Some Particular Evil

Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

“ R elieve our suffering?” Elizabeth asked in breathless disbelief. “Sir, I believe the distress of the moment has addled you! This is not the time for such a discussion?—”

“This is the perfect time, my dearest Elizabeth. I know you have been prudent and chosen not to indulge your feelings until I came to terms with my own. I finally have. You need not worry; I have chosen to disregard the impropriety of our union, for I simply cannot live another day apart from you.”

He pulled her fingers to his lips and pressed a firm kiss against her knuckles, his eyes drifting closed with a contentment Elizabeth could not tolerate. She tugged her hands from his and stepped back impatiently.

“How magnanimous of you, sir!” Elizabeth spat, the heat of her ire crawling up her neck. Can he truly believe I would accept such a proposal?

“Not only do you choose a moment such as this to declare yourself, you choose to tell me you like me against your will, even against your own reason! Well, I have reason as well, and my reason tells me that your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others make you the last man I would ever think to marry!”

Mr Darcy was dumbfounded and clearly hurt by her proclamation, and Elizabeth wondered if she had spoken too harshly. Then, his handsome countenance turned stoney, and the hands he had been stretching before him fell to his sides.

“And yet you have put yourself in danger to ensure my safety; does this not belie your claims?” he asked through clenched teeth, his eyes intense and his jaw working. “If my attentions were so objectionable to you, why have you encouraged my suit all these weeks?”

“Your suit , sir? I told you I wished to walk alone in the mornings. I made it clear that if you desired to wander the same paths, I would be gone shortly after dawn. I have never desired your company nor your good opinion. Why should I? After what you did to Mr Wickham! I could never attach myself to someone who could so dishonourably deny his childhood friend the living intended for him since his youth! Jealousy is one thing, Mr Darcy, but to descend to such malicious revenge—to withhold that which might secure another’s success and happiness—that kind of behaviour I cannot countenance.”

“Wickham? He accused me of withholding his inheritance? What is four thousand pounds to me, pray, that I should keep it from him? You, who think you read people so well, you believe that blackguard, that ne’er-do-well, that practiced seducer? You find him more honourable than I?”

He closed the distance between them as he spoke, and Elizabeth had to bend her head back to meet his challenging gaze. She barely registered anything he had said outside of his accusation against her intuition.

“More gentlemanlike, certainly,” she retorted. He was silent, his breathing heavy and his eyes moving from one to the other of hers.

“And you maintain that you feel nothing for me?” he asked throatily, his face so close she could smell the musty beetroot on his skin.

She swallowed and her pulse quickened at his proximity. “Nothing at all.”

“Then what were you doing in my arms this afternoon?” His voice was a fierce whisper, as pleading as it was accusatory. He began to lean his head towards hers, their mouths a breath apart. Elizabeth’s heart was pounding in her ears, and she knew a maddening desire to repeat the dizzying folly they had engaged in just hours before. His face drew nearer until his lips were almost upon hers; she could not will herself to move away. Her hand floated towards his jaw of its own accord, but just as her fingers drew near his neck, he breathed, “Do you allow every man for whom you feel nothing to hold you so intimately?”

She shoved him away from her with both hands, upending her own footing in the process. “Again, you prove just what a gentleman you are! You should go, sir.”

With that, she turned her back to him, crossing her arms in front of her, struggling to contain the slew of conflicting emotions she was experiencing. She focused on the anger coursing through her, allowing it to keep her from turning around and watching him leave. After she heard the cottage door swing closed behind him, her anger gave way to relief, then confusion and uncertainty as her legs lost the strength to keep her upright.

“Insufferable,” she cried to the empty room as she fell into a nearby chair, inhaled sharply, and threw her head back to keep the welling tears from falling.

Jem was speaking, but Darcy could not follow. It was not likely the man had anything of import to say, any way.All he could think was—Elizabeth had rejected him, and with very little effort at civility. After all their shared morning walks, all his visits, everything he had done to demonstrate his regard for her, she had the gall to accuse him of not behaving as a gentleman.

Him!

If anyone knew how to behave in a ‘gentlemanlike’ manner, it was Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley!

After Jem tightened the saddle on the pathetic nag, handed the reins up to him, and wished him good luck, Darcy grunted a reluctant thanks. Thanks for what? For outfitting him in clothes that, though freshly laundered, still smelled of horse dust and sweat? For putting him up for an hour in a crumbling house that reeked of mildew and burnt human hair and then sending him off with a jar of kippers?

Darcy hated kippers. Everyone knew Darcy hated kippers.And he hated tough leather breeches and scratchy wool coats and floppy, wide brimmed hats.

And he was cold. His head was cold. His hands were cold— where the devil are my gloves? He was dirty, too. That Jem had made him dig his perfectly pared nails into the soil and muddy the mirror polish of his riding boots.

Darcy hated being cold. And he especially hated being dirty.

At the moment, Darcy hated everything and everyone. Most of all, he hated Elizabeth Bennet. And he hated himself for being foolish enough to fall in love with her.

He had gone against his every inclination and entrusted his heart to her. Of course she had ripped it from his chest, tossed it to the ground, and stamped upon it—is that not what women did? He never should have allowed himself to believe she was different, deserving of the faith he had placed in her. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she now claimed she had never desired his hand, had not even cared for his good opinion!

How could she?

The horse trotted up to the village square just as the coachman was strapping the last of the trunks to the top of the carriage. Darcy dismounted from the nag, untied the sack Barnes had packed for him, which also held the few foodstuffs Jem’s wife had sent him off with, and smacked the horse on her flanks, thus sending her back to Rosings. He walked over to the coachman, gave him the coin required, and climbed inside.

There were five others already seated on the shabby squabs, and Darcy had to squeeze himself between the slatternly matron on his left and the window nearest the door. He had hoped he would have the carriage to himself during his journey, but no such luck. His foul-tempered scowl must have exaggerated the roughness the blood and bruises depicted, for none of his fellow passengers dared even look him in the eye, much less greet him. All the better, for in his sour mood, he might have been tempted to inform them of their malodorous state and create even more enemies for himself.

As it was, he was still unsure of who the enemy responsible for his current predicament even was. Though his immediate vexation was directed towards Elizabeth for having rejected the proposal he had agonised over for so many months, he knew there was a larger, more dangerous nemesis at play. As the coach began to roll forwards, he let out a sigh of relief and began turning over in his mind who might wish to see him hang.

His first thought was Wickham. Had Darcy not refused to hear him when he applied for the recently vacated living his father had meant for the young man? Darcy felt no qualms about this, for, besides the one thousand pounds his father had left the man, Wickham had been given three thousand more in lieu of the living. But Wickham had been desperate, eschewing any culpability for having squandered the fortune while no doubt hoping Darcy would satisfy his creditors and discharge his debts of ‘honour’. What honour was there in losing money in a gaming hell or the card tables? No, Darcy would not have it!

After Fitzwilliam had thwarted Wickham’s designs on Georgiana, thus robbing him of her thirty thousand pounds, Darcy could only imagine how furious he was. And, since Wickham would have understood that Fitzwilliam was acting on Darcy’s behalf in the matter, it was no surprise that Darcy would be the target of his bitter revenge. He knew Wickham to be a mischief maker, always trying to win the approval of Darcy’s father and manipulating his own to his will in all things. He had made their young lives into a competition, but he could not displace Fitzwilliam in Mr Darcy’s affection. This, Wickham had felt, was the height of injustice.

Darcy had watched him during their time at Cambridge, too. In their first year, he had applied himself, evidently still trying to impress the man who was funding his education. Soon, however, he began partaking in the darker entertainments prevalent on such a campus. He began drinking, gambling, carousing with the maids who populated the nearby inns and taverns, and regularly applying to Darcy for more funds. The generous allowance Darcy’s father allotted him began to dwindle with increasing rapidity. With every request, Darcy was sure to give him an earful of censure and advice, which Wickham resented more each time.

Darcy was not surprisedwhen he found that Wickham had been obliged to join the militia to maintain three hots and a cot. What else was a wastrel such as Wickham to do? After what he had attempted at Ramsgate, Darcy wrote him a letter which informed him in no uncertain terms that he would never see another farthing from Pemberley, no matter what nefarious schemes he attempted. For a man who felt so keenly that others, namely the Darcy family, owed him a gentleman’s living, that must have cut deeply. No wonder Wickham had, upon sighting Darcy in Meryton, responded by poisoning those around him with malicious slander.

Darcy did not know in exactly what manner, under what form of falsehood, Wickham had imposed upon Elizabeth, but her accusations made it clear that Wickham had indeed plied her with lies, casting he-knew-not-what aspersions upon Darcy’s character, while painting himself the innocent. And all this time, she had been carrying around this prejudice against him. Every word, every walk, every stolen glance—tainted by her dislike of him.

It could not be.

It was while he was mentally reliving their every interaction that he heard faint shouts and hoofbeats approaching the coach. The stage slowed to a stop, the door opened, and Darcy was surprised to see Fitzwilliam speaking to the coachman.

“I must find him before…” he heard Fitzwilliam say, and Darcy was half tempted to make himself known to his cousin. Then Fitzwilliam's voice trailed off, and he cut a glance behind him at the sound of another set of hooves. The colonel swore under his breath.

Darcy immediately looked down and began rummaging through the sack he had on his lap, determined to avoid meeting Fitzwilliam’s eyes. He would not risk the safety of his closest friend by betraying his identity. Fitzwilliam must know nothing of where Darcy was going or what he now looked like. But in such close quarters, how could he fool the man who knew him better than anyone alive?

His hand fell upon a cold jar.Kippers!

Fitzwilliam knew he hated kippers. Darcy untied the twine which held the lid secure, crudely stuck his fingers in, and grabbed a hunk of the oily herring. His eyes watered in disgust, and he tried not to gag as the chunk of fish filled his cheek. He chewed on it open-mouthed until Fitzwilliam poked his head into the carriage to survey its occupants. He squinted the eye with the beetroot bruise, snarled his lip,and chewed loudly. When his cousin’s head turned in his direction, Darcy thrust the open jar into Fitzwilliam’s face and blared at him in an accent Jem might have used.

“Kippahs?”