Page 17 of Out of His Wits (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

Sophy looked up at last, mild as milk. “Mr. Darcy, madam.”

Miss Bingley froze, mouth half-open, her breath somewhere between a gasp and a protest. She blinked once, then again.

“No,” she managed to say at last, barely above a whisper. “No. That cannot be — he would never—he has discernment.”

Sophy remained still. She folded the wrapper over her arm, her movements neat and unhurried.

Miss Bingley winced as she pressed her fingers to her brow. “It was dark. You were mistaken. A trick of shadow. She may have tripped—perhaps he merely caught her—”

Silence again. Then the basin was nearly overturned as Miss Bingley pushed herself fully upright, shift slipping from her shoulder.

“This is not amusing, Sophy.”

“I am not jesting, madam. I saw it myself—quite late it was. The fire was still lit, and no chaperone in sight.”

Miss Bingley stared at her maid, blank and disbelieving..

“On his lap?”

Sophy’s expression did not change. “On his lap, madam.”

A silence fell. Miss Bingley swung her legs over the side of the bed and rose, unsteadily.

“He must have been unwell—his senses disordered from whatever foul concoction that cook made. He could not have known what she was doing. She used him ill. That is it.. Of course. Of course. She would entrap him!”

She crossed to the hearth and stood gripping the back of the nearest chair. Her breath was shallow. Her cheeks were blotched with colour.

“They must have planned it,” she muttered, eyes wild now.

“The Bennets. The entire thing. Those chits, with their country cunning and their smug false modesty. The put something in the dinner or the wine. Whatever madness overtook this house—they caused it. Eliza Bennet lured him. As for her sister—”

Her head snapped toward the window, as if expecting to see a wedding party assembling on the lawn.

She blinked rapidly. Her hands shot to her temples. She turned sharply.

“Eliza Bennet—bold as brass—I grant her that. She must have slipped into the room. Draped herself across him like some … some stage actress. Of course he could not push her away—he was unwell, not himself. That is what they wanted!”

She let go of the chair and paced. “My brother—he was already softened by Miss Bennet. A few kind words, that wide-eyed gaze she affects, and he would be on his knees.”

Her hand clutched at the dressing-table edge. “I—what am I to do? If Darcy is lost——what recourse have I?” Her voice had risen to a screech.

Her reflection in the glass showed a woman blinking back nausea and horror, but also disbelief.

“She cannot—she cannot succeed. He is too proud. He would never wish to be shackled to that family—”

She broke off, drawing breath in shallow bursts. A silence stretched, save for the soft clink of Sophy setting hairpins aside.

Miss Bingley’s eyes shone now with fury or fever.

“Where is my brother?”

“He is abed, madam.”

“I must act at once. I must speak to my brother—no, to Louisa—we must.”

She stopped. Blinking, with the pulse in her throat now visible.

“If she has seduced him—if there has been compromised—there must be a way to prevent it. He would never stoop—”

She stopped again, visibly reeling. Genuine horror seemed to settle on her.

She did not finish the thought.

The following day, Darcy forced himself to join the others. He was not entirely well, but he could not abide another day of inactivity. He sat in the drawing room, but his mind was elsewhere.

The surrounding voices circled indistinctly. He held himself in a rigid posture, not only from discomfort but from the steady effort of control. His head still ached with a dull, heavy rhythm, yet his thoughts were painfully sharp.

Mrs. Christopher stood before Mr. Jones, the apothecary, wringing her hands as she answered his questions. “There was nothing out of the ordinary, sir, I swear it. The menus were as always. The fish came fresh from town. The joints came from the butcher. Nothing was spoilt.”

Mr. Jones pressed calmly, his voice measured. “No new sauces? No changes to the game pie? No new preserves?”

“None, sir.”

“The wine?”

Hegarty stepped forward. “The same claret as always, sir. The bottles opened before dinner, the brandy decanted fresh.”

Darcy heard the words, but his attention drifted. His thoughts — insistent and unwelcome — returned once more to her.

His head was filled with the warmth of her breath against his cheek, the faint tremor beneath his hands as she rested upon him.

More fragments had come to him, but whether dream or recollection he could not say.

The pieces would not lie still. Was this another dream of her?

His fingers tracing the line of her neck, brushing against the exposed skin at her shoulder.

His lips seeking that soft hollow where her neck curved, the scent of her skin.

It was vivid but was it a dream or a memory?

. Since morning it had seemed to gather a shape, not certain but unsettling, as if memory pressed through a mist.

The words. He did not doubt now that he had spoken them.

I ardently admire and love you.

If he had not imagined it, he had declared himself, and heaven only knew how far he had gone beyond that.

“Mr. Darcy?” Mr. Jones’s voice broke into his thoughts.

He looked up. “I beg your pardon?”

“You took no food apart from what was served at table? No private dishes or wine afterward?”

“Nothing apart from the common service.”

“You felt unwell at what time?”

Darcy paused, choosing his words carefully. “After the ladies had withdrawn.”

Mr. Jones nodded, making a brief note before turning to Miss Bingley.

She sat with studied poise, though the tension in her face was visible. “Mr. Jones,” she began with a strained attempt at delicacy, “do forgive me if I speak out of turn, but has it not struck you as curious that only Miss Bennet and her sister were entirely unaffected?”

The room went very still.

“One cannot help but wonder if they were aware of some hazard—and yet said nothing. I do not presume to suggest intent, of course,” she continued, forcing a thin smile.

“But might there have been some—I hesitate to suggest mischief — but one wonders whether all took entirely the same fare. Why did Miss Eliza request a separate dish?”

Darcy’s jaw tightened. He felt his fingers close over the carved arm of the chair, forcing them still.

Their mischief. Their carelessness. This was not an inquiry. It was an accusation, wrapped in false concern.

He kept his eyes fixed ahead as Mrs. Christopher stiffened in indignation. Mr. Jones inquired.

“A separate dish? Did you prepare a separate dish for Miss Elizabeth, Mrs Christopher?”

Darcy’s pulse quickened. Elizabeth would hear of it. Such things always found their way to the wrong ears. If she heard of Miss Bingley’s venomous insinuations—it would only compound what had already occurred.

Mrs Christopher straightened with indignation. “I most certainly did not. Only the menu Miss Bingley requested was served. The footmen did say that Miss Bennet complimented the pheasant. She took it plain, as did her sister. But everyone ate from the same service.”

Darcy recalled the slices of fowl on their plates.

Elizabeth once again declining the sauces.

His mind shifted restlessly to the far more pressing matter: how to speak with her.

He could not write. He could not summon her directly.

The proprieties were a cage from which there was no clear escape.

He could not remain in this state of doubt.

He closed his eyes, steadying his breath. He must speak with her privately.

The familiar chaos of Longbourn’s morning parlour greeted Jane and Elizabeth like an old, somewhat frayed embrace.

Mrs. Bennet tutted over their early return and demanded to hear every detail of their stay.

Lydia had commandeered the best chair by the window, one leg draped inelegantly over the worn arm as she regaled Kitty with the latest intelligence from Meryton.

“Do you know what Captain Denny said—oh, you cannot imagine! —that Colonel Forster means to hold a review next week, and all the officers will be in their finest dress uniforms.” Lydia’s voice rose to a pitch that might have summoned every dog in the county.

“Kitty and I simply must have new ribbons. The blue ones I have are perfectly insipid next to a scarlet coat.”

Kitty giggled and clapped her hands. “Oh, and did you hear? Lieutenant Wilkins has joined the regiment! Aunt Phillips says he is the most charming gentleman, and so very handsome in his regimentals.”

Mary, seated primly at the writing desk with her morning correspondence, set down her pen with deliberate care. “I wonder you speak so freely of gentlemen barely known to you. A lady’s reputation—”

“Oh, Mary!” Lydia waved a dismissive hand. “You sound like a dowager of sixty. We are not in the convent yet.”

“Indeed, we are not,” Mary replied, her tone growing sharper. “Which is why discretion becomes us. The world is quick to assign meaning where none exists, and quicker still to spread whispers that may follow a lady all her days.”

Elizabeth, who had been removing her gloves in the doorway, paused at Mary’s words. The faintest flutter of unease stirred in her chest.

“But surely there can be no harm in admiring a fine figure in uniform,” Kitty protested. “Why, all the ladies in Meryton speak of nothing else.”

“Not everyone parades their admiration through the streets of Meryton,” Jane said, settling into her chair with the careful movements of one still recovering. “There is a difference between modest regard and public display.”

Mary nodded approvingly. “Just so. A lady who is too free with her attentions invites speculation about the nature of those attentions. Once speculation begins, it grows like weeds in rain—beyond all proportion and reason.”