Page 41 of One Night with Mr. Darcy

“Well, I won’t do it,” said Richard. “Obviously not if she’s your, er, whatever she is to you.”

“No, no, I want you to.”

“What?”

“Well, not marry her, but court her. I thought, perhaps, the two of us, we could make it… a rivalry, both of us staying on here, going after her, trying to charm her. If I have a reason for it, you see, if it’s about you, and not about her, I could…”

“Ah!” Richard stopped, holding up a finger. “Yes, yes, I see exactly what you’re saying. To everyone else, it will appear as if we are just trying to get our family’s property back and have turned it into some sort of gentlemanly wager. Winner gets the widow!”

He nodded. “Exactly. Yes, I was hoping you’d be willing to help out.”

“It sounds like fun, actually. Will she know that I’m in on it?”

“Obviously,” said Mr. Darcy.

“What if she falls for me instead? I’m ever so much more amiable than you, after all, Fitz. I should think you’d be more frightened about exposing the object of your affections to my charms.”

Mr. Darcy chuckled under his breath. “No, no, it’s not like that.”

“Sure of her, then?”

He was, actually, after their interlude last night. Quite sure. “At any rate,” he said, “you and I can ‘woo’ her at the same time. I shall rely on you to be a chaperone.”

“Wait, are you tupping Mrs. Collins, Fitz?”

“She’s married to another man!”

“A man on death’s door, and considering you’ve already tupped her, I hardly think that would be much of a deterrent for you, would it?”

“I am not tupping her, and I shall not tup her, and I rely on you to keep me from—”

“Damnation!” Colonel Fitzwilliam threw back his head and bellowed. “Well, then, I think we should shake on it, and you should agree that if I do win her, you’ll cede her—”

“Are you mad? You’re not seriously going to try to take her from me.”

“What do you need Rosings for, Fitz?”

“I don’t,” he said.

“But think how wondrous it would be formeto have it?”

Darcy shook his head at him.

“Also, I don’t mind at all raising your by-blow. Not in the least. And I won’t touch her. Look,here’swhat we could do. I’ll marry her, but I won’t, you know,bewith her. I’ll leave her to you, and you—”

“That’s absurd and convoluted.”

“Well, at leastthinkabout it.”

“No,” said Mr. Darcy.

“Sometimes, I hate you.”

Mr. Darcy sighed. “I actually had something else I wanted to speak to you about.”

“Oh?”

“It’s, erm, Wickham.”