Page 13 of Under Such Circumstances (Desperately Seeking Elizabeth #1)

WHEN MR. DARCY and Richard got back to Rosings with the body, Richard did all the talking.

He claimed that Wickham had died in some freak accident, that he’d been trying to use the knife to cut away at some brambles and that he’d slipped on the mud and stabbed himself.

Tragic, yes, but unpredictable and no one’s fault.

Mr. Darcy was grateful. He wished he’d thought of it.

It solved the problem of Wickham’s father rather handily.

Now, no one was to blame. And it very neatly sidestepped any mention of Elizabeth’s reputation.

They had only been trapped out there a matter of eight or ten hours, in the end.

The situation—the rain, the dirty shack, the dead body…

none of it added up to a situation in which people were going to be thinking that her virtue had been trampled, even if it had.

It was well done, really.

Good for Richard.

Of course, Richard came into his room while Darcy was soaking in the bath, and Richard sent all the servants away and sat down on a stool next to him and then he said the thing that made it all make sense.

“I’ve never found a woman more alluring, that’s the thing, Darcy,” said Richard. “If she has some kind of dowry now, I could offer for her.”

“You,” said Mr. Darcy, nodding up at him, “could offer for her.” And then he thought back on every single interaction that had involved himself and Richard and Elizabeth, and how Richard had joked and winked at her and she had laughed at everything funny that Richard had ever said and had leaned forward and listened when Richard spoke, and…

“You said that thing about her being with child, but they were in the woods, and they couldn’t have been alone for very long, so did he really—?”

“She says he did,” said Darcy. “She said remarkably specific things about seed, in fact.”

The colonel stood up, pacing. “All right, fine. I don’t care.”

Darcy leaned his head back on the lip of the tub and looked up at the ceiling. “No, because she’s some kind of enchantress or something, clearly. Perhaps she’s not a woman at all, but a demoness that steals men’s wits. Here we all are, you, me, Wickham, all driven mad by her charms.”

Richard sat down on the stool. “What are you saying?”

Darcy sighed heavily. “All right, look. Yesterday—no, I suppose it’s two days ago, now. You remember that I excused myself at dinner?”

“I do.”

“I went to see her at the parsonage, and I proposed. She refused me.”

“She refused you .”

“Oh, she hates me,” said Mr. Darcy. “I offered to marry her again, while we were out there, to rescue her, and she said something like she would be stupid not to accept me, but she doesn’t… she hates me.”

“But you love her,” muttered the colonel. “So, you’re not going to give me your blessing. And I suppose you did see her first.”

“No, Richard, I think she likes you, so—”

“No.” The colonel was up again. “She won’t have enough of a dowry anyway.”

“She is ruined.”

“Well, I don’t mind a woman with experience,” said the colonel. “Maybe that’s better, really, in the end. And besides, who wants a woman who is like some fragile glass thing you’re frightened of breaking? Better if she’s already been…”

“Broken?” said Darcy pointedly.

“That sounds rather awful, doesn’t it?”

It was quiet.

“We shan’t quarrel over this woman, Fitz,” said the colonel finally. “We shan’t let her come between us. Not a woman, especially not a woman like that.”

“Well, here it is. I would not stand in your way, if you would make her happy—”

“Fitzwilliam Darcy, I tell you, no. You are in love with her. You saw her first. It would put a strain on our interactions, and I won’t have that.” He sat down on the stool once more, heavily, with finality.

Darcy looked up at him. “All right, then. We shall both give her up.”

“She is ruined,” said the colonel.

“She is,” said Darcy. “And possibly with child. His child.”

“Yes, that’s all… it’s madness that we’d—”

“Madness,” agreed Darcy. “So, we shall swear off the madness.”

“But if she is with child, we have to assist her,” said the colonel.

“Yes, manufacture some kind of respectability,” said Darcy. “Yes, quite.”

“We owe her that much. Wickham was some kind of rabid dog we left loose, and she was bitten.”

“We do indeed,” said Mr. Darcy.

“How are we going to speak to her about this?” said the colonel, tapping his chin. “We can’t simply talk about it in the sitting room of the parsonage with the servants listening in and Mrs. Collins the faithful chaperone.”

“She walks in the mornings,” said Darcy. “We happen upon her path. We shall be alone enough for whatever discussion there needs to be.”

BUT ELIZABETH HAD no desire to walk the following morning, or the morning after that.

She simply wanted to stay indoors, to lie abed most of the day, and to think of nothing at all.

She wished to distract herself with reading books, to do her best to pretend—as Colonel Fitzwilliam had advised her—that none of it had happened.

She found the letter that Mr. Darcy had told her that he had written her, and she started to read it, but she had to admit she didn’t get very far.

Instead, she folded it up and went looking for the letter from her father, which she had apparently put back in Mr. Darcy’s jacket pocket.

Why keep it there? She did not know. But, without giving it more thought, she simply switched them, putting Mr. Darcy’s letter there and taking out the letter from her father.

The letter from her father was badly smudged, and she could not be sure that the end was, in fact, a request that she come home at once so that they could sort out the business of this inheritance, but it would only have made sense that she should go home in the wake of this news.

She could take a post coach, she supposed, to Jane in London, and then she could make her way home with her sister.

She likely should do such a thing.

But she just lay in bed until a servant came with a missive from Mr. Darcy, saying that they needed to talk and he and Colonel Fitzwilliam were, even then, waiting on the garden path where she usually walked.

So, she got herself together and went out to meet the men there.

The meeting of the three of them was awkward. Both of the men were gruff and seemed to not wish to look at her. She felt tired in a way that seemed to seep into her bones. She knew not if this were the first sign of carrying a babe. She knew it did make women tired.

She had brought back Mr. Darcy’s jacket. She handed it to him.

He sputtered that it hadn’t been necessary, that she might have kept it if she needed it.

“Yes,” she said wryly, “for I have ever so much need of a man’s jacket.”

Mr. Darcy’s cheeks reddened.

She felt bad about being sarcastic. She began walking.

“The letter was still in it. It was hard to make out, but I was able to read it better in a dry and well-lit environment. I am to receive an inheritance from my aunt. Six thousand pounds.” She was remembering that she had put Mr. Darcy’s letter back in his jacket pocket, and she had not had the chance to read it.

She thought she might have wished to have it back, actually, but she did not know how to remedy the situation now.

“That’s all?” said the colonel. “He did it for six thousand pounds?”

“He was sometimes rather shortsighted,” muttered Mr. Darcy.

“It may not be much to men like you, but I rather think it will be quite enough for me,” she said.

“I know there was some talk of trying to marry me off, but I have considered, and I think I might rather simply take the money for myself.

If I am careful and thrifty, I think it can support me, together with whatever dowry I have already.

I shouldn't live anything like extravagantly, but I might make it all work with careful planning.”

Both of them turned to look at her, furrowing their brows.

“You don’t wish to marry at all?” said the colonel, as if this were the most daft thing he had ever heard in his life.

“Well, I don’t know if I ever truly wished to marry,” said Elizabeth, thinking about it. “It is expected, of course, and I suppose I thought fondly of having children. But perhaps I shall have a child.” She shook herself. “I rather hope not. I shall have nothing to give a child, if so—”

“You won’t worry about that,” said Mr. Darcy. “I shall provide for the child. If it is a girl, I shall make sure she has a dowry. If it is a boy, we shall give him an education—Miss Bennet, are you quite certain you do not wish to take my offer?”

“Oh, I thought we were agreed, Fitz,” said the colonel, spreading his hands.

She looked back and forth between them. “Agreed on what?”

“No, of course,” said Mr. Darcy, his mouth twisting. “I well know that you do not wish to marry me, Miss Bennet, so I hereby vow to stop pressuring you in that direction.”

“Agreed on what?” she repeated, and then, it came to her.

“You don’t mean you’ve agreed not to compete over me.

” It seemed long ago, that conversation with the colonel, before everything with the proposal and everything that had come after.

She remembered how he had pointedly told her he couldn’t marry where he chose.

She had thought then that perhaps he felt something for her.

“We have,” said the colonel quietly.

“Though my six thousand pounds is nothing tempting to you,” she said to the colonel. “So you were no longer interested, anyway.”

“Obviously, I’m interested, Miss Bennet.” The colonel’s voice was quite deep.

“But we agreed,” broke in Mr. Darcy. “Unless, that is, Miss Bennet, you return Richard’s feelings, in which case—”

“Oh, no, I should rather never have to put my hand on another man’s prick, for the sake of all that is holy. It was the worst thing I have ever had to do!”

The two men both stopped walking.

She kept on, burying her face in her hands, thinking that she might simply start sobbing again, and she didn’t know what to do with herself should that be the case, because she did not wish to cry in front of the both of them. Had she just said the word “prick”? What was wrong with her?

Mr. Darcy caught up with her first. “We should have realized, I think, that you… that’s a very obvious reaction, madam.”

“Except whatever it was he did, it doesn’t have to be like that,” said the colonel, falling into step with them both.

“Richard,” muttered Mr. Darcy witheringly.

“It’s neither here nor there,” said the colonel. “All right, attend to me, we wished to speak to you because we need to make a plan, Miss Bennet. We are the only ones who know you may be increasing. You should have… how long until it’s obvious?”

“I don’t know. Months?” said Mr. Darcy.

“About five,” she said. “For a first babe, anyway. A second might show earlier.”

“Ah, so you know these things,” said the colonel.

“I am a woman,” she said, and her voice was sharp.

“Well, it doesn’t take so long to know,” said the colonel. “Women know sooner, within a month, yes?”

“If I am not with child, I shall know relatively soon,” she said.

Her bleeding was due within the next few days, actually.

Well, now that she thought about it, a number of days had passed.

It was due imminently. Why hadn’t she been thinking about this?

Why had she simply been lying in bed and reading? What was wrong with her?

She must actually be with child, she thought with a kind of detached sense of horror, feeling as if Wickham—even though he was dead—had somehow crawled inside her and taken residence in her body. That was the only thing that would explain why it was that she was not herself.

“How soon?” said the colonel.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” she said. “Or the next day.”

“Truly?” said the colonel. “So soon?”

“Richard, don’t be foolish,” said Mr. Darcy. “You know how this works, for God’s sake.”

“Do I?” said the colonel. “How would she know?”

“In the way that women always know,” said Mr. Darcy, sighing heavily.

“But what is—oh.” The colonel flushed, chuckling to himself. “Obviously.” He cleared his throat and addressed her. “Well, if your bleeding comes, you need to send us word.”

Elizabeth winced.

“Truly?” said Mr. Darcy, glaring at the other man. “This is what you say to her?” He turned to Elizabeth. “You are certainly not to tell any servants to send word about your womanly… issues to either of us. That, you see, is how dreadful rumors start.”

“She wouldn’t have to say that to the servant,” said the colonel. “She could say something else, something that we have agreed upon ahead of time to mean one thing or the other. She could say, ‘Clear skies’ if she is not with child, something like that.”

“We’re not involving servants or sending word,” said Mr. Darcy in a voice that brooked no argument. “Why can you not simply tell us on your walks? We shall meet like this, each day—”

“Because I no longer wish to walk,” said Elizabeth. “And if I am up and about and doing things with myself, I think I shall have to make plans to go home to my family.”

“Well, we need a plan before that,” said Mr. Darcy, “especially if there a child.”

“Plans,” she said in a low voice. “Yes. I must make a plan to get home, also. I must find the schedules for the post coach and I must—”

“No,” said Mr. Darcy. “Heavens, no. You will ride with me. With us. We had discussed the idea of quitting Rosings soon, anyway, had we not, Richard?”

“We had,” said the colonel. “So, we’ll go whenever it is that you wish.”

Elizabeth did not know what to make of the fact that she had these two men so eager and willing to do things for her.

It was rather relieving, truly, since they both knew everything.

Perhaps she was being foolish not taking advantage of this.

She would need support, especially if she was with child.

“All right, I shall resume my walks, then.”

“Good,” said Mr. Darcy, smiling at her.