CHAPTER ONE
May 1812, London
From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.
PRIDE by mid-November, they had dined in company four times, and she had spent some days at Netherfield with their party. What had not happened in that first month? She had not yet met George Wickham. Thus was her meaning clear—she did not dislike him because of anything Wickham said. No, her disgust with him was all to his own credit. George Wickham had done no more than to second her already poor opinion of him.
Accursed assembly! If only he might do it over, to properly meet her and thus not set off on the course to his own destruction.
Lady Matlock had summoned him for dinner tonight, no doubt wishing for an explanation for his recent behaviour. Darcy had been avoiding parties as much as he could, and when he did attend, he generally arrived late and departed early. By no means did he dance. The ladies of the ton were of two sorts: those who reminded him of Elizabeth and those who did not. Either sort was undesirable as a dance partner, although for different reasons. In any case, Darcy was well prepared for the chastisement of his aunt and uncle, who had made it plain that they thought he—as well as his two bachelor cousins, Viscount Saye and Colonel Fitzwilliam—ought to marry.
He was poor company that night. He scarcely ate, though meals at Matlock House were always delicious, and for most subjects being canvassed, he remained silent. His mind and heart refused to dwell on anything but Elizabeth. He mourned her and the loss of his hopes; he relived the agony of being rejected, and he despaired of seeing her again even as he turned his mind in every which way to find a way to win her. There was nothing he could imagine proving even remotely successful, leading to an ever-increasing gloom as the evening wore on.
Lady Matlock did her best to provoke either argument or agreement from him on the subject of whether he needed to take a wife, but she was sorely disappointed. Her nephew did no more than nod meekly, push his food about his plate, and give the occasional disinterested sigh. When Lady Matlock withdrew after dinner, she cast a significant look at his lordship. “I have some letters I must answer in my study, and after that, I shall retire,” she announced. “Darcy, I will bid you a good night.”
Darcy dutifully kissed the proffered hand, and she left. As the door closed behind her, his uncle turned, studying him closely. Fitzwilliam, too seemed to be evaluating him in an uncommonly grave manner.
It was Saye who thought to dive directly into the heart of the matter. “Darcy, you are uncommonly dull these days, even for you. My brother says it is about a lady.”
“A lady?” Lord Matlock perked up, suddenly interested in his nephew’s malaise. “What lady? Who are her people?”
Darcy shot Fitzwilliam a vexed look. He had known it was a risk to confide in his cousin on their return from Kent, but he had been in such a state that he could not stop himself.
Fitzwilliam raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “They dragged it out of me.”
“Why should we not know?” Saye argued immediately. “I smell a story here and shall not rest until I know all.”
Darcy shook his head. “Leave it, Saye. This is no laughing matter.”
“Everything is a laughing matter if you tell it with spirit.”
Darcy closed his eyes a moment. Prudence suggested he ought to leave before the whole of the affair was laid bare, and yet impulse compelled him to speak. “I met her last autumn in Hertfordshire,” he began. “It did not begin well.”
A quarter of an hour later, the tale was told. Saye found the entire thing funny to the point of hysteria. He wiped his eyes of the tears of laughter as he said, “You insulted her, argued with her, and encouraged Bingley to abandon her sister?—”
“Bingley is in and out of love as frequently as most gentlemen change their shoes.”
“And then, on the strength of a few walks, decided to propose?” Another burst of laughter came from Saye. “Did you suppose she would marry you for your money? Or was it your good looks you thought would prevail?”
“Clearly, I was not thinking at all,” Darcy replied stiffly.
Lord Matlock opined gruffly, “It seems a most imprudent match. You should be glad she refused you as she did. You have been spared the degradation of your name.” When none of the younger men spared him a moment’s notice, he grew offended and thus rose and took his leave of them.
“You will be relieved to know that Miss Heathcote was asking after you at that dinner at the Scott’s two nights ago,” Fitzwilliam offered.
“I do not want Miss Heathcote,” Darcy replied, his eyes fixed on the table cloth beneath his fingers.
“Taking up with a second lady is the easiest way to forget the first,” Saye informed them. “Of course, at times, you must go on to the third, the fourth, sometimes even the fifth—and by then, you have forgotten them all.”
“I cannot forget her,” Darcy told them glumly. “Inasmuch as the remembrance pains me, it is what I have of her, and so will I hold fast to it. To meet another? It will not do. Never will another lady raise in me the feelings she so ably produced.”
“Where you really erred was in interfering with Bingley’s plans,” Saye told him. “Otherwise, you could have gone back to Hertfordshire. True, you have erred quite grievously, it is true, but you are a fine figure of a man, and if your money and position do not tempt her, perhaps a bit of lust will.”
Darcy’s only reply to that was a disgusted look.
“Oh!” Saye snapped his fingers and sat up from his customary slouch. “I have it! We will have a house party and get her to stumble in on you while you are dressing. Then she will have to marry you.”
A sudden thought struck him, and he gave Darcy a suspicious look. “You do not wear small clothes, do you?”
Both Fitzwilliam and Darcy gave him a look of incredulous censure.
“Then you think of a better idea,” Saye retorted. “There are several things a man might use to tempt a woman into matrimony. Clearly, she does not want his wealth or his position—I am merely cutting to what is left.”
“I wish for her love,” Darcy told Fitzwilliam, turning his head so as not to see his more vexatious cousin.
“Not many women could fall in love with a gentleman who had publicly humiliated her,” said Saye, refusing to be ignored. “You should have offered her an apology the moment you believed she might have heard you.”
“That is true,” Darcy agreed, growing still more morose. “I ought not to have insulted her, and I should have apologised straightaway when I knew I had. I should have agreed to the introduction and danced with her. I should have been kinder to her when we were in company together. I should have opened my mouth and spoken to her. I should have?—”
“There are many things you wish to have done differently,” Fitzwilliam concluded. “Perhaps if you could persuade her to give you a second chance?—”
“She has no inducement to do that, and even if she did, it might make her tolerate me, possibly even like me, but it would surely not make her fall in love with me.”
Saye rose, going towards the fireplace next to which hung a small decorative gilt mirror. Catching sight of himself, he struck a little smiling sort of pose and then grew sombre. “Ah! Here it is: you must somehow adopt a disguise, and present yourself to her as another, someone who is not yet known to her.”
When neither his brother nor his cousin replied, he repeated it. “Is that not a splendid idea?”
“A disguise?” Darcy asked. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Pose as another, another man, one who has not insulted her. Then you may court her as the other man and, once she is in love with you, show her it was you all along.”
Fitzwilliam immediately groaned as Darcy said, “You cannot be serious.”
“I am entirely in earnest,” Saye replied. “Might do her well to see your waggish side.”
“I do not have a waggish side,” Darcy replied. “I am a gentleman of honour. Disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.”
“We shall have to hope it is your honour which will warm your bed at night then,” Saye replied. “You must loosen up a bit, sir, if we are to extricate you from your plight. Put aside all these vain scruples so we can help you.”
Darcy turned to Fitzwilliam, intending to exchange a roll of the eyes or something of the like in response to Saye’s absurdity. To his shock, Fitzwilliam appeared to be considering it. “Fitzwilliam? Surely you see how stupid?—”
“The scheme does have some merit,” Fitzwilliam began slowly.
“I am not about to perpetrate a hoax on a lady, hoping to earn her affection!”
Darcy’s protest went unheeded. Turning to his brother, Fitzwilliam asked, “How could we possibly disguise him sufficiently to fool her? She is clever, and their acquaintance is of many months’ duration.”
Saye strolled to where Darcy sat, peering down at his cousin critically. “What about his hair? A moustache or a beard, perhaps? We must cover his face as much as we can.”
“No, I will not grow a beard,” Darcy snapped. “I am not going to pull a prank on her!”
Fitzwilliam had also risen and moved to stand over Darcy and peer at his face. “Your only alternative is to let it lie, and that I believe is a most unhappy choice. What have you to lose?”
“Assuming you have related the tale faithfully,” Saye added, “it seems she despises you rather passionately. When a woman loathes you so ardently, you can hardly sink further.”
“I shall not do it,” Darcy said, but his voice had begun to lose conviction.
“What if it were by correspondence?” Saye said to Fitzwilliam. “He might pose as Georgiana and establish a friendship using letters through which she might gain a more favourable opinion of him.”
“They are not acquainted,” Darcy informed him, but this went unheard as the two brothers continued to conspire.
Fitzwilliam shook his head. “I do not think that would work, not quickly in any case. We must make him a man she will not recognise, one whom she will know with a new mind.”
“He is too tall,” Saye remarked casually, turning his attention from the study of Darcy to again study himself in the mirror. He adopted an attitude of pensiveness, watching himself as he stroked his chin in deep thought. “It is difficult to disguise such tallness.”
“I am not so enormous,” Darcy protested mildly. “Among my family members, my height is common enough.”
“There we have it!” Fitzwilliam exclaimed. “You must be a different Darcy. A cousin perhaps? Surely she has not met any of your Darcy cousins?”
“She has not,” Darcy replied, “...because there are none.”
“Does she know that?”
Darcy considered a moment. “I do not think she knows anything of my family besides the fact that my parents are deceased and I have one younger sister.”
“Splendid,” Saye replied, changing his attitude from pensiveness to enthusiasm and delight. “What shall we name him? Something funny to be sure. What about Pego or Lobcock?”
“I am not doing this.” Darcy rose, going to the mirror and removing it, carefully placing it face down on a nearby table. Saye scowled at him. “This is not a novel or some sort of fantastical theatrics. I am not going to wilfully deceive the woman I love. That would be selfish and cruel, and would wholly support her poor opinion of me.”
“Are you not doing it on her behalf as well as yours?” Fitzwilliam asked. “You know, yours is the second proposal she has turned down, and while I should not have liked to see her as Mrs Collins, he is an eligible match for her. If she goes about ignoring prudence, she might find herself required to find employment.”
“Collins believed he could have her?” Darcy barely suppressed a shudder thinking of it. “Distasteful as it might be, I cannot behave in such an ungentlemanlike manner.”
“So what you are saying is that your behaviour to Miss Bennet thus far has been, unfailingly , that of a gentleman?” Saye raised one eyebrow, skewering Darcy with what he no doubt believed was a severe look. “You have behaved in an ungentlemanly fashion in her presence on a multitude of occasions—what is once more, particularly if it carries with it a chance to win her?”
“A gentleman, having realised his past mistakes, would not seek to further compound his poor behaviour,” Darcy retorted, returning to his previous seat.
“She might find it amusing, this little farce,” Fitzwilliam conjectured. “She has a lovely sense of folly.”
Darcy huffed with annoyance. “I recall once saying to her that it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule. Now to play a trick like this? What will she think of me?”
“It is perfect! It will show her that you considered her rebukes!” Saye cried cheerfully.
Fitzwilliam came close again, leaning in and studying Darcy’s face minutely. With a quick motion to his brother, he said, “I think a beard should do nicely.”
Saye joined Fitzwilliam in peering at Darcy’s face. “He might cut his hair a bit, too. The sides are not so very long now, but along with a beard, I fear he might resemble some sort of wild animal.”
“I beg your pardon!” Darcy was ignored as Fitzwilliam reached over, tugging back some of Darcy’s hair to make it appear shorter.
“Shorter here and brushed up a bit there…” Fitzwilliam considered a moment. “Perhaps in a suit that was less fine, even a bit outmoded...the dress of a gentleman of lesser means.”
“To be sure!” Saye exclaimed. “For a cousin would be of lesser means, undoubtedly. George Darcy’s younger brother perhaps? A man who has studied the law?”
Darcy rose and went to the window to escape his cousins and their poking and prodding. Obviously none of this would happen. It was far too ridiculous to even imagine.
Behind him, his cousins continued to scheme. “Let us not name him anything too outrageous,” Fitzwilliam said. “If someone were to call him Cornelius and he did not respond, it could be telling.”
“Who would be calling him by his given name?” Saye asked. “No one should call him anything but Darcy.”
“But he still requires a given name,” Fitzwilliam replied. “Trust me—the key to any clandestine mission demands that these sorts of details be considered.”
“My name is, and shall remain, Fitzwilliam,” Darcy said firmly. It was time he took the situation in hand, and made his cousins aware that he would not participate in their farce. “I have never been one for theatricals and I do not intend to begin now.”
“What about William?” Saye said to his brother.
“Of course!” Fitzwilliam agreed. “Like enough to Fitzwilliam that it would seem natural to him to answer to it, should anyone say it or refer to it. Now, Darcy…”
Fitzwilliam turned to him. “You spend most of your time at Pemberley and are very little in town. You live…on the estate somewhere and you take care of its legal needs. You also serve as magistrate.”
“No, no, no.” Darcy shook his head emphatically. “There is no means of success here! Imagine this bit of puffery works, and Elizabeth falls in love with my cousin—my cousin who is actually me . Then what? Then I reveal myself and say, ‘Ha ha, what a fine joke this is?’ Then I will know what it is to earn her love and to lose it just as quickly.”
“You will need to take care,” Saye cautioned him, “that she does not just fall in love with you, but you must make her feel she cannot live without you. Make her desperate for you. Then, when she is angry at you for deceiving her, you do all you can to make amends and earn her forgiveness. Love conquers all, and you are free to enjoy a happy ending.”
“No,” Darcy replied firmly. “The risk is too great.”
“With great risk comes the potential for great reward,” Saye rejoined.
“Again I ask, what have you to lose?” Fitzwilliam entreated.
“My dignity,” Darcy replied. “Forgive me, but this is unthinkable. Now if you will excuse me, I must return home to retire.”