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Later that afternoon, the Earl, the Viscount, Darcy, and the now former colonel walked into Whites.

The Fitzwilliams were greeted with warmth, but Darcy much less so.

Once they were seated, they were approached by a particularly good friend of Andrew Fitzwilliam, Harold Smythe, the enigmatic and idiosyncratic Earl of Granville.

Not one to blindly follow the mores of society, after greeting all the men with equal warmth, he sat down next to Darcy.

“Darcy, can you confirm the rumours that you have an ironclad settlement in place in case anyone tries to force you into an unwanted marriage?” As Granville asked his question, all the surrounding men fell silent.

Regardless of the message that for the moment Darcy was persona non grata , this was an answer the single men who had been hunted relentlessly wanted very much to hear.

“Not only will I happily confirm it, but I signed it before meeting my family at the club and it is now stored at Steveton and Son. I am anxious to see if any lady is dim-witted enough to test my resolve. If you would like one drawn up, please feel free to contact Mr. Steveton at his offices. He has my permission to show it to any gentleman who feels the need to protect himself in a similar fashion. The terms will be available for your perusal, and he is more than willing to draw up one for any that ask for it,” Darcy said, his amusement clear, which was as astounding to those present because before he would have answered gravely and with arrogance for having been questioned.

If asked, he would have admitted that he was relieved that he had such a solution to ward off the huntresses.

“I will be making an appointment with Mr. Steveton as soon as he can accommodate me. Where did the idea come from?” the impressed Lord Granville asked, knowing the answer was one the growing crowd of listeners wanted to hear.

“That, your lordship, is confidential. If the source ever wants to be made known, that will be his prerogative, not mine.” Darcy replied, out of respect for all involved, most particularly the duke.

One of the listeners forgot that he was not supposed to talk to Darcy and asked a question he wanted clarified.

“It only settles five thousand on the lady, regardless of the dowry she brings. She forfeits her dowry and anything else to you irrevocably as your property. The rumour is that there is only five pounds of pin money a quarter, that she must pay all her expenses from this very pin money. Is this all true?”

“Yes, Mr. Barrington, those are some of the points in the settlement,” Darcy confirmed, his smile a mile wide.

“Who would ever sign such a document on behalf of a woman under his protection?” asked the befuddled Harry Smythe.

“That, my Lord,” Darcy answered with a glint in his eye, “is the point of the settlement. If the other side refuses to sign, then the gentleman is released with his honour intact.” There were many nods of agreement from the listening crowd.

Steveton and Son were inundated with appointment requests starting as soon as they opened the doors of their offices the next day, finding a line of messengers awaiting them with appointment requests, with Lord Granville’s messenger first in the queue!

It is safe to say that the firm of Steveton and Son had more work than they had ever had before.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

At the inn twelve miles from Meryton one George Wickham was a bored man.

Due to his decision to keep out of the public rooms and to himself, the Spaniard’s man had left and moved on, looking in the opposite direction of which Wickham intended to go.

He sat thinking about his life and how his misfortunes were always someone else’s fault, but never his own.

‘ Only two more days and I will be free from this place. When I am established in the militia, I will be able to have as much entertainment as my heart desires! Stuck here in the middle of nowhere, me, George Wickham, in hiding! It is all Darcy’s fault.

If he had given me my due, I would not be in the straits that I am.

He stole the living that my godfather meant for me to have all because of his jealousy that the old man preferred me to him.

I will take care of Darcy as I did the old man. ’

As he always did, Wickham constructed facts for the narrative he told himself and others.

That he had refused to take orders and had received three thousand pounds in lieu of the living did not fit the image he wanted portrayed to gain the pity of others and the hatred of his nemesis, so it was conveniently forgotten.

He also ignored the fact that he had received a one-thousand-pound legacy, which was less than he believed was his due, from old Mr. Darcy’s will.

He had left Pemberley that day with four thousand pounds, which he had managed to fritter away in less than two years, most of which was in the Spaniard’s establishments.

Also excised from his memory was the legal and binding documents that he signed which stated that he surrendered all claim to the Kympton living or any other living under Darcy’s control in return for the pecuniary advantage that he had received that same day.

‘Someone who was jealous of me told old Darcy that I had meddled with some of his servant girls.

Who cares about servants? They are there to serve and I needed their service!

The old man told me that he finally realised that I was not the man he thought and ordered me off Pemberley!

How dare he? After all the time I put into making myself pleasing to him, he had the temerity to tell me that he would cut me from his will when his attorney was to visit him in a sennight.

‘I could not allow that, so I waited until he took a ride, then frightened his horse in the forest. It could not have gone better. He was thrown and landed on a fallen trunk that snapped his neck. I do not allow people to cross me! And all that trouble for a measly one thousand pounds!

‘I almost succeeded in getting the little mouse Georgiana to elope with me to gain her thirty thousand, which would have been a bargain of a price to take such a burden off his hands. Darcy should have been begging him to marry his sister so he would not have to deal with her simpering, but the prig arrived two days before and the mouse told him all. He owes me and I will find a way to get my revenge. Just you wait, Darcy! One day you will get all that you deserve. ’ Wickham scowled.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Tuesday evening found the Netherfield and Longbourn residents invited to Lucas Lodge, the home of Sir William and Lady Sarah Lucas.

Although the knight was not the most intelligent of men, the Duke enjoyed his company.

He was a very affable, ebullient, and social man who loved to repeat the story of his knighthood that he had received when he was the mayor of Meryton and had made a speech that had pleased King George.

Mr. William Lucas had been summoned to St. James palace where he was christened Sir William Lucas.

In a neighbourhood that had a duke, a duchess, two marquesses, and several ladies of elevated rank, the knighthood of Sir William was not of much interest to the population of the area, but as he was universally liked, no one ever pointed this out to him during his many recounting of the honour that he had received.

Once he had the knighthood bestowed on him by the King, Sir William decided that he was above being in trade any longer.

He sold his store of all goods and purchased the small estate that was now named Lucas Lodge.

If at the time he had exercised good sense, he would have asked his friend Edward Gardiner to help him invest and grow his capital.

Unfortunately, as previously stated, good sense was not one of his attributes.

The Lucas family was not destitute, but they were not well off and their situation could be described as genteel poverty.

The Lucases had four children, the oldest Charlotte, thankfully married, and so no longer a burden on the family’s stretched finances.

There was also Frank, the Lucas heir, who was four and twenty, followed some years later by Maria, who was just sixteen, and lastly young John who was thirteen.

Frank, whose full name was Franklin, against all the odds given his parents financial position, had attended Oxford and completed his studies with honours.

By some miracle, Oxford had been endowered with funds to help many sons of Meryton study, so Frank Lucas had been able to complete his education at no cost to his parents.

What none of them knew was that the Bennets had made the donation to the school for the express purpose of making sure that Frank, and one day John, would be able to receive the gentleman’s education that their father never did.

Sir William did not begrudge the fact that his oldest son was far more educated than he himself and had handed the running of his small estate over to him some two years.

The results had been incredibly positive for the whole of the family.

Implementing new farming techniques that he had learnt about at Oxford, as well as others he had studied about, Frank Lucas had doubled Lucas Lodge’s income after but a year.

The jump was from seven hundred fifty to a little more than one thousand five hundred pounds, which to some may seem a pittance, but to the Lucas’s, it was an enormous sum.