressed to come by.

She was undeniably handsome—remarkably so, all things considered.

She certainly did not look—or act —her age.

But was Bingley truly so susceptible to a pretty face that he could not see the danger here?

For she was also indiscreet, vacuous, and demonstrably immoral—and she was married!

Darcy grimaced; he probably could have anticipated this had he not been so distracted, battling his attraction to Elizabeth.

They had been at Netherfield above a month; Bingley would ordinarily have declared himself enamoured of at least two different women by now.

Yet no such proclamation had been forthcoming.

Not quarter of an hour ago, Darcy had listened with complete easiness to Sir William Lucas’s speculation that Bingley intended to offer for Jane Bennet, perfectly content that his conjecture was entirely misguided.

She evidently had no feelings of any great warmth for Bingley, and not even her recent indisposition and prolonged stay at Netherfield had stirred more from him than commonplace good wishes for her recovery.

Darcy had not contradicted Sir William for fear of giving offence to Elizabeth, who had been treated to the absurd panegyric along with him, but privately, he had thought it a vastly unlikely alliance.

“It is more than unlikely now,” he muttered. “It is categorically impossible!”

Indeed, it was inconceivable that Bingley could propose an alliance with any woman after dallying in flagrante delicto with her mother.

He began pacing up and down in the space between his bed and the window, attempting to guess at Mrs Bennet’s age.

It was difficult to tell from her appearance, for she was a far cry from the matronly figure one might expect in the mother of five grown daughters.

She had the look of a woman who had been a great beauty in her youth—it was certainly easy to see where the handsomest of her children had inherited their looks.

Nevertheless, given that the eldest of them was, according to Mrs Hurst, approaching three-and-twenty, he guessed Mrs Bennet must be above forty.

That would at least mean there was less chance of there being any issue from the union.

“One hopes!”

“Can I assist you in any way, sir?”

Darcy whipped around at his man’s voice. “Bridges—how long have you been there?”

“But a moment, sir. One of the footmen informed me you had retired. I trust you are well?”

“No, I am feeling distinctly bilious.” Seeing Bridges frown, he waved a hand and added, “I am speaking figuratively—I am not unwell. But I do not intend to return downstairs.” He had no desire to encounter any of Mrs Bennet’s family, for he would not be able to look them in the eye.

Bridges inclined his head and, after a pause, said cautiously, “Your evening did not go as you hoped?”

Darcy gave a sardonic laugh. “Not as I hoped, not as I predicted, not as I ever could have anticipated.”

“We shall still be leaving tomorrow, then?”

Darcy took a deep breath and blew it out resignedly. “There was never any doubt of that.”

Bridges was too practiced to reveal any hint of emotion, but Darcy could still feel the disappointment rolling off him in waves and did not like it one bit.

His man was exceedingly good, but that meant that nothing escaped his notice.

The particular attention Darcy had paid to his appearance this evening, for example, and his impatient glances out of the window as he waited for the guests to start arriving.

Bridges had unquestionably known that certain hopes had been annexed to the evening, and now he knew with equal certainty that those hopes had been dashed.

Darcy waited for the door to close behind him, then slumped into a chair and ran a hand over his face.

‘Hopes’ was perhaps too strong a term. ‘Wildest dreams’ might be a more apt description, for the only possibility of a happy outcome from the evening would have been for Elizabeth to reveal that she was secretly a wealthy heiress from an ancient and respected family, wholly unrelated to the Bennets.

Under no other circumstances would he allow his partiality to run into something more lasting.

His expectations had been more realistic: she would be flattered by his condescension in singling her out for a dance, and they would enjoy half an hour in each other’s company away from her dreadful relations.

Instead, Elizabeth had come to the dance with steel in her eyes and fire in her belly, and he had spent the chief of the set being upbraided for whatever Wickham had lied to her about.

And rather than any serendipitous revelation that she was born to the aristocracy, the only discovery Darcy had stumbled across was the woman to whom Elizabeth was inescapably related with her legs wrapped firmly around his friend’s waist.

He groaned. Would that he cared less! The easiest thing to do would be to cast all memory of the night—nay, his entire stay in Hertfordshire—to the dust and think of her no more.

Alas, neither Elizabeth’s antagonism nor her family’s impropriety had diminished his admiration.

Much to his consternation, concern for her welfare had now been added to his other feelings.

It pained him to think what injury it might do to her were her mother’s actions to be discovered.

Adultery had been the ruin of many a good name; Mr Bennet might demand satisfaction—or more likely, he would sue Bingley.

Either could bring immoveable shame upon the family.

That aside, nobody wished to be privy to their own mother’s concupiscence, monogamous or otherwise.

He shivered at the thought of it and cursed Bingley for saddling him with such a memory.

Then he cursed Mrs Bennet for saddling Bingley.

He had already believed her indecorous and inane; with this act, she proved herself utterly devoid of decency.

Any lingering doubt that he could ever connect himself with such a family was firmly banished, but Elizabeth had no such luxury, and he pitied her the bane of such relations.

He could do nothing to help her, however; the damage had been done. Perhaps, after all, it was no bad thing that Mrs Bennet had disgraced herself, for it might more quickly erase any regret he felt in leaving Elizabeth behind.