Chapter Four The Valets Intervention #2
"It is fortunate you have so much free time for walking, Richard," Darcy remarked, aiming for a tone of mild cousinly concern.
"I know your commanding officer has been writing to my uncle regarding your...
rather relaxed attitude on the regimental ledgers.
It is a burden, I am sure, to have a mind so ill-suited to arithmetic. "
It was a petty low blow, but Darcy was desperate.
Elizabeth glanced up, surprised.
Richard, however, threw his head back and roared with laughter.
"Ill-suited? Darcy, my mind actively recoils from arithmetic!
It is a well-known fact. I told the man that if he wanted the ledgers balanced, he ought to have hired a clerk, not a cavalry officer.
I prefer a sabre to a quill, Miss Elizabeth.
Numbers do not charge at you on a battlefield. "
"A very philosophical approach to dereliction of duty, Colonel," Elizabeth teased, charmed by his self-reproaching.
"Exactly!" Sir William chimed in, misunderstanding the undercurrents. "A soldier's ledger is written in bravery, not ink! Well said, sir! St James's would applaud you!"
Darcy walked in silence, isolated on the left side of the path. He had tried to expose his cousin as a frivolous, mathematically incompetent fop, and instead, he had somehow elevated him into a dashing, swashbuckling hero who was too brave for paperwork.
The rest of the walk was a torturous exercise in watching his cousin shine. Every subtle blockade Darcy erected, Richard vaulted over with a joke and a smile, drawing Elizabeth further into his orbit and leaving Darcy trailing in the dust of their shared amusement.
As they reached the wrought-iron gates that separated the Rosings estate from the lane leading to the parsonage, the group finally halted.
Sir William was recounting a lengthy, incomprehensible story about a mayoral banquet, which Richard was pretending to listen to with rapt attention, nodding at Elizabeth with conspiratorial mirth.
Darcy stood apart, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth's face.
She was looking at his cousin, her eyes crinkling at the corners, her face open and relaxed. The wind pulled at a stray curl near her cheek, and Darcy felt a painful surge of affection.
Then she turned her head, and her eyes met his.
The transformation was instantaneous. The warmth vanished. The laughter died in her eyes, replaced by a shuttered, icy distance. It was not the awkwardness of an unequal social standing, nor the irritation of his earlier bungled attempts at conversation.
It was moral distaste.
Darcy stared at her, his mind racing, trying to decipher the magnitude of her coldness.
Why did she look at him as though he were a villain?
He had insulted her in Meryton, yes. He had been proud at the assembly, yes.
But surely, a woman of her intellect would not harbour such abiding resentment over a bruised ego from months ago?
There was something more. Something more substantial.
And then the pieces clicked into place with the finality of a lock sliding shut.
Meryton. The militia regiment was stationed there. George Wickham was stationed there.
Darcy recalled the day he and Bingley had ridden into Meryton and encountered Elizabeth walking with the officers.
He remembered the moment he had locked eyes with Wickham across the street.
He had seen the fear in Wickham's eyes, but he had also seen him turning to Elizabeth, leaning close, whispering.
Wickham had spoken to her. A master of deception, a man who survived on his ability to spin tragic tales and separate fools from their money. He had spent months in her society while Darcy had been locked away in Netherfield or London.
She knew. Or rather, she thought she knew.
She believed whatever vile, twisted falsehood the scoundrel had concocted about his squandered inheritance and his ruined prospects, or whatever else he had served her.
She probably believed Darcy was a monster who had cruelly defied his father's dying wishes to cast a good man into poverty.
No wonder she despised him.
"Good day, Mr Darcy." Elizabeth offered a stiff, obligatory curtsey before taking Sir William's arm. "Colonel."
"Until tomorrow, Miss Elizabeth!" Richard called out brightly.
Darcy could not speak. He managed a jerky bow, watching her walk away. He felt sick. It was a poison he had allowed to spread through his own silence in order to protect his sister's reputation.
Turning on his heel, Darcy abandoned his cousin without a word and strode back to Rosings at a punishing pace. He ignored the footmen, ignored his aunt's voice calling from the morning room, and took the stairs two at a time, throwing open the door to his bedchamber.
He crossed the room and collapsed into the armchair, burying his face in his hands with a ragged groan. He was ruined. How could he possibly woo a woman who believed him to be a villain?
"A somewhat truncated promenade, sir," Pimms noted mildly, stepping out from the dressing closet holding a stack of freshly pressed cravats.
"It is over, Pimms," Darcy said, his voice muffled by his hands. "Wickham has hoodwinked her. She believes his lies. This is why she looks at me as though I am the devil incarnate."
Before Pimms could offer his dry wisdom, the door burst open.
"Darcy! Why did you flee? Good God, the air in Kent is invigorating!" Colonel Fitzwilliam strode into the room, his face flushed with triumph and his eyes having shifted from almond-shaped to heart-shaped. He tossed his hat onto the bed and began to pace with a sickening amount of joy.
"She is an angel, Darcy," Richard declared, clutching his hands over his chest in a theatrical swoon.
"An absolute angel! Did you hear how she bantered?
Did you see the flash in her eyes when I made that joke about the ledgers?
I tell you, Cousin, I am a man transformed.
I am a man walking on clouds! I have never felt such an immediate connection to a female mind! "
Darcy slowly lowered his hands. The despair in his chest had vanished, replaced by white-hot fury.
His angel. His Elizabeth. And this grinning, brass-buttoned idiot was parading around his bedchamber claiming her.
Darcy stood up, his hands curling into tight fists.
He took a slow step towards his cousin. Richard was still looking at the ceiling, oblivious to the fact that Darcy had raised his right hand, his fingers curving into a stiff claw aimed at the collar of Richard's tailored coat, with every intention of throttling the life out of him.
"I think," Richard sighed dreamily, "I shall compose a sonnet."
Darcy's hand shot forward.
Before his fingers could close around Richard's throat, a blur of motion intercepted him.
Pimms stepped between the two men. With the speed of a street-corner pickpocket, the valet seized Darcy's wrist, forced it downward, and seamlessly transitioned the movement into brushing an invisible speck of lint from Darcy's lapel.
"Allow me, sir," Pimms said loudly, his iron grip bruising Darcy's wrist. "You seem to have accumulated some... dangerous debris on your person."
Pimms shot Darcy a wide-eyed look that clearly communicated: Do not commit murder in your aunt's house. I will not help you hide the body.
Richard blinked, looking down at the valet. "Debris, Pimms? In the country?"
"The country is rife with hazards, Colonel," Pimms replied, releasing Darcy's arm and stepping back, inserting himself between them as a living barricade.
Darcy was breathing hard, his hands shaking at his sides. He closed his eyes, fighting for control.
"Well, hazardous or not, I require sustenance!" Richard declared, unbothered. He marched over to the sideboard, picked up Darcy's crystal decanter of aged French brandy, and tucked the bottle under his arm.
"To Miss Elizabeth!" Richard toasted the room with his free hand. "And to victory!"
Whistling a jaunty military march, he swept out of the room.
Darcy stared at the empty space where his cousin—and his brandy—had been. The silence of the room settled over him, heavy and mocking.
He sank back into the armchair, tipped his head back, and let out a long, pained groan.