Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The wedding day of Viscount Saye was much as expected: the bride was pretty and seemed nervous, Saye was affectedly apathetic, and the parents all appeared pleased.
The breakfast was well attended by all of the most prominent people, and soon enough, Lord and Lady Saye were off to spend a month in Brighton to enjoy the seaside and each other.
Georgiana had behaved poorly at her cousin’s wedding breakfast. Lady Matlock saw it and later spoke to Elizabeth about it.
The result had been many long hours of discussion on the proper behaviour for a young lady.
Although Georgiana had at first chafed at the restrictions imposed upon her, she soon realised they were for the best.
Several mornings later, as she strolled in the park with Mrs Younge, they happened to come across Mr Wickham looking exceedingly handsome in a blue coat and a new hat.
“Ladies, may I join you?” He smiled as Georgiana looked quickly to Mrs Younge who nodded.
“Of course, Mr Wickham. I am pleased to have your company.” He offered his arm, and they began to stroll. Despite the sedate nature of their pace, Mrs Younge walked slower and soon dropped well behind.
“I believed you were lost to me.” Wickham’s voice was a low murmur, thrilling and seductive. Despite her intentions, Georgiana warmed to it.
“We were in Derbyshire. Not lost at all.” She smiled up at him with just a hint of a flirtation.
“Ah, Pemberley.” There was evident wistfulness in his tone. “How I long to see it again! I think particularly of a certain spot where your brother and I used to ride. A rather high rise that overlooked nearly all of the land, including that one very rocky area—”
“I know just where you mean,” Georgiana replied with eager fondness. “It is a lovely prospect.”
They strolled in silence for a few minutes until Wickham said, “I hoped I might call on you soon.”
“Oh? Why is that?” She gave him a sidelong glance.
He appeared bashful. “Georgiana, I do not deny that what I feel for you is not entirely proper, and yet—”
“Mr Wickham”—Georgiana was stern, pronouncing his name with precision—“I should not see you. I am not yet out, and it is not proper for me to form any attachment to a gentleman.”
“When I am with you…I feel so…so…I can hardly express it. I only know it is nothing I have ever felt before.” He looked at her beseechingly.
Various emotions warred within Georgiana as she looked upon Mr Wickham’s handsome face. He was so clearly enraptured by her. It was a heady sensation to see this man so desperate for her.
But it was not right. It could not be.
“I am sorry, Mr Wickham, but I must insist that you do not call on me again.” She drew a deep breath, relieved to have come to a decision.
Mr Wickham swallowed and then removed a letter from his pocket. “Will you do me the honour, then, of reading this?” She accepted it, and her would-be suitor bowed, turned on his heel, and departed. Mrs Younge was beside her in a trice.
“What is that, Miss Darcy?”
“I should not have accepted it, I know.” Georgiana stared after his retreating form, looking so dignified and handsome. “I could not turn him away.”
“He cares for you deeply.” Mrs Younge spoke with great gravity. “It marks his every feature. Even his bearing is changed when he is with you.”
Georgiana did not reply, but her soul thrilled. To imagine having such power was intoxicating—the first bloom of her feminine wiles at play. She looked down the path, seeing his figure growing ever more distant, and then looked again at the letter in her hand.
“If you need his direction,” said Mrs Younge, helpfully, “I have it.”
“I believe I have a headache.” Darcy stood in the doorway of his wife’s bedchamber, looking at her. She had just bathed and was in front of the fire, combing through her wet hair in hopes that it would dry sufficiently for her maid to dress it.
“Come here.” She smiled, and he went obligingly, sitting in front of her and leaning back as she rubbed his temples and ran her fingers through his hair. She murmured in his ear, “Do you want to know what I think is the cause of your headache?”
“What?”
“I believe you do not wish to go tonight and will take any thought of pain to give us cause to remain at home.”
He laughed. “How well you know me! But no, I did not invent this ache. It is real, I assure you. I believe the lamp in my study was smoking.”
“Undoubtedly, it was though I do suspect you are not fond of the Ellises,” Elizabeth replied, naming their hosts for the evening.
“There are few people I know whose society I would prefer to an evening spent alone with my beautiful wife.” He tilted his face back to her.
She kissed the top of his head. “Shall we plan to return early then?”
Darcy closed his eyes for a moment. He knew that to stay home was unlikely, but he wished for it nevertheless. To leave early would have to suffice. “Yes, love, we shall come home early.”
It was a small party—only eight couples—and Darcy found most of them tedious.
However, Elizabeth was fond of several of the wives and had accepted the invitation.
He did enjoy seeing her take pleasure in the evening.
She laughed, smiled, and enchanted the room, and he thought, not for the first time, how privileged he was to have her as his wife.
For a moment, he closed his eyes and relived the day she first said she loved him.
She said it to him often now, and he to her, yet nothing could dim the glow of that first time.
When dinner had ended, the gentlemen had their requisite time of cigar smoking and port drinking before joining their ladies in the drawing room where a small musical party had been planned.
It was pleasant, but Darcy found himself itching to be home.
Later, he would wonder whether some sense of foreboding had heightened his anxiety that night.
The Darcys were not the first to depart but left soon thereafter.
When they entered the house, the first thing seen was a toppled chair in the middle of the hall.
Overhead, a great many footsteps were heard moving quickly, and in the distance, a man was shouting.
Elizabeth turned to Darcy. “What is the meaning—?”
Mrs Hobbs interrupted, her voice revealing her fright, “Jervis has stopped an intruder in the house, madam. A thief!”
Elizabeth took the older woman by the hand and proceeded to the servant’s wing to comfort and reassure the help. Darcy was off like a shot after learning from his butler that Jervis and the intruder were in the library, and his sister and son were both well and in their respective bedchambers.
He was at the library in a trice, tearing open the door. As soon as he entered, he came to an immediate and abrupt halt, stunned to see Jervis and Samuel, another of Elizabeth’s footmen, standing over none other than George Wickham.
Darcy would be forever grateful to Jervis for protecting Georgiana’s reputation as he learnt that George Wickham had been found attempting to seduce his sister in her sitting room. Thus, he was not a true intruder but an invited guest—though it was not a distinction that would ever matter.
The quick-thinking Jervis had brought Wickham down to the library and made the scene appear as though an attempted robbery had occurred. He pulled books down from the shelves and tossed things about as Wickham watched helplessly from the chair in which Jervis had bound and gagged him.
Moments after Darcy entered his study, Colonel Fitzwilliam arrived, clapping both Jervis and Samuel on their shoulders. “Well done, men! This will mean a nice promotion for you both.”
He roughly jerked the gag from Wickham’s mouth then sat on a chair across from where he was bound, silent and sullen, and did nothing more than regard him for a moment. “Wickham, I must say, you proved far more cunning than I ever believed possible.”
Wickham said nothing, turning his face away from the colonel’s merciless stare.
Fitzwilliam continued, “You led us on a merry chase, but your next dance will be the Newgate hornpipe.”
Wickham jerked his eyes to Fitzwilliam, and for the first time, Darcy saw a flash of fear run through his eyes.
He could almost pity him. There was no doubt that George went into this with no more than the chance of quick, easy money on his mind.
He surely never imagined it would end with being hanged for treason for the gain of a mere twenty-five pounds.
The door opened once again, and the butler ushered in the constable and a man called Harris who had led the investigation.
Harris was a large, beefy man in his forties who walked, talked, and breathed loudly.
“There he is!” Harris exclaimed as if Wickham were some long lost relation he was delighted to see.
“Thought we had lost you for sure! Well, off we go now. We have the finest accommodation arranged for you.”
Wickham, seeing his fate at hand, began to speak. “See here, it was not I who did this; there was another. I just—”
“Save your breath, fellow. You will need it for the gallows,” Harris remarked then laughed uproariously. Darcy found it rather cold-hearted, but he supposed in such an occupation that a morbid sense of humour might develop.
“Wait! He did not die!” Wickham exclaimed in desperation. “I swear to it! His lordship might yet live!”
Harris gave Jervis a quick nod, and Jervis pulled Wickham to a standing position. “That’s enough. Time to move along.”
Wickham became frantic and struggled against Jervis’s hold. “No, no you must hear me. It…things did not go as planned…there might be…”
“Samuel, his other arm if you please.” Samuel was quick to assist, seeming to take pleasure from wrenching Wickham’s arm tightly behind his back.
“I speak the truth!” Wickham was in a full panic, sweat rolling from his brow as he stupidly and ineffectively fought against the restraint of the two soldiers. “You must not do this! I am the only one who knows where Lord Courtenay is at present. He is yet alive!”
With a violent jerk, Samuel and Jervis forced Wickham to move towards the door, which at that moment, opened to reveal Elizabeth standing there and looking shocked. Lord Matlock was by her side, having evidently been in the process of dissuading her from entering.
Samuel and Jervis came to an immediate halt with their hapless prisoner stuck between them, his toes just barely touching the ground. Darcy went to his wife immediately, but she did not remove her eyes from Wickham.
Her voice was small and quiet. “What did you say?”