Chapter One The Bell Tolls for Thee
St George's, Hanover Square, was engaged in the offensive business of ringing its bells.
They pealed. They clamoured. They announced to all of Mayfair that the deed was done, the registers signed, and the bachelorhood of the two most eligible gentlemen in London thoroughly extinguished.
To Caroline Bingley, standing under the striped awning of a milliner's shop on the opposite side of the street, the sound resembled nothing so much as a hammer against porcelain.
She adjusted her grip on the ivory handle of her parasol.
The late February wind bit at her cheeks, threatening to rouge them in a manner that was entirely too rustic for a lady of quality, but she refused to retreat.
A general does not leave the field simply because the battle is lost. A general stays to catalogue the errors of the enemy.
"It is a circus," Caroline hissed. She tightened her cashmere shawl, a vibrant shade of Pomona green selected specifically to clash with the grey cobblestones. "A veritable circus. Do they not know that excessive bell ringing is the height of vulgarity? It sounds like a country fair."
Beside her, a mountain of hatboxes shifted. From the depths of the cardboard and ribbon, a muffled sound emerged. "I believe it is a wedding, Madam."
Schmidt, her maid, currently served as a beast of burden.
The woman possessed the constitution of an ox and the countenance of a root vegetable, both necessary traits for serving in the Bingley household.
She clutched three large boxes against her chest, two more dangled from her wrists by twine, and a satchel of silk trimmings was wedged firmly under her left arm.
"It is a travesty," Caroline declared.
The great oak doors of the church swung open. A cheer went up from the gathered crowd, commoners, street urchins, and idle nursemaids who had nothing better to do than gawk at their betters.
The first couple emerged, bathed in winter light.
It was enough to make one ill. There was Jane Bennet, now Viscountess Keathley, insufferably serene in white, clinging to the arm of her new husband.
The Viscount, Lord Keathley, looked down at his bride with a proprietary grin that suggested he had just won the largest pot at cards in the history of London.
He looked triumphant. She looked radiant.
Caroline felt a headache bloom behind her eyes.
And behind them, him. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Caroline felt a sharp, physical pain in her chest, as if she had swallowed a pin. He was magnificent. Imposing. And he was looking down at Elizabeth Bennet as though she were the only person in the world.
"It is unjust," Caroline murmured, the words tasting like vinegar.
"I saw him first, Schmidt. I walked turn after turn about the room with him at Netherfield.
I possess excellent taste in furniture. I read books I do not enjoy simply to converse with him.
And I have much finer eyes than her, if I may say so myself. "
"Absolutely, Madam." Schmidt shifted her weight. A hatbox listed dangerously to the left. "Your eyes are… piercing. Like a hawk spotting a field mouse."
"They are just green," Caroline snapped, not turning her gaze.
She scanned the crowd for her brother. She found him trailing behind the Darcy party, walking alone.
Charles wore a smile that was too wide and entirely vacant, nodding at guests who barely acknowledged him.
He looked like he had wandered into the wrong party and was too polite to leave.
Even from here, Caroline could see the nervous way he kept his distance from the Viscount, likely recalling the threat issued at Gunter's regarding his limbs.
"Look at him," she whispered, fury replacing the pain. "Smiling at the very people who tolerate him only for his bank account. It is humiliating, Schmidt."
She watched Elizabeth Bennet laugh at a remark Darcy made.
The sheer lack of decorum. Laughing on the church steps like a milkmaid.
It was unfair. It was wrong. It was enough to make a lady wish to scream, were screaming not so terribly prone to causing wrinkles.
Caroline burned with the heat of it, a righteous fury that kept the winter chill at bay.
She was so consumed by the pleasurable agony of her own indignation that she failed to observe the shift in light.
The weak winter sun, previously illuminating the muddy street, vanished.
A shadow fell over her, large, darker than the awning, and smelling faintly of starch, expensive tobacco, and impending doom.
"Shopping, Miss Bingley? Or scouting for enemy weaknesses?"
Caroline stiffened. Her spine, already rigid enough to serve as a mast for a schooner, locked into place. She knew that voice. It was a baritone that always seemed to carry a suppressed chuckle, the voice of a man who found the entire world to be a joke told at his expense.
She turned slowly and raised her chin to a perilous angle.
Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam loomed over her.
He was distressingly tall. While Darcy stood with the stiffness of a marble statue, his cousin Richard stood with the loose-limbed ease of a predator who knew he need not rush.
He wore his dress uniform, the scarlet coat bright enough to wound the eye, the gold braiding slightly tarnished from actual use rather than decorative parade.
His face was craggy, weather-beaten from campaigns in godforsaken places, and dominated by a left eyebrow, a bushy, judgemental creature, that currently arched near his hairline.
He looked penniless. He looked intriguing. He looked like he knew exactly why she was hiding three hundred yards from the social event of the season.
"Colonel." Caroline's voice dropped to a temperature that could freeze water. "I did not observe your approach."
"Hard to miss me," he grinned, revealing teeth that were distressingly white.
"I am the brightly coloured object blocking your view.
But then again, you do seem focused on the church doors.
Why are you not inside, Miss Bingley? Were you not invited?
I could have sworn Darcy mentioned your brother was attending.
In fact, is that not Bingley waving at a flower girl? "
His tone was perfectly polite. His eyes were perfectly mocking. They danced with a light that suggested he could read her thoughts and found them hysterical.
Caroline tightened her grip on her parasol until the ivory bit into her glove. She would expire before she admitted to being snubbed. She would perish, be buried, and haunt this very street before she gave a second son the satisfaction of her humiliation.
"My invitation must have been misplaced, Colonel," she lied, the falsehood sliding from her lips like oil. She flipped the parasol open with a snap that nearly took off the tip of his nose. "I am merely a passer-by. I have been purchasing necessities."
"Necessities?" The Colonel glanced at the teetering architecture of boxes in Schmidt's arms. "That appears to be enough feathers to fletch an entire battalion of arrows, Miss Bingley. Are you planning an invasion?"
"Come, Schmidt," Caroline commanded, ignoring his jest entirely. To acknowledge his humour was to encourage it, and Colonel Fitzwilliam required no encouragement to be tiresome. "We are leaving. The air here is stifling."
She made to step around him, intending to sweep down the pavement with regal indifference.
However, the pavement was crowded, the awning narrow, and Schmidt's burden wide.
As the maid attempted to manoeuvre the hatboxes past the Colonel's broad chest, gravity asserted its dominance.
The top box, containing a bonnet of questionable taste but exorbitant price, wobbled.
Schmidt gasped. Caroline flinched.
A hand, large and scarred, shot out and caught the box mid-air.
"Steady on," he said. He did not return the box to the pile.
Instead, he tucked it under his arm with the familiarity of a man used to carrying rucksacks.
Then, to Caroline's horror, he reached out and relieved Schmidt of two more parcels.
"I cannot have a lady wandering the streets of Mayfair unaccompanied while carrying half a milliner's inventory. It reflects poorly on the peerage."
"I am not unaccompanied," Caroline hissed, her face heating. "I have Schmidt. And you are not the peerage, Colonel. You are merely the son of one."
"A technicality," he replied, undeterred.
He adjusted the parcels, looking entirely too comfortable holding ladies' trimmings while wearing a sword.
"Schmidt looks as though she is about to faint, and I would hate for her to drop your necessities in the mud.
I am heading your way. I shall escort you. "
"You do not know which way I am going."
"You are going away from the happiness of others," he said, his wolfish grin widening. "Which is generally the direction I travel as well. After you, Miss Bingley."
He gestured with the hatbox, a mock bow that was both gallant and infuriating. Caroline looked at Schmidt. The maid let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like relief, her arms now holding a manageable load.
There was no escape. To refuse him now would cause a scene, and Caroline Bingley did not cause scenes. She inspired them in others.
"Very well," she said, lifting her skirts an inch to avoid a puddle. "But do try to keep up, Colonel. I walk briskly."
"I shall endeavour to match your pace," he drawled, falling into step beside her. "Though I fear my legs are longer."