Page 30 of The Cat Who Loved Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

“I know the profile of his head too well to mistake it,” Darcy replied evenly, his gaze still fixed on the glass.

“And I daresay the angle of his approach suggests he did not enter by the gate. The funny thing is, I came from Pemberley expressly to find him, and here he is—presenting himself in a dendrological fashion.”

Mr. Bingley leaned forward, squinting toward the garden hedge. “Surely he would not—surely he could not be so stupid or ill-advised...”

“I fear he could, and often is,” Darcy muttered.

Denny, who had been standing with quiet discomfort since entering the room, now took a step forward.

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Part of the blame may lie with me. He knew I would call, and he insisted in following me this far. Since he was not invited, he left the path—he said only that he meant to speak briefly with Miss Lydia and be gone.”

Mr. Bennet turned his gaze upon the young officer with a narrowed expression, somewhere between amusement and reproach. “And you believed him?”

“I did not support his action,” Denny replied stiffly. “Nor did I approve. I warned him he was acting against orders.”

“And yet,” Darcy said, folding his arms, “here he is.”

At that moment, from somewhere beyond the hedge, came a girlish laugh—light, bright, and unmistakably familiar. Darcy’s jaw tightened. Mr. Bingley flushed. Mr. Bennet sighed and reached for his claret at last.

“Well,” said Mr. Bennet after a sip, “as this house presently contains four gentlemen and a window with an excellent view, I propose we intervene before the shrubbery becomes the scene of a courtship—or worse, a performance.”

Darcy was already crossing the room.

“Mr. Denny,” he said without looking back, “would you care to join me in removing your comrade from the flowerbeds?”

Mr. Denny followed without protest.

Mr. Bingley hesitated, then turned to Mr. Bennet. “Shall I—?”

“No, no, gentlemen,” said Mr. Bennet, waving his hand at Mr. Darcy and Mr. Denny. “If I must be drawn into every melodrama involving that young man, I should like to do so with an empty glass. It is my duty to go and clean the garden.”

He set down his glass with an air of cheerful resignation, rose, and buttoned his coat with the solemnity of a man preparing for light horticultural labour—or perhaps something closer to pest control.

Without haste, and with no small touch of ceremony, he walked to the door, pausing only to retrieve his hat from a peg near the entrance.

The gentlemen left behind exchanged glances. Mr. Darcy’s expression remained composed, but Bingley looked as though he were preparing to laugh, or perhaps apologise to someone, though he could not yet decide to whom.

Denny felt a tightening in his chest that had nothing to do with military bearing.

He had stood in line under cannon drills and taken orders from men far less composed, yet the quiet authority with which Mr. Bennet announced his intention to “clean the garden” unsettled him more than any parade-ground rebuke.

As for Mr. Bennet, he stepped into the garden with the leisurely gait of a man who neither feared scandal nor expected surprise. The November air was crisp and carried with it the faint scent of fallen leaves and—less poetically—Mr. Wickham’s cologne.

He found them near the edge of the hedge walk, beneath a half-leafless apple tree that offered no cover but pretended to.

Lydia, all brightness and unfiltered delight, was in the midst of saying something that ended in a peal of laughter.

Wickham stood far too close, smiling in the way that only men without income, prospects, or shame know how to smile.

“Mr. Wickham,” Mr. Bennet said, his tone genial but unmistakably audible, “what a pleasure to find you among the flora. I fear the roses are quite out of season, but perhaps you find the company of dahlias equally charming?”

Lydia turned at once, cheeks flushed from amusement and motion. “Papa!”

Wickham’s composure faltered for half a second—just long enough to betray the fact that he had not expected to be caught, and certainly not by the master of the house.

“I was merely—walking by,” Wickham said smoothly. “The gate was open, and I—”

“It is extraordinary,” Mr. Bennet interrupted, “how often one finds you near an open gate. Come now, I believe one of my guests would be very pleased to see you. He is in the parlour just now. Shall we go in and renew the acquaintance?”

That—more than the unexpected appearance, more than the raised eyebrow—made Wickham blanch. He looked to Lydia, whose smile had dimmed to confusion, then back to Mr. Bennet, whose civility had never felt quite so unyielding.

“I—I ought not to intrude,” he murmured.

“But Mr. Wickham,” Mr. Bennet said pleasantly, gesturing toward the house, “I insist.”

And with no further pretence of escape, Wickham was escorted—politely but unavoidably—toward the drawing room, where reputations, masks, and perhaps tempers would soon be tested under proper observation. Lydia, of course, was sent directly to her room.

***

The parlour held a momentary hush, taut not from silence but from anticipation. Mr. Denny and Mr. Bingley sat upright, their eyes fixed instinctively on the door. Though neither spoke, the occasional shifting of shoulders or tapping of fingertips betrayed the strain beneath their outward composure.

Mr. Darcy remained at the window, one hand resting lightly on the edge of the escritoire beside him, the other clasped loosely behind his back.

He did not glance at the others, nor at the door.

Instead, he surveyed the garden with the studied indifference of a man tallying the last of the autumn leaves.

He fought to master both emotion and anger, resolved to conduct himself as a gentleman—even if Wickham did not deserve the courtesy, the others in the room certainly did.

If Mr. Bennet’s earlier explanation—delivered with his usual economy but unmistakably grave—had stirred anything in Darcy, he gave no sign.

Then, he had not known how he might reach Wickham, confined to the regiment like a fox in its den.

Now, the fox had emerged—and was circling the very place he ought most to fear.

Even so, Darcy’s stillness was too perfect, too deliberate, to be truly casual. It was the stillness of a man awaiting a sound he already knew would come.

The side table beside him held a decanter and two unused glasses—an accidental offering, or perhaps a private judgment. From the position of the chair at his back, it was clear he had no intention of sitting.

The door opened with less ceremony than might have suited the moment, and Wickham entered.

He stepped forward with the air of a man who had mistaken a drawing room for a ballroom—and expected to be welcomed in both. His coat, though recently brushed, bore the slight dust of shrubbery. The side of his face still carried faint traces of what could no longer be explained as an accident.

Mr. Bennet followed at a deliberate pace, his hands clasped behind his back as if guiding a pupil to the front of the schoolroom. The look he cast over Wickham’s shoulder was neither indulgent nor fierce, but it left no doubt as to who had orchestrated the entrance—and who would control the exit.

Before anyone could speak, a flurry of muslin and perfume swept into the room. Mrs. Bennet, breathless but beaming, appeared beside the door as if summoned by the mere rustle of reputations.

“Oh! I had no idea we had so many guests,” she declared, looking from Darcy to Bingley to Wickham with practiced brightness. “Shall I have tea brought in? Or something stronger, perhaps? Wine, claret—lemonade?”

“No,” said Mr. Bennet firmly, not turning his head. “There will be no need for refreshment.”

Mrs. Bennet blinked, disappointed but not dissuaded. “Oh. Well, of course, if you’re quite sure…”

She lingered just long enough to adjust a non-existent lint on her sleeve, then drifted back toward the hallway—though not before ensuring that the parlour door remained slightly ajar behind her.

The sound it made as it settled—a whisper of wood against wood—was just loud enough to suggest her true intention: not departure, but proximity.

Mr. Bennet gestured lightly toward a chair Wickham did not take. He did not gesture toward the door. That, it seemed, would be for later.

Mr. Bennet’s voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it as he turned towards the gentlemen, as though presenting them formally to the newcomer.

“Allow me, Mr. Wickham, to introduce you to my guests. Mr. Bingley, whom you had the pleasure of meeting at dinner last week. Your fellow officer, Mr. Denny, whom perhaps you ought to have followed more closely—and had your intentions been proper, you would have entered by the main door, not skulked about the garden.”

He paused, then, with deliberate slowness, turned his gaze to the final man in the room.

“And a very old acquaintance of yours, whom you have not seen in some time. How many months has it been, Mr. Darcy?”

Wickham flinched visibly and took an instinctive step backward. The room seemed to contract around him.

But Mr. Bennet’s hand shot out and landed, firm but not rough, upon Wickham’s arm, preventing his retreat.

Darcy, who had remained at the window until that moment, turned. His expression, though outwardly composed, held the edge of a blade. His voice was low, but carried with clarity.

“Four months,” he said coldly. “More precisely—one hundred and twenty-four days. Have I counted wrongly, dear Wickham?”

The use of that last word—so falsely intimate—was a blow in itself.

Wickham could not meet his eye.

A beat passed. Then Darcy spoke.

“I believe I must explain,” he said, remaining near the window. His voice was composed—precise, but cool. “Mr. Wickham and I were once acquainted more closely than I would have wished. His father was in service to my family, and I was taught, for many years, to regard him almost as a brother.”