Chapter Sixteen The Siege of the Colonel’s Bedchamber #2
"Your lot," Robert pointed a manicured finger at his younger brother, "is changing.
You fell in love with a woman who has twenty thousand pounds and a tongue sharp enough to skin a pig.
You cannot offer her poverty. But you can offer her a husband who has something to his name beyond a sword and a frayed cuff. "
Richard's laugh was short, bitter. "And what would she think of a husband who lives on his cousin's charity?"
"She would think," Darcy said quietly, "that you are a man willing to swallow pride for her sake. That is no small thing."
Silence stretched. Richard looked at the door to the dressing room, where Peters was doubtlessly laying out fresh linen and plotting his own escape from the Fitzwilliam family drama.
"Give me time," he said finally. "I will consider it."
Robert grinned. "That is all we ask."
Darcy nodded once. "Take the bath first. Consider later. You stink."
Richard allowed himself one last theatrical groan. Then he walked to the dressing room, his bare feet slapping against the boards.
Behind him, Robert murmured to Darcy, "Do you think he will take it?"
"I think," Darcy replied, "that if he does not, Elizabeth will have words with all of us. And none of them will be kind."
Richard emerged from the dressing room thirty-three minutes later, bathed, shaved, and smelling of sandalwood and soap instead of despair.
The nightshirt had been consigned to the fire.
Peters had laid out a fresh shirt of fine lawn, a waistcoat of sober grey, and clean breeches.
His hair had been tamed into order, though a few rebellious strands still stood at attention. He looked almost human. Almost.
He stopped short in the doorway.
His father stood in the centre of the room. Robert lounged against the mantelpiece, attempting innocence and failing. Darcy stood near the window, his expression grave, the only expression he had, really.
The Earl spoke first. "You look less like death. Improvement."
"Thank you, Father." He inclined his head. "I aim to please."
Robert snorted. "You aimed to please three days ago and ended up chasing a carriage like hound chasing partridges. Standards have fallen."
The Earl ignored his eldest son. He studied Richard with the slow, deliberate scrutiny of a commander inspecting troops before battle.
"You will not be going to the West Indies."
Richard blinked. "What?"
"I never wrote to the General. There is no posting. It was a ruse to motivate you."
The words hung in the air like smoke after cannon fire. Richard turned them over in his mind, examining them from every angle, waiting for them to assemble into sense.
"You lied."
"I manoeuvred."
"You told me I would be shipped to the West Indies."
"I implied it. You extrapolated."
The Earl moved to the window, his back to the light. "I did not expect you to take me literally. I did not expect you to fall in love with a woman who thinks you incapable of the emotion. And I certainly did not expect you to chase her carriage through Mayfair like a bedlamite."
"Lindon helped," Richard offered.
"Lindon is an idiot. You are supposed to be clever."
"I thought I was. Apparently not."
The Earl grunted. He picked up one of the untouched food trays from the bedside table, examined it, set it down in disgust. "I will pay Schultz. The tailor. Stop looking at me like that. It is not a gift. It is a bribe."
"Father—"
"Your mother and I called on Miss Bingley."
Richard's heart stopped. "You what?"
"She is proud. Stubborn. Wounded." His voice remained flat, matter-of-fact. "She reminds me of your mother. Same steel. Same refusal to bend."
"What did she say?"
"She said she would 'consider' the possibility that you are not a complete villain." He turned to face his son. "Which is, I suppose, progress."
Richard did not know what to say. His father, the Earl of Matlock, who had never admitted defeat, never shown uncertainty, never once raised his hands in surrender, stood before him—and for the first time in Richard's memory, he looked lost.
"I have no advice for you," he continued. "I have been married to your mother for thirty-five years and I still do not understand how she thinks. The Miss Bingley situation is beyond my expertise." He spread his hands. "It is up to her. There is nothing to be done but wait."
"Wait."
"Wait. And stop lying in bed like a corpse. It is unbecoming."
He stood by the door. "Get out. Eat. You are a Fitzwilliam. We do not surrender to despair. We outlast it."
He paused at the threshold.
"Father."
The Earl turned.
"Thank you." Richard's voice was rough. "For not actually sending me to die."
His father paused. And for a moment, just a moment, he looked almost fond.
"You are my son," he said. "Expensive. Idiotic. Terrible at romance." He stopped. "You are exactly like I was at your age."
"Father," Richard called again.
"Yes, son."
"You need to fix the ceiling. Too many cracks."
The Earl glared at his son and left.
Richard stood alone in the centre of the room.
Sunlight streamed through the windows. The air smelled of soap and sandalwood.
His future remained uncertain and entirely dependent on a woman who had laughed in his face.
But he did not feel like dying anymore. He felt, tentatively and against all reason, like fighting.
Robert pushed off the mantelpiece. "Well. That was almost touching. I may need to lie down."
Darcy cleared his throat. "Thornwood still stands, Richard. The offer remains."
Richard looked at his cousin. Then at the door his father had closed. Then at the ceiling, where Crack Number Seventeen now looked suspiciously like a hopeful smile.
"I will consider it," he repeated.
Robert grinned. "That is all we ask."
Darcy nodded once. "But be quick about it."
Richard moaned once more for good measure and accepted the hard claps of his brother and cousin bruising his shoulders.