Chapter 18 #2
Elizabeth took her bank note to retrieve her items from Wickham.
It was so much money, and the shame of being extorted weighed on her as she anxiously paced the square, waiting for Wickham.
Georgiana’s meetings had been early and more discreet, but the area around Berkeley Square was busy now.
Hopefully, she could pay Wickham quickly and then cut him and his wife from her life for good.
“Mrs Darcy.” A man fell in step beside her as she walked, and she did not have to look up to know that it was Wickham.
“Do you have my things?”
“I am well. Thank you for asking. Are you in good health?”
She withdrew the small envelope with the banknote and handed it over, never looking at him as they strolled side by side. He took it and opened it, peering inside to be certain he had been paid before tucking it into his pocket.
“Do you have my things?” she repeated.
“Always, ma’am. I keep them in my coat pocket.”
She waited expectantly, and when he kept walking and stayed silent, she huffed and said, “I have done as you asked. Give them back.”
“I hate to contradict a lady, but you have not done as I asked.”
“I beg your pardon?” she cried. In a quiet voice, she said, “I just gave you twenty-five pounds.”
“Did you think you were paying for their return? I am sorry for your misunderstanding. I wanted fifty pounds, if you recall.”
Her throat went dry. “But you agreed to twenty-five.”
“No, I said you could pay me twenty-five today,” he said calmly, as though he discussed the weather. “You still owe me another twenty-five.”
“But you know I cannot afford that!”
“Darcy is back in town, is he not?”
When she refused to answer, her breath coming shallow and quick, Wickham withdrew her journal and turned to a page. He was clearly reading the last entry to himself. An amused leer stretched his lips. “Seems like he had a reason to hurry home.”
Having her private thoughts open to his judgment made her hurt all over. She stayed silent, staring hard into Wickham’s eyes and willing him to drop dead on the pavement.
Wickham waved the journal before returning it to his pocket. “Maybe that interest in your person will convince him to increase your pin money, if he is satisfied, I mean.”
It took her a moment to realise that he meant for her to offer her body to Darcy in return for extra money. She gasped at the insult. “Am I a prostitute?”
Wickham shrugged. “There are freehearted ladies of all kinds, from the splendid madam at fifty guineas a night, down to the street girl who will resign her person for a pint of wine and a shilling. And that includes the lusty young bride who needs a better lover.”
“And I daresay you are acquainted with all of them.”
He bowed as though she gave him a compliment. “A few words from me and these lines here”—he tapped his coat pocket—“along with your pretty hair ornament, and everyone will know you cuckolded Darcy with me.”
She was attacked with a faintish sickness and swayed, and Wickham put an arm through hers to keep her on her feet. When her vision returned, she snatched her arm away. “I cannot pay you another shilling.”
“Then I will tear out this page and tell Darcy you longed for a man who could satisfy you and that you spent the fortnight he was away in my arms.”
“He won’t believe it!”
“Won’t he?” Wickham resumed walking, and she had to hurry on trembling legs to keep up with him. “He is that secure in your devotion, in your affection? That confident in the woman he was forced to marry?”
“He won’t believe you,” she repeated quietly.
“It will be in the papers by the end of the week, and then his feelings will not matter. The shame of it would devastate him, and his character would demand he take action.”
Would Wickham really follow through on such a vile threat? How could a man be so horrible? “Darcy could divorce me if you make your accusations public. All the world would call me an adulteress.”
He was silent as he rounded the corner and continued the stroll around Berkeley Square. He was completely unconcerned, enjoying the fine autumn day.
“Is that what you want?” she asked with a shaking voice. “You want him to be humiliated and for me to live in infamy?”
“I want twenty-five more pounds, ma’am.”
“And then you will return the aigrette and journal?”
He looked down at her with a cold look that belied his light tone. “Eventually. In the meantime, I will keep them until I have need of something else from you.”
He would slowly drain her bloodless. And the constant fear would consume her.
She would never know if every letter Darcy opened contained this alleged proof of her infidelity, if every day’s gossip page accused her of faithlessness.
The hint of it would ruin everything she might have had with Darcy.
Her own father had implied to him that she might be unfaithful.
Lady Catherine had offered to pay her to give Darcy a pretence for a divorce.
And all the worse, Darcy did not know she loved him, and how would he believe her now if she confessed it amid this scandal?
“Mrs Darcy, you have gone pale. May I escort you home?”
Agitation and alarm pressed on her and she could scarcely breathe.
There was not enough air in her lungs to answer Wickham.
She shook her head, standing stock still at the corner of the square by the entrance to Charles Street.
She wanted to be as far from Wickham as possible, and keep him far from her home where Darcy or one of the servants might see them together.
“I am wanted elsewhere,” he said, amusement at her distress shining in his eyes. “Meet me here on Friday at the same time, with the same amount, and I will forget all about this—for a while.”
He touched his hat and turned the other way toward Devonshire House and Piccadilly. There was no way she could afford to buy his continued silence, but if she did not find a way, Darcy could lose his good name—and then she would lose him.
Darcy had invited his cousin to dinner with Elizabeth’s aunt and uncle, thinking he would need an ally by his side.
Not that he would be rude to Mr and Mrs Gardiner.
Elizabeth loved them, and so he must respect them.
But he assumed they would neither be qualified to join in rational and entertaining conversation nor capable of listening with satisfaction to those who could thus converse, and so he made preparations accordingly.
But it was the best dinner engagement he had in a month of visits.
He had expected an unfurnished mind in Mrs Bennet’s brother and a tedious woman as his wife.
But Mr Gardiner was intelligent and amiable, and Mrs Gardiner was elegant and conversable.
Within minutes of sitting round the table together, Darcy was certain he had found a friend in Mr Gardiner.
In fact, the three gentlemen had sat at the table for nearly an hour after the ladies retired, enjoying the mediatory powers of a bottle and good company. Finally, Mr Gardiner said, “I will join the ladies and let you younger men finish the last of the wine.”
Mr Gardiner was likely only five years older than Fitzwilliam. Darcy told him he must stay, but Mr Gardiner went to the door, saying with a laugh, “No, no. When you are an old married man like me, you will understand.”
When the door closed behind him, Fitzwilliam’s open expression fell to a glare. “I can see why you invited me. You needed me to carry the conversation with the dull and vulgar tradesman. How on earth could you have managed alone, and kept your equanimity too?”
Darcy felt the hit and bowed his head. “I thought he would be uncouth and breathe port wine in my face all evening without a word of sense in between each exhale.”
“No one said or did anything to the derision of anyone else,” Fitzwilliam pressed.
“He is greatly superior to his sister, likely as well by nature as education.” Mr Gardiner was gentlemanlike, and even a little teasing, like his niece.
“Mrs Gardiner is very sensible. If you saw them on the street, you would take them for people of fashion.”
“I know,” he said, regretting he had assumed the worst of them. They were nothing like Mr and Mrs Bennet. There was not one sardonic quip to cut, no vulgar behaviour to embarrass everyone.
“Well, it has been a fine evening so far,” Fitzwilliam said while pouring the last of the wine into his glass, “so why the pensive face?”
Darcy toyed with his empty glass. “I can envision happy family gatherings with them. And I am saddened that my sister will have no part in them.”
“Neither will Lady Catherine, so it is not all bad.”
“It is terrible,” he insisted. His sister throwing herself away on a syphilitic gamester, and his aunt wishing his wife would engage in an affair so he could divorce her?
And Elizabeth’s parents were not the sort of people he, or even she, wanted to spend much time with.
Family would look and feel different in the years ahead.
“But your wife is a credit to you,” Fitzwilliam said. “I know what your family pride means to you, and your hasty marriage has not damaged it. Take comfort in that and enjoy Mrs Darcy.”
He smiled weakly, keeping to himself that he was not sure if Elizabeth enjoyed him.
He had returned from fencing this afternoon to find his wife eager to avoid him.
She had refused to talk with him, claiming to be too busy preparing for a family dinner for three guests.
She had unbent a little for their guests, but throughout the meal there were moments when the veneer of cheerfulness faded.
A faraway look would fill her eyes before she rallied.
“Did Mrs Darcy seem out of sorts to you tonight?” he abruptly asked.
Fitzwilliam started, then shrugged. “I do not know her well enough to say. She is perhaps less energetic than I saw at Pemberley and how she has been mentioned in society. But she is at home where she need not be on display and can be herself.”