Chapter Nineteen
THE TRIP TO Scotland was long, even though he went horseback, stopping at inns at night (it was too cold to sleep under the stars, though he would have else). He had lots of time to think the matter through this way and that, to try to see some way through it all.
He had not spoken to his sister about any of it, which was part of the problem, he supposed.
He was not sure what her opinion of Wickham was at this juncture.
She had looked up to him as a child, he knew, had seen him like an elder brother.
She had felt very scolded when Darcy sailed in to put an end to their attempted elopement.
She had cried quite a bit when Darcy sat down with her afterward.
Oh, and there had been that awful conversation, with Colonel Fitzwilliam present, and the colonel had led the charge, asking her all manner of probing questions.
Had Wickham ever kissed her, had he touched her, had he tried to get her to remove her clothing?
Darcy had needed to know, of course, had feared the worst, knowing exactly what Wickham was capable of when it came to women.
Georgiana’s face had been quite red and she had said no to all of the questions.
It had been traumatizing for her.
How do I bring that man back into our lives? he thought, wondering again at himself for not having solved this problem already, for this was the one problem that needed solving. It was much more pressing than the rest of it.
Well, perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t. Truthfully, he supposed that he and Wickham would have to decide if his offer to him would mean that they could exist with the other without the volatility that had haunted them hitherto. That part really was the crux of the matter.
In truth, he had not really thought any of it through.
He did not know how it would be that the three of them would navigate society.
It would be easier in the country, at Pemberly, for Wickham had grown up there and the servants there would not think much of his continued presence in the estate.
Elsewhere, however, they could not keep saying that Wickham was a doctor or whatever the nonsense was he had concocted in London.
He had gone off to bring Wickham back, but he did not know how he could bring him back to London.
He fretted as he rode through Scotland, making his way towards Edinburgh. He had come all this way with only one solution, and there were too many other problems.
Perhaps it would not matter, in the end, for Wickham had not told him where he was, and he had hidden himself away here. Perhaps Wickham would not wish to come back.
WICKHAM WAS STUNNED to come home to the rooms he rented to find Fitzwilliam Darcy waiting for him one evening.
“Fitz,” he sputtered. “It is you. Here. How can this be?”
Darcy looked sheepish. “I should have written a letter, I think. I suppose I meant to make a grand gesture, but all the ride here from London, I began to think it through, and I don’t know what kind of a gesture it even is. I don’t think it is grand, after all.”
“A grand gesture,” said Wickham, tilting his head to one side. “For me?”
“Obviously, for you, George,” said Darcy.
Wickham let him in and moved law books off the chairs, muttering that he had nothing to offer him, that he took most of his meals at a tavern around the corner, that they could go there if Darcy wished.
Darcy pulled him down in a chair next to him and said that he was here to talk.
“Where are you going to stay?” said Wickham. “I do not have another room here, only one, only one bed.” He looked up at the other man, who smiled at him. Wickham quieted. “A grand gesture. You wish me to come back with you.”
“I do,” said Darcy. “But I spent all my time trying to think through some way for us to feel as if we were equals, for you not to feel as if I was lording myself over you, and I solved that, I think, but I did not think about my sister or how we all live together or—”
“Yes, Georgiana,” said Wickham. “The more I think back on it all, the worse about it I feel. I think of how young she was and how entitled I was. And how dare I, and how she was pulled this way and that by my wishes and yours and no one considered hers. She did not deserve to be treated that way, and I do not know what to do about it. I do not think she should have to endure my presence, and that is that. If we ever took up with each other, I should clear out whenever she came around.”
Darcy raised his eyebrows.
“Eventually, she’ll marry, of course, and perhaps at some point, I shall be in a position where I can apologize, but I should not be paraded around in front of her, I do not think.”
“This is not what I would have thought to hear from you,” said Darcy.
“As for how we could live… well, it would likely be best if I did not live with you both. I could live nearby, I suppose, or come on extended visits with you both. You might say that I am your own personal lawyer and you could have a number of reasons for why you might need to travel with me, especially if you were going to be doing any business. The servants, however, would need to be told the truth and paid rather handsomely for their silence, I think.”
“You’ve thought this all through,” said Darcy.
“No,” said Wickham, shaking his head. He had not. “This just is coming to me now as we speak. I do not think things through, as we all know, so I have grown rather good at quick and thorough immediate reactions.”
Darcy laughed. “Yes, indeed. That is one your strengths, George.”
“And as for whatever you said before, about us being equals, that’s all bollocks.
We shall always occupy different roles within society.
We shall never be equals in that way, but I don’t need it anyway.
I have spent far too much of my life concentrating on all the things I didn’t have when I could have been noticing all the things I did. ”
“Well,” said Darcy. “You’ve changed.”
“You’re still the same,” said Wickham.
Darcy ducked his head down, abashed.
“No, you’re not,” said Wickham. “You would never have done this before, would you, a grand gesture, coming after me?”
“Confidence,” said Darcy, grinning easily at him. “It’s odd how having everything handed to you does not tend to make a man feel as if he’s earned it.”
“You are a good man, Fitz, good through and through.”
“I do not know if I am a good man,” said Darcy. “But I know that I miss you. And I know that I was being bullheaded about things, making them into something that didn’t matter. And I also realized I had stopped bedding my wife because I was afraid of getting her with child when I wish… I want…”
Wickham waited.
Darcy drew in a breath. “You should father my heir.”
Wickham sat up straight. His waistcoat felt too tight.
“Do you see, George, how it settles things? It’s what I could have done from the beginning.
I did say that it gave me a cockstand, didn’t I?
And that element of it is still there, but it’s not about some kind of game in bed, it’s about securing you and making you feel important and pulling us all together and making us… I don’t know… family?”
Wickham got up from his chair. He ran a hand through his hair.
“But Lizzy is in London, and she is not pleased with me. My sister is in London, and also Lizzy’s sisters are in London, and you and I can likely not go there, so even if I bring you back with me now, I don’t know how or when this may happen.
Lizzy and I have grown distant in recent months, and it is my own fault.
I thought to bring you back to mend it, but I wonder now if I put too much into this, all of this—”
“Fitz.” Wickham offered the other man his hand.
Darcy put his hand into it.
Wickham pulled him to his feet. Now, they were face to face. He studied the other man’s features, his gaze flicking to Darcy’s lips and then to his eyes.
Darcy’s breath stuttered. His face moved closer to Wickham’s. But then he paused, questions in his eyes.
And Wickham nodded, moving closer as well.
Slowly, tentatively, the two men’s mouths came together to kiss.
They had never done this. They had never acknowledged this between themselves. But as it happened, as Wickham kissed the man he had loved for some time now, he felt as if a torrent gushed free inside him, and he wrapped his arms around Darcy, who was pulling him close as well.
They embraced and sighed and their mouths moved against each other and then they were laughing and then they were looking in each other’s eyes and then Darcy’s hands were on Wickham’s chest, and then lower, and then the other man was working the falls of Wickham’s trousers and Wickham touched his face and said, “Fitz, Fitz, you are here, how are you here?”
Then, Darcy had his hand on Wickham, stroking him. “There you are, George, there you are, quite stiff for me, are you not?”
Wickham shut his eyes. He pressed his mouth to Darcy’s forehead.
Darcy let go of him. He backed up and sat back down and beckoned Wickham with two fingers.
Wickham staggered forward. “You are not going to—”
Darcy put Wickham’s prick in his mouth.
Wickham gasped.
His mouth was hot and wet and felt ever so good and Wickham groaned and bit down on his bottom lip and caressed the other man’s face as Darcy looked up at him, looked up at him with Wickham in his mouth, and the sight of that was so erotic that Wickham could hardly contain himself.
“Fitz,” he gasped. “I shan’t last. If you do not wish me to spend in your mouth, you must move off.”
But Darcy didn’t move off, just held his gaze with his own.
And they were looking deep into each other’s eyes when Wickham pumped himself into the other man’s mouth.