Page 1 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

“Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves."

Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam sang loudly, and so far off key that he could have been trying to break into someone’s house, directly into Darcy’s delicate ear as he waved a jug of porter high in the air.

Lips pressed tight together, Darcy focused. His entire world became the stick, the cue ball, and the red ball.

With an indrawn breath Colonel Fitzwilliam began the next lines, “The nations not so blest as thee! Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall!”

Darcy sank into a reverie, he imagined the cue stick was a gun, the ball he would hit was the bullet, and the red ball that he wanted to knock into the pocket was Wickham’s head.

Crack!

“Rule Britannia! Rule — damnation, by Jupiter himself! How do you keep your hands so steady!”

Darcy permitted himself a small smirk as he stepped back and rubbed a piece of white chalk over the tip of his cue.

Setting his drink on the rim of the table Colonel Fitzwilliam lined up his own shot. He potted the white off a complicated shot where he’d clearly hoped to put both the red and white in. With a groan he picked his porter up again. “Still four back.”

A loud and happy voice intruded into their game. “‘Pon my honor! Darcy! Fancy seeing you here. Proper rain pelting outside, isn’t it?”

Darcy felt a decided happiness as he saw Charles Bingley’s beaming countenance approach him and Colonel Fitzwilliam. Darcy leaned his cue stick against their club’s billiard table and stretched his hand out to shake his friend’s hand.

Bingley’s honest delight to see him made the shadows in Darcy’s mood fly away — if only for the brief present. The meeting earlier this day with Mr. Wickham had left Darcy in a surly mood. But despite the differences in their characters, time with Bingley always transformed Darcy into a lighter and more sociable form of himself.

“My friendly fellow,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said to Bingley, “what are you doing in London in this part of the year?”

“Eh, weather’s not too bad.” Bingley wiped sweat off his brow.

“It is too bad,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “but beside the point — would you poke Darcy on his shoulder as he pulls back to take his next shot?”

Bingley glanced between them and then at the felt covered table. “Losing, Fitzwilliam?”

“Hardly, I merely have reached the stage of the game where I must resort to unconventional stratagems.”

“Ah, in that case, certainly.”

“Bingley,” Darcy said warningly, but he was unable to keep a smile of amusement out of his voice.

His friend extended out one finger and poked him twice in the shoulder, grinning as he did.

“Do not.”

“Of course not.” Bingley’s eyes were full of mischief.

Darcy shook his head and picked the stick up again, preparing to take his shot. He was stiff and ready for the poke, and after he lined up a shot he pulled back and went as though he were to take the shot, but he did not strike the ball.

No poke on the shoulder. He glanced at Bingley who held his hands out wide with a very innocent expression.

Colonel Fitzwilliam grinned.

With a sigh Darcy turned back and tried to convince them that he was about to take the shot once more. Failure.

He then lined the shot up seriously, thinking about the angles. This one would be a bit of a difficult one to take.

Lined up like that, potting the red would be easy, but if he got the touch just right, the cue ball would also bounce into the opposite pocket.

He pulled back, and — poke.

“Bingley!”

His friend and his cousin laughed uproariously as the ball bounced against the green side of the table, and then up and off, landing on the floor with a loud clack.

“Very good form, very good!” Colonel Fitzwilliam chortled, eagerly taking up his stick. “Now close enough to even that I’m certain to take the match.”

Darcy tried to glare at Bingley, with all the force of position provided by his imposing height, but his friend’s innocent look won the day.

“But say! Greatest news,” Bingley said as Colonel Fitzwilliam lined up his shot. “I’ve just taken the lease of an estate — precise neighborhood I wished. Netherfield. Just three miles from the estate of my father’s old business partner, Mr. Bennet. Deuced good piece of luck that it went to let — Lizzy wrote straight out to Caroline, soon as the baronet announced. I went up to see it just yesterday. The agent showed me round, we agreed on terms, shook, and I’m back in town to sign the papers.”

“Very quick decision.” Colonel Fitzwilliam made his shot and Darcy grimaced as the ivory balls clacked against each other. The points were now running against him. “So you are thinking of buying an estate next to where this Mr. Bennet bought his?”

“Oh, no.” Bingley replied, “Mr. Bennet always owned the estate — or at least after his father died. His family has held Longbourn for generations.”

“Is it a decently sized place?”

Bingley nodded. “Two thousand a year, or so.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam whistled and laughed. “I would like an estate of two thousand a year. By Zeus, I think I approve of this fellow, going into business even though he had the income to maintain his place as a gentleman.”

Bingley chuckled at Colonel Fitzwilliam’s idiosyncratic swearing by Zeus — the Greek name, rather than the Latin Jove. “Not a finer fellow in England than Mr. Bennet. He was a second father to me, and his children were my other siblings.”

This was a matter that Darcy had discussed with Bingley a few times before. He made a shot that was not quite up to his usual standard.

As he stepped back, Darcy said, “I can neither understand, nor approve, of a gentleman who went into trade when he had an estate he ought to have managed.” He held up his hand as Bingley began to defensively reply. “It is singular and odd, and rather disreputable, even if the man was driven by an eccentric desire to design and build machines more than the hope of building a fortune. His place was still with his estate.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “This has the sound of an old argument — he liked to design machines? Nothing wrong with a gentleman scientist.”

“Yes, but—” Darcy then shrugged. “I do not know the man, and judgements from general principles often break down when the details are known.”

“Well you ought to meet Mr. Bennet!” Bingley exclaimed with sincere enthusiasm. “And Meryton is as fine a friendly place as possible. Darcy, I will have you visit! You are invited to stay as long as you wish. A year if you would like!”

“What about me?” Colonel Fitzwilliam pouted.

“You as well! Ten years even!”

“Won’t you get tired of our company?”

“Of friends? Never. My lease is only for two years though.”

Darcy ignored the conversation as Bingley spoke happily about the neighborhood, and about how close his family had been with the Bennets when they were children. There was mention of the beauty of the five daughters he’d grown up with as sisters, and the substantial size of their dowries.

Crack.

Another fine shot. Three points.

Colonel Fitzwilliam cursed at seeing it. “Devil take it!”

As Richard prepared to make his shot Bingley grinned and said, “Come now, Darcy, I’ll expect an answer from you on this. Stay for six months.”

“I’ll have business elsewhere.”

Bingley laughed. “You know what I mean — a proper long stay. You’ve hosted me at Pemberley so many times. Give me a chance to fete you properly.”

“Where is this? In Hertfordshire?”

“Mere twenty-five miles from the capital.”

His cousin made his shot, and then took a swallow from the porter. “Now can you match that .”

“Eh, but what are you doing in London?” Bingley asked, joyfully.

Darcy turned back to the table silently to hide his frown. Images of Wickham’s handsome smiling face, as he sneered at them, but promised he would not say a word about Georgiana’s indiscretion. The rooms that Mrs. Younge was now managing. Darcy believed that she had settled in an exceedingly dilapidated bordello. She’d also promised to never say anything, in response to their threats.

The task was managed. Except for Georgiana’s melancholy.

And his own helpless anger, at her, at Wickham, at himself.

He imagined that he’d permitted himself to challenge the cur to a duel. His pistol was aimed directly at Wickham’s eye. Pull the trigger.

Crack.

“Zeus, Darcy, it is unfair that you can make such shots.” Colonel Fitzwilliam pounded the jar of porter several times on the table, and then drained the last of it. “Bingley, I must have you poke him again; his next shot. It will be the last of the game.”

“I’ve aided you as far as I will, the victory is up to you.”

Richard groaned, and shot quickly. He was now up by one point, which Darcy could easily match.

He did so, with a quick, efficient shot.

Bingley clapped to see the end, as they stepped away from the table, and Colonel Fitzwilliam exclaimed, “Most annoying thing to play with you — I did the nearest to cheating, and you still took the game.”

“You did cheat,” Darcy replied chirpily.

“ I did nothing, it was entirely Mr. Bingley’s doing — an unconventional stratagem.”

“It is my view,” Darcy replied, “that any good player shall be prepared to achieve victory, even against those whose preference is for unconventional stratagems .”

Richard laughed. “Wellington would like you.”

“Well, Darcy,” Bingley returned to his chief point. “Are you to visit? Two months! At least two months. I need such a visit to make recompense for your hospitality. And Caroline would be delighted.”

That was not in fact a point in the scheme’s favor.

While Darcy was wholly willing to admit that his friend’s sister was a fine lady, with excellent taste, fine accomplishments, excellent figure, fine conversation, etcetera, etcetera, it was clear that she wished to catch him.

And Darcy was in no mood to be caught — certainly not by Caroline Bingley who… lacked something in his view. If he accepted Bingley’s invitation, the pleasure of having a pretty young lady in the house would be offset by the need to keep said young lady from being encouraged or given hope by his actions — while still behaving towards her with the politeness due the sister of his dear friend.

All of these thoughts went through Darcy’s mind in an instant, as in one jumble felt more as an emotion than a set of words.

Pemberley.

Georgiana would not be there. After the scenes following her separation from Mr. Wickham, they decided she should spend the next months with Richard’s parents.

Those he loved dearest would not be at Pemberley this autumn, but those old memories of Wickham, the man who had been his closest friend when they were boys, would still be there.

Darcy stuck his hand out to Bingley. “Two months.”

His friend shook it vigorously and whooped with delight.