Page 29 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)
The night before the union of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet was to be solemnized, Darcy, Bingley, and Colonel Fitzwilliam gathered in shirtsleeves in the Netherfield billiard room.
The flames in the lamps danced from the breeze that gusted through occasionally. May was nearly over, and this had been the first week when the air was hot enough to make the interior of the building stuffy.
Clack.
The balls bounced and collided against each other, and Colonel Fitzwilliam looked with satisfaction down at the table. “Another two points. This time I think I’ll beat you, Darcy, and without any resort to unconventional stratagems.”
Darcy grimaced. He felt a bit unsteady from the amount of fine brandy and port that he’d drunk during the last hours of celebration, encouraged first by the other guests, and since they’d all been sent off to their homes or bed, by Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam.
He still hated to lose.
Darcy shot again, and he winced as the red ball bounced crazily off the felt sides of the table.
“Seems he has other things on his mind than his play,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said sagely. “Hint of the shakes before battle maybe?”
“I am not anxious about my marriage to Elizabeth,” Darcy replied.
“Oh?”
“You encouraged me to drink more than I ought, and I, in the celebratory mood, consumed it.”
“Headache on the wedding morn?” Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “Bingley, how was it for you the day you married?”
“A bit sad to be honest — I thought about Caro, and you both, and how I wished you all were here, and that matters had not gone so poorly. But no headaches.” Bingley cackled evilly. “I’m managing at last to punish Darcy, and just through saying again and again, ‘A drink to your health’.”
“I still have beaten you with every game we played,” Darcy replied haughtily.
Bingley laughed harder. “By one point that last one. I do not think I’ve ever come closer to touching you at billiards than that. Never.” Bingley refilled his own glass of brandy, and Darcy’s, and then handing the tumbler up to Darcy said cheerfully, “A drink to your health!”
Darcy looked down his nose at his friend. “I may be a fool, but I’ve enough wisdom to know when it is time to cease.”
“Be a good fellow, Darcy,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, refilling his own glass and holding it high. “Just one more.”
“No.” Darcy had a very strong sense of certainty that however entertaining it would be to get wholly and entirely foxed with his closest friends this night, Elizabeth would not approve of it if he stumbled through their wedding ceremony with a headache and a terrifically bad mood.
“But Darcy, it is to your health,” Bingley said, giggling. “For your health!”
“To ruin it, you mean?”
Bingley smirked at Darcy. “Maybe…?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam put his own glass down, after drinking half of it, and took up the cue stick again to take another shot. Another excellent strike.
He’d lose his third game against his cousin tonight if he did not improve the play immediately, and that was simply too many.
Darcy took up his own stick, and he knew he needed to focus.
Unfortunately, what came to his mind when he tried to focus was Elizabeth’s breasts. He hadn’t seen the wedding dress, but he imagined it as a lovely lacy construct, made of the finest silk. They would be in the carriage alone, on their way back to London, and he could slide his hand around, and—
Crack.
The shot, again, missed and bounced off three of the walls.
Darcy sighed.
After this he’d need to hit each of his marks, and Colonel Fitzwilliam still might win with simply decent play.
“Caroline surprised me,” Bingley said, as he watched Colonel Fitzwilliam prepare to take his shot. “She has changed a great deal. I never thought she’d marry anyone who brought less fortune to the marriage than she did.”
“She has not changed so much,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied. “She is in essentials the same as she ever was.”
Darcy grimaced, both at that speech, and at the point that Colonel Fitzwilliam scored.
Only one at least. It left a little space open for him to match Richard’s score, if he played perfectly for the rest of the game. Which he wouldn’t.
“If you insist,” Bingley said skeptically to his prospective brother-in-law. “But it is your business. I wouldn’t marry her.”
“I should certainly hope not, given that she is your sister.”
Bingley choked on his brandy as he laughed. “A score! A score!”
“How did you come to fall in love with Jane?” Darcy asked. “I recall that Elizabeth was quite surprised by that.”
“Oh, I’m sure I was always in love with her. I just hadn’t realized it until I saw her again at the assembly that night.”
“That simple?” Darcy asked.
“Well, what more do you expect? I might not be as simple of a soldierly man as Colonel Fitzwilliam,” Bingley laughed and shoved the officer in the shoulder as he said that, “but Jane has always been my dearest friend, and I could not imagine being happier than I am now that we are married. So yes. That simple.”
Darcy took his turn again, and this time he made a perfect shot.
He handed the cue back to Colonel Fitzwilliam, who only made a mediocre shot. A small smile started to cross Darcy’s face. Come on, continue to leave me opportunities.
“I still think,” Bingley added as he watched Colonel Fitzwilliam line up his next shot, “that it would have been great fun for all involved if you two did a double wedding.”
Darcy winced at the thought.
“No chance,” Richard said, as he grimaced at the billiard table. This time he’d simply missed. “No chance of Darcy doing that. He’s made great progress in this whole ‘cultivating forgiveness’ mission which Elizabeth set for him, but there are limits.”
“There certainly are,” Darcy replied with a growl. And almost without thought he nailed a difficult shot that scored three points.
“And see now what you’ve done?” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “He plays best when he is annoyed. He’s been thinking all night about Miss Elizabeth, so he hasn’t been able to hit the ball right to save his life. And now thanks to you, he made that shot. I don’t even know how he got all three balls into the pocket, and I watched him do it.”
Bingley laughed. “Blaming me now?”
“I certainly shall. But watch.” Colonel Fitzwilliam lined up, shot, and frowned. “That did not put the game away.”
“Still, would it not have been more convenient for your families? And you and Lizzy are going to go to London for just a week as a honeymoon, before coming back to Netherfield for the second wedding, and—”
“Do you mean to say,” Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed, “that you would prefer if you had your house to yourself?”
“What? No!” Bingley waved his hands wildly. “I love all company. All of it. Do not mind any of you being here at all. Stay a decade. Two even. Not a problem for me .”
Another turn and they had nearly reached the end of the game, and Darcy decided that he would go to sleep and dream of Elizabeth after it was over rather than playing another round with his cousin and Bingley.
He felt deep in his bones, every time he thought about it, that he was completely and utterly happy.
And tomorrow he was to embark upon the happiest period of his life with Elizabeth as his wife. God had been very good to him.
Darcy took his shot. The ball bounced one ball into the pocket, but didn’t quite hit the other right, and it landed sitting next to the pocket.
Darcy frowned.
This left enough room for Colonel Fitzwilliam to make up points to win without any spectacular play on his last shot.
His cousin was winding up for the last shot, and if he made it, despite Darcy’s good play over the last few turns, he’d win the game.
Suddenly an idea occurred to Darcy.
With a smile, Darcy turned to Bingley. “Eh, Bingley, would you poke my cousin for me? As he takes the shot.”
“What!” Colonel Fitzwilliam exclaimed, as Bingley started laughing.
“I thought I might myself begin to experiment with unconventional stratagems. I merely am following the sterling example of my older cousin.”
“Uh-huh. Of course you are.”
“Well, Bingley?” Darcy asked again.
Bingley stretched his palms and wriggled his fingers.
“Excellent. Richard, it is time to discover if you are immune to unconventional stratagems.”