Chapter Eight
“Darcy, I hear you have been packing your bags.” Richard sank back against the sofa and gave William a playful pout. “Headed back to the country?”
“Not for a few days yet, but I believe I must go soon,” William replied. He joined Richard and Bingley in the corner of the parlor that had become their haven, far away from the big table by the front window that served as the headquarters of the ladies’ nuptial raptures.
“Because my cousins are soon for Kent, and there is nothing left for you in town?”
Bingley chortled with laughter. “Whatever do you fellows get up to in the country? My brother Hurst has a manor in Shropshire, and he never goes there at all – I have always thought it must be very dull.”
“Tremendously,” William said with a sigh, aching at the thought of returning to Wildewoode – of removing himself from Elizabeth’s presence. He felt as if he would never see the sun again.
“In town, one amuses oneself,” Richard told Bingley. “In the country, one amuses other people. It is excessively tedious.”
Bingley raised his brows and turned to William with a look of inquiry. “Is it any better in Surrey? Have you any interesting neighbors?”
William grimaced. There were a few families of neighboring estates who had doted on him as a boy, other children he had played with, after Sir Thomas took him in.
When Sir Thomas died, the neighboring families all turned a blind eye on Lady Grey’s cruelty and neglect, though she had never made any effort of concealing it.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Perfectly horrid, never talk to one of them.”
A maid entered the room with tea service, and after first attending to the ladies, she made her way to the gentleman, offering them a scrumptious spread of their own on the low table they were all seated around.
William grinned as he observed a large tray of cucumber sandwiches, which he had often heard declared to be Lady Catherine’s favorite. “The ladies are expected today?”
“My aunt and her daughters, yes. Jane is sure to be drawn into the nuptial battle plans my mother is making. I have agreed to a double ceremony just so I only need hear of one wedding breakfast. Which reminds me… are you finally going to come to the point, Darcy ? You ought to conclude that last bit of business before you scamper back to Surrey.”
“I should hardly call it business! How utterly unromantic,” Bingley said with a chortle.
“She is my cousin, and I am her nearest male relation, discounting that useless uncle of hers. But I am practically her brother, for she has grown far too like Rebecca. And as such, Darcy, I should be glad to see things settled between you at last, and then we might scatter ourselves about the countryside. I shall look forward to the reprieve, for watching you flirt with cousin Lizzy is perfectly disgraceful!”
“It is almost as bad as the way Miss Elizabeth flirts with him,” Bingley agreed. “The pair of you have me mad with envy that there is not a third sister for me!”
William shook his head at Bingley’s animated dejection, “I do wish to speak privately with Miss Elizabeth, if it can be contrived while her mother is present. I hinted to her last night that I mean to ask her a particular question. Have I your consent?”
William had intended this last bit in jest, and he stiffened as Richard’s expression grew wicked. “Not yet, I am afraid.” Richard reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small, folded letter. William recognized the seal and once and stifled a groan.
“Before I can give you my blessing to propose to Lizzy, we must clear up the whole matter of Kitty.”
Bingley leaned forward with interest. “Who is Kitty?”
William tried to snatch the letter away, but Richard deftly withheld it. “It is a very ungentlemanly thing to steal another person’s private correspondence, Richard.”
“Perhaps, but this is not your correspondence.” Richard sat up properly again once he had swatted William off of him. “This letter is addressed to Mr. William Worthing, not Will Darcy.”
William’s heart sank. He had dreaded this day, the truth being discovered.
Generally when he visited Matlock House, he instructed his valet to remain diligent in intercepting any letters bearing his real name, but today his valet had been preoccupied, preparing William’s extensive London wardrobe for travel.
“My name is William Worthing.”
Richard looked so stunned that he nearly dropped the letter. “No, that cannot be! Your name is Darcy. I have always called you Darcy. I have introduced you to my whole family as Darcy. I believe I even have one of your cards, which says that your name is Will Darcy.”
“Well, it is Will Darcy… when I am in town. And when I am in the country, it is William Worthing.”
Richard shook his head, still disbelieving. “But we were in the country when we met, old boy.”
William gave a wry laugh, trying to appear unruffled. “Did it not occur to you that the rest of my companions introduced themselves with such outlandish appellations? Did you think there was really such a man as Perceval Ramsbottom?”
Bingley had been observing William with a look of great fascination, but now he nearly spit out his tea, and then coughed effusively.
“It was some stupid bet, to use false names while we were traveling,” William admitted.
“I could not think of anything so original – we had just toured Pemberley, and after blurting out my own first name, I swiftly added Darcy to the end of it. And then you and I continued our acquaintance, and at first I felt a bit silly in owning to the truth. Eventually, it seemed that the longer it all went on, the stranger it would sound when the truth came out. At any rate, the ruse has proven singularly convenient, for all my bills from my many diversions in town are sent to Wildewood. There, everyone in the household believes that I have a scurrilously debauched cousin called Will Darcy, on whose behalf I am often obliged to go to town, to save the reprobate from some ruinous scrape.”
Thankfully, Richard appeared more amused than appalled, for he sat casually munching one of the cucumber sandwiches, seeming ready to be entertained. Bingley looked downright impressed. “And this Kitty, who is she?”
“My ward, Miss Catherine Cardew, a young lady of eighteen. She is the stepdaughter of Lady Grey, wife of the gentleman who raised me. When Lady Grey – Mrs. Cardew, as she became – when she and her second husband died, I was the nearest connection suitable to be made her guardian. She has an uncle in London, whom I understand is not a very worthy fellow, and some relations in Kent whom her father was on bad terms with, but he always thought well of me, and he entrusted me with her guardianship.”
“And so Miss Cardew resides at your place in the country, since she knows you as William Worthing?” Bingley stroked his chin with exaggerated interest.
Richard ignored him and clapped his hands. “Aha! So, it would seem you are a Bunburyist – and a rather advanced one at that.”
William blinked stupidly, still not recovered from the shock of his friends not being at all cross with his deception. “What on earth is a Bunburyist?”
Richard took another of the cucumber sandwiches from the tray “You have adopted a most convenient persona for yourself, so that you might desport and occasionally debauch yourself in London without setting a bad example for your impressionable young ward. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, so that I might avoid whatever social engagements I choose – such as, to my chagrin, invitations from Lady Catherine.”
“It is genius, it not?” Bingley laughed heartily.
“I have adopted a friendship of my own with poor Mr. Bunbury, to escape my sisters when they grow tiresome. And if you lot are all determined to scurry off to the country, I fear the poor old chap may soon have a relapse. I say, whereabouts in Surrey is Wildewood, and Miss Kitty Cardew?”
William gave him a stern look. “She is far too pretty and innocent for you to be invited within twenty miles of Wildewood.”
As Richard reached for a third cucumber sandwich, William decided he fancied one, but his friend swatted his hand away. “Those are for Aunt Catherine.”
“You have been eating them this whole time!”
Richard screwed up his face, then picked up the tray and offered a cucumber sandwich to Bingley before holding the tray close to himself. “She is my aunt – and you can hardly afford to make her think any worse of you, poor devil.”
Across the room, a flurry of excitement near the window suggested that the ladies perceived their eagerly anticipated callers. As Richard stuffed the last of the cucumber sandwiches into his mouth, William looked imploringly at him.
“Do say you will help me contrive to speak privately with Miss Elizabeth; I am a desperate man.”
Through his indecorous mouthful, Richard agreed begrudgingly. “You are a madman, and I hope you will tell Lizzy the truth about your being Will Darcy in town and William Worthing in the country – and about your pretty, innocent ward. She deserves to know – but I shall do what I can for you.”
“It is hardly the sort of thing one blurts out to refined young ladies, but I shall try.”
When the ladies arrived, the gentlemen all rose to greet them, though Lady Catherine was uncommonly cold to William.
She gave a few affectionate words of congratulation to Richard, and seemed resolved to settle in with the Fitzwilliam ladies at the wedding planning table, but as she glanced over the selection of refreshments, she scowled.
“Before we begin, I must have some of those excellent cucumber sandwiches.”
She perceived the refreshments that had been laid out across the room and strolled that way to inspect the delicacies on offer, and grimaced at the tray that was empty but for a few crumbs.
Richard gave her a smooth, apologetic bow. “Apparently there were no cucumbers at the market this morning, Aunt. It is greatly distressing.”