Chapter Nineteen
CAROLINE WAS POSITIVELY scandalized. “You are in there. Bessie said you were, that you’d been seen going in and that you had not come out, and I said that you would not do such a thing in your grandmother’s bedchamber of all places.”
Mr. Darcy grimaced. Odd how he had not contemplated that until now. He shut the door behind himself. “Not here, and not so loud. I won’t have you waking her.” He walked off down the hallway.
Caroline scurried after him. “Well, what are you about, then? I suppose she is your mistress now, and there is no getting around that, but may we tell this to people when we leave? What should we say about our time here? And may we not go now? You don’t think to keep us here, do you?
I daresay it might be a relief for you, to see us go? ”
He kept walking. “I don’t have time for you, Miss Bingley. I am taking Elizabeth to Scotland. We shall leave as soon as possible.”
“Scotland?” Caroline’s voice was very high-pitched. “But you cannot be serious. You cannot marry her now.”
He stopped and fixed her with a gaze. “That thing you told me, I wish to be certain you will never repeat that.”
“What are you speaking of?”
“That thing about Mr. Wickham,” said Mr. Darcy. “All of it. You will swear to me that you will never breathe a word of such a thing to anyone else.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Not only for my sake and for the future Mrs. Darcy’s sake, but most especially for the sake of the child. My child. I shall not have anyone saying anything that will cast doubt on my child’s parentage, do you understand?”
Caroline shook her head. “Well, it won’t matter, Mr. Darcy.
Everyone knows where you have been all summer, and that you were in London and then you came directly back to Pemberley in late July, and that you have been here ever since.
And everyone knows Miss Bennet was in Brighton.
So, for that child to be yours would have taken some kind of miracle, I think.
And it won’t matter what I say, people will talk.
And anyone who knows Miss Bennet will know that she was associated with Mr. Wickham in Meryton—”
“She was not associated with him,” said Mr. Darcy.
“She was indeed. When I was back there for my brother’s wedding, everyone talked of it, how she followed the regiment to Brighton, and they all said they thought Mr. Wickham would have asked for her hand in the springtime. That was how much they were associated.”
He sighed heavily. “And you are saying this to me, because of what?”
“Well, by her own admission, Mr. Darcy, she would not tell anyone about it being Mr. Wickham because she knew no one would believe her ridiculous story that he drugged her and forced himself on her. She knew it was a ludicrous story, but she told it anyway.”
“Or,” he countered, “it was true, and she knew it didn’t sound true. No one makes up a ludicrous story, Miss Bingley, and thinks to pass it off as truth. Everyone realizes it will not be believed. If a person is going to lie, they make up a good story.”
She thought that through and furrowed her brow, seemingly confused. “I suppose,” she said finally. “Anyway, he was rumored to be engaged to a woman name Miss King at one point, as I understand. Miss Bennet was rumored to have been heartbroken at the news.”
He did not care about this. He had suspicions, anyway, because of the vehemence with with she had defended Mr. Wickham on a few occasions, but most especially during his proposal. She must have had some attachment to him at some point, but it did not matter, not anymore.
The man was dead, and he would not be jealous of a dead man.
Besides, Elizabeth clearly hated him now.
He would not be drawn into this. He refused to do so.
Anyway, if it came down to it, Mr. Darcy himself had loved Wickham once.
Wickham was charming and pleasant and they had been companions on a number of occasions.
Darcy knew that Georgiana had looked up to Wickham like an elder brother, that she had never expected to be ravaged by him. Darcy knew Wickham could play a role.
“You don’t really believe that she did not want it, do you?” said Caroline.
“Of course I do,” he said.
“Well, Mr. Darcy, this is precisely why you should not be thinking of marrying her,” said Caroline. “You are blinded by your desire. You must allow me to tell you everything I know.”
“You don’t still think that there’s some chance you can worm your way into my affections, do you, Miss Bingley?
” He was crueler about it than he perhaps should have been, but she rather deserved it, he had to say.
And to think, Elizabeth said Caroline was worried about his retribution.
Why continue to provoke him, then, with this sort of talk?
“I am only thinking of you, sir. Marrying this woman will be a scandal. You will weather it, of course, but there will be talk. People will be horrified. It will not look good for you or your family.”
“So, what do you think I should do?” He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “But she is already your mistress, I suppose there’s little reason to make her anything else, is there?”
“And what? Marry you?” He sneered it.
She licked her lips. “Well, I suppose you hate me.”
“In fact, I do,” he said. “No, that would give you too much credit. I don’t have energy to waste on hatred towards you, Miss Bingley. I find your behavior appalling, however, and you disgust me.”
She took a step backward, and hurt registered on her face.
“I would never have considered marrying you, never. But to think that I would ever stoop to such a level now—”
“I can tell everyone everything,” she said. “You don’t wish anyone to know about Mr. Wickham? Well, I can shout it from the rooftops.”
He gaped at her.
She squared her shoulders. “Of course, I could be convinced not to if you but—”
“Let me get this straight,” he interrupted. “You are attempting to blackmail me into marrying you?”
“She is your mistress,” said Caroline. “You will doubtless go off and live with her all the time. What would it matter to you?”
“If I were going to marry someone else, I should marry someone proper,” he said. “Why, I have a ready-made future wife, one who my aunt Lady Catherine would dearly wish me to marry, my cousin Anne de Bourgh. There is no reason to ever marry you, and I would not.”
Her nostrils flared. “Well, I don’t see any reason to keep your secrets, Mr. Darcy, not if you are going to be this way with me.”
He let out a frustrated sigh. What to do with this woman.
He took a step towards her. “What I think I should do, Miss Bingley, is to lock you up in a room upstairs, make you dress yourself and fetch your own food and comb your own hair. Empty your own chamberpots. I understand you made her do that. I should deny you dinner, and make you wait to break your fast until midday. I should—”
“I have apologized for all of this, sir!” she broke in. “Miss Bennet has forgiven me. Besides, she is all right. She has not starved. Nothing I did was truly harmful.”
“Well, if it wasn’t truly harmful, you wouldn’t object to it for yourself, I suppose.”
Her eyes widened. “You can’t confine me to a room.”
“How could you stop me?” He tilted his head to look at her.
She was very alarmed.
He lifted a finger. “Miss Bingley, I am quite aware that your family enjoys a close association with me and my family and that this is a social currency that your brother values. You yourself benefit from it. Shall I remove it? Shall I make it plain that I have cut you all from my society?”
She swallowed.
“You’ll keep your counsel, then,” he said in a low voice. “And yes, you and your sister should make yourself ready and get off my property as soon as possible.”
“B-but… what are we to say about why Louisa is no longer with child?” said Caroline. “Mr. Hurst will wish to know, and if we cannot give him some excuse—”
“I care not,” he said.
“Just as you care not that the whole of good society will be quite aware you are marrying a woman gone with some other man’s child?” said Caroline, her eyes flashing.
He heaved a huge sigh. Caroline was awful, but she wasn’t entirely incorrect. This was a problem. His whereabouts were known, were quite accounted for. He had been with Miss Bennet in April, but that did not line up timing wise.
Perhaps he could claim that one of the nights he had been at home that he had actually ridden all the way to Brighton and back and had time while there to surreptitiously impregnate Elizabeth, but it would not go that way.
No one would come right out and ask him about it.
They would never say a word to him about it, but they would whisper behind his back.
It was one thing to marry a woman who was quite gone with your child.
It was poor behavior, perhaps, but people eventually forgave it.
After all, anticipating one’s vows was rather common, in all truth.
Marriage was the remedy for such indiscretions.
If he married Elizabeth, it would mean he was doing what he was meant to do to reap what he had sown.
But to marry a woman who was carrying another man’s child, to be an acknowledged cuckold from the outset of a marriage, it was… well, no one did that, and it was the sort of juicy gossip that tended to be spread far and wide.
His hope had been to marry Elizabeth, stay here in the country for some time.
When they returned to London, whenever that might be, they would obviously not be parading around with their babe or small toddler, and it would be a matter of five months to contend with.
In order to discover the scandal, people would have to count things on their fingers.
His assumption had been that if the wedding was quiet enough and the babe’s birth was quiet enough, and he and his new wife simply emerged at some point, no one would think to ask questions.
However, it would not go this way if everyone was talking about his marriage.
Would everyone talk about his marriage?
With a sinking sensation, he realized it might be more interesting to everyone than he might have counted upon.
“Well?” said Caroline.
“It’s too early for this,” he muttered, and he pushed past her, walking off without bidding her goodbye. He left the dower house as the dawn was breaking across the sky, and he began his walk towards the grounds of Pemberley.
He stopped in the stables to speak to someone about readying a carriage so that he and Elizabeth could go north. He would need a shave before he went anywhere. He practically had a beard. He looked like some sort of wild man at this point. He wondered what the servants were all saying about him.
“Yes, sir. I must tell you, though, I sent some of our horses off with the carriage that brought Georgie Wickham in,” said the stable hand. “They needed fresh ones, for their own horses had been riding all night.”
He stiffened. “George Wickham?” Had they sent his body back for burial here? He supposed that was done sometimes.
“Yes, he’s been badly wounded. They say it will take him some time to recover, and he’d be better off with his family in the meantime. They say he would have died if the bullet had been one inch over.”
Mr. Darcy swallowed. Wickham was alive? “He’s with old Mr. Wickham, that’s where you sent the carriage?”
“Aye, sir, off to his father to convalesce. I’m sorry about the horses, though, for their horses, you see, are quite tired, and we may need to procure you some fresh horses, perhaps from Lambton, or—”
“Never mind readying that carriage,” he said. Scotland was going to have to wait.