After the Storm #6
“Do you know, I am not sure,” Bingley said. “I had not thought him much enamoured of the place while we were there, but he has since assured me otherwise.”
“What made you think he was displeased?”
Miss Darcy’s companion cleared her throat again, and Bingley looked askance at her. “He was forever squabbling with Miss Elizabeth, for one,” he replied, more candidly than he might have had he not been distracted. Would that Mrs Annesley just cough and have done with it!
“He argued with a lady?” Miss Darcy cried, sounding horrified.
“What? Oh—yes. Frequently and fiercely.”
“That is quite shocking! She must have been frightfully disagreeable, for I cannot believe he would have been uncivil without good reason.”
“On the contrary, she was a perfectly charming houseguest.”
“Oh! Was it she who fell ill at your house?”
Mrs Annesley coughed loudly, satisfying Bingley that whatever had been irritating her—and him—must now be dislodged.
“No, that was her sister, Miss Jane Bennet. Miss Elizabeth stayed to nurse her well again.”
“Then my brother has mentioned her in his letters. She was in Kent when he visited our aunt lately.”
“Yes, so I understand.”
“He did not mention that they argued.”
“I should imagine not! Though, he cannot have been all that displeased, for he danced with her at my ball.”
Miss Darcy looked positively triumphant. “Did he indeed?”
Mrs Annesley coughed again, and Bingley turned to her in frustration. “Are you quite well, madam? Allow me to call for some water.”
She declined, and after several reassurances as to her perfect health, Bingley returned his attention to Miss Darcy. She looked somewhat contrite, but that did not prevent her, after a surreptitious glance at her companion, from leaning towards him and asking, “Is Miss Elizabeth very handsome?”
“Miss Darcy!” Mrs Annesley interrupted. “I think it high time you called for tea.”
Bingley judged it best to say no more, but as the ladies busied themselves ordering refreshments, he reflected that the answer to the question was very simple: Yes, she is.
“Touche!”
Colonel Fitzwilliam stepped back, tugging at his shirtsleeves where they stuck to his arms with perspiration. “Father wishes you to join him for dinner a week on Thursday.”
Darcy was engaged in wiping his brow on his sleeve; thus, much of his face was obscured. Fitzwilliam nonetheless observed his grimace.
“Come now, it ought not to be too dire. Only a few sundries in attendance.”
The director called, “En garde,” and both men resumed their positions.
“Ashby will bring Lady Philippa, of course. And she will no doubt bring Lady Daphne.”
“Rapture.”
Fitzwilliam grinned.
“Prêt! Allez!”
He lunged immediately, but Darcy parried, closing the distance between them. Fitzwilliam scrambled to retreat, but in lightning tempo, his cousin executed a sharp beat to his sword, feinted an attack in sixte, disengaged and thrust in the opposite line.
The director called it. “Touche!”
“Bugger!”
“En garde!”
“You will never guess who else will be there,” Fitzwilliam said, ignoring his aching sword arm and resuming his position.
“Prêt!”
“Wellington?” Darcy said flatly.
“Allez!”
Again, Fitzwilliam lunged first, attempting to catch him off guard, but it was a weak attack. Darcy must have seen it also, judging by the speed and angle of his riposte.
“Touche!”
He wondered, on occasion, why he bothered taking Darcy on at all. He brought his feet back under him and stood straight, pushing his damp hair from his face. “Better than that. Guess again.”
“Byron.”
“No.”
“Prinny.”
“A sensible guess, if you please.”
“I have no idea, Fitzwilliam, as well you know.”
“You only dissemble because you believe it will be some God-awful sparrow father is promoting.”
“En garde!”
They crouched.
“Fear not!” he continued, grinning. “Who better to protect you from all young ladies seeking to distinguish themselves by breaking your heart?” He swished his sword about in front of him to demonstrate his readiness to defend his cousin.
“Prêt! Allez!”
The next assault began explosively as Darcy came at him with a fierce attack.
He parried frantically and retreated a step—and another—before Darcy’s remise faltered, and he seized the opportunity.
Parrying on the advance, he lunged forward, executing a glissade that saw his foil scrape down the length of Darcy’s blade and land a hit on his flank.
“Ah ha, a hit!”
Spinning away, Darcy raised his sword arm, circling it around once, twice…on the third revolution, he slashed his sword downwards in an uncommon show of pique. The colonel grinned, gratified to have riled his usually imperturbable cousin.
“En garde!”
“Perchance it is not protection from the ladies you require?” he said, raising his sword. “Mayhap you ought to accept one of Father’s suggestions after all—scratch that itch of yours.”
“Prêt!”
“Better yet, take a leaf out of Bingley’s book and fall in love!”
“Allez!”
He won the next assault with uncommon ease, Darcy’s usually flawless execution distinctly off kilter.
“Touche!”
“Who is it, then?” his cousin enquired tersely, which was stranger still, for it was unlike him to be a poor sport.
“Who is what?”
“Your father’s secret dinner guest.”
“My Grandmother, Mrs Sinclair.”
“I thought she was dead.”
“She very nearly is. She is eight-and-seventy!”
The next assault began with a rapid flurry of feints and retreats but ended abruptly when Darcy launched himself forward in a perfectly executed flèche, landing a hit on Fitzwilliam’s shoulder. Someone behind him applauded.
“Very flashy!” Fitzwilliam panted.
“Display is not your prerogative.”
“I should hope not! What a dull place Angelo’s would be were it not for the glut of pageantry.”
The clock struck twelve, and the director called time, signalling for a man to take their practice foils and another to bring their coats. They bid him a good day and weaved their way through the crowded halls to the stables.
“What brings Mrs Sinclair to England?” Darcy enquired.
“One too many arguments with my cousin’s wife.
She has forsaken Ireland forever and sworn never to return unless Niamh dies before she does.
Only she arrived to discover her townhouse fallen into disrepair, so she has imposed herself on my father until it has been renovated.
My father, who despises nothing in this world more than Sinclair women!
” He chuckled at his father’s vast displeasure.
Darcy did not join him in laughing. Looking at him, Fitzwilliam suspected he had not listened to a single word he said. “Not on top form today, Darcy?” he ventured.
At length, the words roused his cousin from his reverie. “By all means blame me if it will make losing more tolerable.”
Fitzwilliam wasted no more time attempting to extract his secrets. He was a man grown, he would speak up if there were aught serious troubling him. “May I tell my father you will come?”
Darcy cavilled, but after a little persuasion—namely the inducement of watching Lord Matlock suffer the lamentable presence of his almost-dead mother-in-law—Fitzwilliam extracted his cousin’s word that he would attend.
Darcy arrived home to find Georgiana and Bingley awaiting him.
He agreed with his sister that she would stay for the remainder of the day but left her with Mrs Annesley while he braved the inevitable discussion of Hertfordshire, eager to put it behind him.
Despite his qualms, however, Bingley began with the mention of a different, wholly unexpected locale.
“Nova Scotia?” he said after his friend’s haphazard account of his cousin’s venture in the New World was done.
“Yes. This is the third time he has written to me. He seems determined to persuade me to his thinking.”
“Is he having any success?”
“Not a jot! I should not like to be anywhere nearer than Land’s End if the war were to make it that far north.”
“Must you oversee the project? Could you not simply invest and remain in England?”
“That is what I hoped you would tell me.”
“I can certainly enquire of Irving whether he knows of any attorneys with the relevant experience.”
“Capital! I knew I could rely on you.”
The conversation moved naturally to the implications of war with the Americas. Inevitably, however, it came around to that matter which one party was eager to discuss, and the other was eager to avoid.
“I travel to Hertfordshire Friday next.”
To Darcy’s vast consternation, the mere mention of the place set his heart to racing. He perfunctorily expressed his good wishes, then stood and moved away, unable to think of aught but what Elizabeth’s reaction to Bingley’s return might be.
“Will you join me?” Bingley enquired, twisting to look at him over the wing of his chair. “Your sister informs me you have been unwell, in which case, a spot of country air will do you wonders.” He broke into a wide grin. “Besides, if you come, Caroline will come, and then I shall have a hostess.”
“I am sorry, Bingley. Your sister may do as she pleases. I shall not be there.”
“You are quite sure? You do look rather tired.”
“I am tired!” he snapped with all the exasperation of the sleep-deprived and broken-hearted. Then he cursed himself privately and added, “I cannot join you. I have business in Town. Besides, I have been away from Georgiana too long now. I would stay with her for a time.”
“Very well. Shall I pass on your regards to my neighbours?”
Darcy baulked at the notion of sending word to Elizabeth. God knew he longed to speak to her, to see her, to be with her—even more so after Fitzwilliam’s earlier teasing. Yet, she would not wish to hear from him again. He had been certain of that even before all his recent revelations.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “If you have an opportunity to do so discreetly, I should be grateful if you could make your neighbours aware that I regret my manners last autumn.”
“I really do not believe there is need. But if it puts your mind at rest, and if the opportunity arises, then I shall.”
Thus, the visit was concluded. Quashing a potent surge of jealousy for Bingley’s destination, Darcy went in search of his sister and some measure of equanimity.
Longbourn
27th April
Jane,
You must hasten home immediately. I had it this morning from Mrs Long—and it cannot be otherwise, for she had it directly from Mrs Etheridge, whose housekeeper had it from her niece, who is applying for work there. Netherfield is reopened! Mr Bingley is returning!
It can only be for you that he returns, therefore make haste and return this very day if your uncle can arrange it.
In anticipation,
Mama