This Mad and Sinful Thing

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN RICHARD ARRIVED back in London, he hoped he could put the entire incident from his mind. This, of course, proved rather difficult.

He began to think about what might happen if he had succeeded in his attempt to get Elizabeth with child.

In breeding her, said the awful voice in the back of his brain.

That was, of course, why he’d done it, but he was beginning to realize how wretched the entire idea of this truly was. No wonder Elizabeth had indicated that her husband thought most men would not be pleased with an arrangement such as this.

He found he didn’t quite like the idea of not being able to claim his child.

He wished it for Elizabeth, of course, to have her own child, and for her child to be hers in the most proper of ways, for the child to be seen as legitimate, her husband’s child.

In fact, according to the law of the land, any child Elizabeth did have would be seen as Darcy’s. Even if Richard wished to claim otherwise or to make some legal attempt to—

Which he would not do.

It was only that…

This seemed rather impossible for him to believe about himself now that he was admitting it to himself, but he had never truly considered having a child of his own, he realized. He had given the idea of being a father nothing more than a cursory once-over, and now the idea of it settled into him differently, because it was a real and actual possibility.

If he never bothered to marry a woman, he would never be a father, he realized.

Obviously, he’d always known this.

It was only that now he began to contemplate what he might be missing. Now, he began to wonder if he might wish not to miss that.

But all the barriers that had been in the way of his marrying before were still there. He was supposed to marry a certain sort of woman, and he didn’t want that sort of woman, because he didn’t want any woman who wasn’t… wasn’t…

Wasn’t Elizabeth.

Damnation.

Everything was worse now.

The days passed, and then the weeks, and then it had been long enough that she would have had some notion of whether she was increasing, he thought, but he also thought that she might not tell anyone about it. Everyone knew that the first few months of time were the most fraught, and that women were more wont to lose babes then.

Anyway, he could not write a letter directly to Elizabeth inquiring, nor could he write to Darcy and ask. He could, however, bring up the subject with his mother and ask if she’d heard anything.

But when he did, she only looked at him oddly. “I think we have been thoroughly schooled never to speak of that topic again, haven’t we?”

And of course, they had.

So, if she were increasing, he would not know.

Then a letter came from Darcy, not to Richard, but to the household. Richard was staying at his family’s town house, since he did not have his own lodging in town. His mother was there, but his father was not, having taken an offer to spend time in the country at the house of another lord. Darcy was coming to London for a short visit. He would be staying at his own house in London, but he would obviously come to call.

His mother wrote back that they would have him for dinner every evening, for he must not put his own servants out for such things, and Darcy wrote back in the affirmative, claiming that would be much appreciated. He said positively nothing about Richard, not a thing.

Which meant nothing on the face of it, Richard supposed.

But he could not help but worry.

We tell each other everything, Elizabeth had said.

Damnation.

Even so, if Darcy knew, he would be angry. And if he were angry, he would not agree to having dinner at the Matlock’s town house every evening for the course of his visit, which was likely to be four or five days, Darcy had said. It was a short visit indeed.

Short because he was heading straight back to his pregnant wife?

Richard was going to lose his mind.

He decided he could not be here for this. He would avoid Darcy entirely, avoid both the Darcys, in fact, for the rest of his life if he had to. It would be difficult, but if he put his mind to it, he was certain he could achieve it.

With this end in mind, Richard went to speak to his superior officer to request reassignment.

However, there seemed to be nowhere to send him. There had been something brewing in Nepal, he had understood, but this seemed mostly to have come to an end. Britain wasn’t fighting with France or America currently, and that seemed to have been going on his entire life, so he found it entirely surprising.

“It sounds to me like you’re trying to escape something, colonel,” said his superior officer.

“No, sir,” said Richard. “I’m only seeking something to occupy myself, I suppose.”

“Well, why don’t you get married? You seem just the age for it. Trust me, keeping a wife happy is all the occupation a man need ever want for.”

Richard, therefore, was in London when Darcy arrived.

He got a missive from Darcy, though, asking him to come to call that afternoon.

Darcy was due to eat dinner at the Matlock house.

Why ask Richard to come to Darcy’s house alone?

It did not bode well.

Richard, however, had no ready excuse, and to turn down his friend and cousin seemed utterly insupportable. So, of course, he sent back a note saying he would be there.

What could Darcy wish to speak to him about?

RICHARD FITZWILLIAM WAS about two years older than his cousin Fitzwilliam Darcy. When they were both at Cambridge at the same time, they were readily lumped in together. The “Fitzes” they were called, sometimes the “Willies” depending on what sort of group of boys it was who were gathering, whether it was good-natured or a bit jeering.

Richard had to admit, back then, he found his younger cousin, who shared a name with him, and who was so very, very serious, to be a bit of a lodestone around his neck. He had, more often than not, tried to stay clear of Darcy.

Their friendship, such as it was, solidified in later years, when they were both older, and when they could come together in various alliances—against Lady Catherine their aunt, for instance, or against Mr. Wickham, who wished to besmirch Georgiana’s honor when they shared guardianship. These sorts of experiences had brought them together.

When they were younger, though, they had not had much in common.

Richard remembered a night out at a tavern. He had tried to actively discourage Darcy from coming, telling his cousin he would not enjoy the raucousness of the activity, but Darcy had come anyway.

And true to form, Richard remembered that Darcy didn’t do anything. He didn’t drink. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t pull wenches into his lap or tuck coin into their bosom while they giggled. He was expressionless, disapproving, utterly silent, just sitting there.

Later, when they were walking through the streets, Richard with his arm around a woman—one of the members of the chorus at an opera running in town—he said to Darcy, “You see, I told you that you wouldn’t like it. I don’t see why you bothered coming.”

Darcy had turned to him, shrugging. “I liked it fine.”

Richard scoffed.

“I think I make you uncomfortable, though,” said Darcy, looking him over. “Why is that?”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” said Richard, annoyed.

“Yes, you are,” Darcy insisted.

“You’re the one who’s uncomfortable,” Richard had countered.

They could have gone back and forth at that all night, he supposed, but he’d been distracted by the opera girl—he thought she was a soprano, maybe a mezzo soprano, but he supposed it didn’t matter. He couldn’t recall her name.

He’d been so young back then, so foolish about women. He had been drunk and stupid, and he did not think whatever had passed between them had been very good for either of them. It was embarrassing, truly.

He wasn’t thinking about this particular incident when he got to Darcy’s house in London that afternoon, but he would think of it later, as the conversation between them would unfold.

No, when he arrived at Darcy’s house, he stood just inside the door and bounced on his toes, his heart going out of rhythm, his cravat too tight, his entire body on high alert.

He was not taken to a sitting room but escorted upstairs to Darcy’s study.

Darcy was there at his desk, squinting at a ledger of some sort, quill in hand, and he barely looked up when Richard was announced.

Richard, then, wandered freely through the study, touching the mantle over the fireplace, then a drink cart, then running his fingers over the edge of Darcy’s desk.

“One moment,” said Darcy, scribbling something in the ledger. “I’m ever so sorry. Time got away from me, I’m afraid.” He looked up at Richard and then sort of winced. He looked away again, “Oh, God in heaven, Richard, I’m quite aflutter about this, I must say.”

What?

Darcy set the quill in the inkwell. “I don’t know if it’s nerves or excitement or a mixture of both. It could be dread, truly. I’m afraid you’re going to be…” He shook himself. He got up from his desk and went over to the door of his study. He looked out into the hallway and then shut the door firmly.

He stood there, closed the door at his back, and surveyed the other man. “Right, then. So, you should know, first of all, that she did bleed. So, it didn’t work, but—”

“Oh, Christ, you do know!” Richard nearly wailed it.

“Obviously, I know,” said Darcy. “I knew that morning.”

“She did tell you?” Richard clutched his forehead.

“Well, I was in her bedchamber waiting for her to come to bed and then she did, and she was…” Darcy shifted on his feet.

“Oh, Christ,” said Richard again.

“Please, make yourself easy,” said Darcy. “Let’s have some brandy.” He went over to the drink cart and poured two glasses. He pointed at two easy chairs in front of the fire. “Let us sit, then?” He sat down.

Richard did not sit. He was still clutching his forehead. His heart was not beating in any kind of actual rhythm.

“Richard,” said Darcy in a gentle voice. “Sit down.”

Richard was realizing that Darcy wasn’t angry. What was wrong with this man? Why wasn’t he angry? He did not sit down, but he walked over to stand directly in front of the man. “You’re not angry?”

“I…” Darcy held the glass of brandy up at him. “Take this.”

“You are angry?”

“Sit down.”

Richard took the brandy. He sat down. He gazed into the fire, which was not blazing, just embers. It was mid-autumn, so it wasn’t necessary to have the fires stoked all the time. “I was very drunk when it happened, you know?”

“Aye, you both were,” said Darcy. “And I was not precisely sober when she came to her bedchamber and I…” He cleared his throat. “I know not how to speak to you about these things, Richard, truly. But it’s not strictly the first time something like this has happened.”

“What do you mean?” said Richard.

“Well, there were… sometimes… women would… we were boys…” Darcy tipped the glass of brandy into his mouth and sighed. “I didn’t tell you then, because I didn’t think you’d like it, and my tastes have always been…” He cleared his throat again.

“Your tastes have been what?” said Richard. “Your tastes for what? What didn’t you tell me? And what do you mean it wasn’t the first time something like this has happened, because I promise you, I never touched your wife until that night.”

“No, no, not…” Darcy got up, went to the drink cart, and got the bottle of brandy. He brought it over, poured himself another glass and then set the bottle down. “My tastes have never been rightly proper, I suppose. I’ve always tended a bit towards the deviant. It’s a fault. I’m ashamed, I suppose.” He shrugged. Then he downed the glass of brandy.

Richard simply gaped at him. What was he talking about? “Nothing about you is deviant, Will.”

Darcy chuckled ruefully. “You have no idea.”

He had a side to him, she had said.

Richard downed the glass of brandy and poured himself more. “Always the shy ones, isn’t it?”

Darcy laughed again. He looked up at Richard and waggled his eyebrows, possibly suggestively. “I’ve always liked it, having a woman after you had her. It’s not the first time.”

Richard’s lips parted. Now he was thinking about that time with the mezzo soprano, how she’d left his room, but then was still there in the morning, and he hadn’t known where she’d— “Truly?”

“No, I’m making this up, Richard.” He was sarcastic. “Would I tell you this as a falsehood? Are you quite mad?”

“So, then, when you found out that… that I had… with Elizabeth—”

“I was rather painfully aroused,” said Darcy into his glass. “And then, what passed between her and me, I must say, it was likely one of the most exciting experiences the two of us have ever had, and being with her has always been quite good. She is a wonder of a woman. I would never have expected her to be able to handle me in the way she does, but she is adventurous and eager, and I am mad for her. I’m quite a lucky man.”

“Yes, you are,” Richard couldn’t help but choke out.

Darcy looked up at him. “Right.” He scratched himself under his collar. “So, that’s where we are right now.”

“Where are we?” said Richard, who was frightfully confused. Maybe he should go back and try to make sense of this. “All right, so, let me get this straight. You made a habit, when we were younger, of seducing women after I had seduced them?”

“A habit?” said Darcy. “It happened twice, and both times, it was because the woman was already leaving because she was annoyed because you had fallen asleep without seeing to her pleasure, and I managed to convince her to allow me to attempt to please her. I did try it other times, but usually women were disturbed by the idea of it.”

Richard nodded. “Right, disturbed.”

“When we were boys, I think you were less… skilled?” Darcy shrugged. “And I was willing to do whatever it was that the women wanted, so long as I could, erm, mingle our seed.”

Richard’s eyes widened. He gulped down his brandy, though he was becoming lightheaded now, and perhaps he shouldn’t have any more of that, after all.

“You’re disturbed, too,” said Darcy softly.

“I’m…” Richard lifted his gaze to look at the other man and something truly horrendous happened. His prick hardened.

He and Darcy simply stared at each other, then, for some time, for a very long time, too long, and it was also horrendous, but there was something else about it, something strangely pleasant, something that stirred him.

It reminded him of a conversation that had happened years ago, when they they had been together at Rosings, and they had been talking about how it was that Lady Catherine wanted Darcy to marry their cousin Anne. They’d been drinking that time, too, and the conversation had gotten a bit out of hand.

They must have been seventeen, he thought? It would have been after that time with the mezzo soprano, so Darcy would have already done it .

Richard had said, “Look, one of us could marry Anne, but we could just share the responsibility of it, perhaps?”

Darcy had laughed, eyeing him with his dark expressive eyes, looking suggestively at him over the rim of his glass as he drank his port. “Oh, would we? Would you allow that, Richard, some other man at your wife?”

“Well, it’s Anne,” Richard had said with a shrug. “If one of us has to marry her, the least the other could do would be to help out.”

Darcy had snorted.

“Do you think she’d mind?” Richard had said. “Besides, the way it would be, as we both know, is that she’d be your wife, not mine.”

“Well, then it falls to me to mind, I suppose,” Darcy had said, but he had conspicuously said nothing about minding.

“I’ve watched other men before,” Richard had said idly. “I can’t say I minded that.”

“Watched?” Darcy’s eyebrows had shot up.

“A group of us were all drunk and carousing. There were a few strumpets, not enough to go round. The women had to take men one after the other. Waiting my turn, I watched.” He had thought of it then and he thought of it now, and he wasn’t sure what exactly was so exciting about it, but it was exciting and he did like it.

“Did you?” Darcy’s voice had been rough. “So, we’d watch each other, then?”

And he’d nodded, eyes bright, thinking of it, of Anne and Darcy together in each other’s arms—mostly of Darcy, though, of what Darcy might look like underneath that jacket and waistcoat there, of whether there was dark hair on his chest to match the dark hair on his head…

Now, Richard swallowed very hard and broke his gaze with Darcy.

He grimaced.

“All right,” said Darcy. “I’m not sure what to say. Are you angry with me?”

“No,” said Richard, and his voice was strangled. “God in heaven, Will, I’m the one who tupped your wife. You should be angry with me.”

“Yes, well, I’m not,” said Darcy. “I wish to say, no matter what happens, however, that I want to sort of draw a line of some kind? She is mine. You’ll agree to that if we… I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“If we what?” Richard looked up at Darcy again, and now his prick was hard and his body was tingling, and he could not convince himself it was in anything other than anticipation.

“Are you disgusted?” said Darcy quietly, cringing a bit from him.

He should likely say that he was, or else Darcy would perhaps know that Richard had some strange interest in men’s bodies, but Richard had never quite admitted that to himself, let alone to anyone else, and so he just shook his head, back and forth, firmly, for a very long time.

“Truly?” said Darcy. “You know, what I like about it, it’s rather filthy. I like a lot of filthy things, Richard.”

“It is a filthy thing, I suppose,” Richard muttered. “The act itself, anyway.”

“Yes, but I like the… fluid,” said Darcy. “I’d like…” He squared his shoulders. “I’d like to taste it.”

Richard’s mouth was dry. “You mean mine?” Were they talking about this, right now?

“That disgusts you, doesn’t it?”

Richard’s jaw worked. He should say yes, again, he should say it was disgusting. He only shook his head again.

Darcy eyed him. “You’re only saying this because you want to have access to her again, I suppose. You’d say you were game for anything if I said you could be with her.”

Richard shook his head again. “N-no, actually—”

“Well, here it is, Richard,” said Darcy breathlessly. “I want to watch. I want to be there. I might want to touch you while you do it. I might want you to watch me and her. I might want you to touch me.”

“Yes, all right,” said Richard. “When?”

Darcy’s eyebrows shot up.

Richard grimaced again.

“You’ve had too much to drink,” said Darcy softly.

“Likely, yes,” muttered Richard. This wasn’t at all how he had thought the conversation would have gone, anyway.

“You should take some time to think,” said Darcy.

“Does she know you came to ask me this?”

“Obviously,” said Darcy.

“Because you tell each other everything,” said Richard.

Darcy scratched the back of his neck. “What I have done to Elizabeth’s innocence is likely a crime against all goodness in the world, but she… well, I think she likes it, and I like doing it to her, and…” He looked at Richard. “You brought yourself into this, into my den of iniquity. If you didn’t want in, you should never have crossed that line with her. But you did, and so now…”

“What do you mean, your den of iniquity?” Richard gave him a look. This was Darcy. Proper, put-together, soft-spoken Darcy .

“No, no more,” said Darcy. “You’ll go and think about it, that’s all. When you’re sober, if you’re still interested, we can talk again.”