Chapter 32
Over the following ten days, Darcy lamented how often his work kept him indoors. He spent most of his time at the writing desk, which offered a view of the road that led to Longbourn. It was an ideal position; he could attend to correspondence and keep a watchful eye on incoming callers.
This morning, Elizabeth brought him a cup of tea, prepared to his taste.
Nodding and mumbling his thanks, he continued writing, the pen scratching against the paper.
Elizabeth lingered. His letter was too urgent to interrupt with conversation…
or so his uninterrupted action implied. He heard her breathe a deep inhale and exhale of disappointment before she quit the room.
As soon as she had gone, he threw the quill against the page. Ink spilled over the paper, not that it mattered. He had two days more of incessant letter-writing ahead of him. Leaning against the back of his chair, he rubbed a hand over his face. This was unbearable.
Looking about to ensure his departure would go unnoticed, he slipped out of doors to the woodpile, where he might release his pent-up frustration on a recently stocked pile of logs.
He brought the ax down with a crack that shook his shoulders, and the log fell in two neat halves.
Tossing them onto the pile, he reached for another and soon fell into a comfortable rhythm.
The labor required nothing of his mind, leaving his thoughts free to catalog the week's accomplishments: more letters than he could count to his solicitors, to Sir Bradley, to Richard, to Mrs. Reynolds; two consultations with Mr. Bennet in the book room; one excruciating afternoon with Mr. Philips reviewing the legal repercussions of the debt on the Longbourn estate. Despite Mr. Bennet’s optimistic prediction, the debt had not been discharged.
Nor did Darcy suspect it would ever be, assuming Wickham was bribing Sir Bradley to prevent it until the wastrel got what he wanted.
However, Mr. Philips had assisted Darcy in understanding enough of the family’s financial situation to make discreet reparations for them without anyone suspecting his involvement.
With Reynolds’s assistance, he put an arrangement into place for Elizabeth’s benefit independent of whether she selected him as her husband or not.
He chose her willingly, free from expectation or obligation, and he would offer her the same privilege.
Two more days. Then the contract's term would be fulfilled, and they would all travel to Derbyshire. Then he would speak freely and face the consequences. He swung again. The wood split cleanly. The wait was torture. He hated the way Elizabeth’s face fell every time he actively avoided her—that brief flicker of confusion she was too honest to hide very well.
He had catalogued each instance with the grim thoroughness of a man counting his debts: the moment she turned from the window when he chose the longer path around the garden; the slight press of her lips when he declined, for the third time in as many days, to join the family at supper; his refusal of a brief conversation over a cup of tea.
Hurt simmered under the surface of her puzzlement, and Darcy hated himself for being the cause of it. Two more days.
The sound of boots on gravel made him still. He did not turn. It was unnecessary. He had been expecting this call, had watched for it every day from his post at the window.
“You are still here.” Wickham’s tone was too practiced to reveal anything more than a casual observation.
Darcy set another log on the block and lifted the ax.
The blade came down. From the corner of his eye, he saw Wickham's jaw tighten. Ten days had passed since that fateful newspaper article, and Darcy still resided at Longbourn despite Wickham’s attempts to dislodge him.
The pinch of displeasure behind his adversary’s sneer was almost worth the anguish. Almost.
Darcy reached for another log. He would not ask what brought Wickham to Longbourn that day. He would not give him the satisfaction.
Wickham stepped closer, palm out as though he really thought Darcy might relinquish the ax to him.
Darcy looked pointedly at the palm and tightened his grip around the wooden handle.
Wickham retracted his hand, pulling back to straighten his coat as though that was what he had intended to do all along and rearranging his expression into something approaching triumph.
Whatever he had come to say, he needed Darcy to react to it. He needed an audience. Darcy leaned against his ax handle and raised his eyebrows. His apathy, he knew, would infuriate Wickham. It did.
“I have the upper hand.” Wickham lifted his chin.
Darcy said nothing. Wickham stepped forward.
When that produced no response, he shoved his open palm against Darcy's chest, the gesture of a man who had run out of words and remembered, too late, that Darcy had not yet set down his weapon. Darcy did not move.
The color rose in Wickham's face. Pounding his fist against his own chest, he taunted, “I have won. I shall propose to Elizabeth—”
“Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy hissed. The correction landed like a slap.
Wickham's nostrils flared. “She will agree to marry me before the reading of the will. When she learns what you have done—how you have deceived her—she will be glad to spurn you. You will lose Pemberley, and I will inherit everything. The property, the wealth, and the lady you were supposed to marry.”
Darcy stepped forward. Not a large step. He simply closed the distance between them until the bully was forced to stumble back half a pace on the gravel. “How dare you place greater importance on the property and the money than on her. Miss Elizabeth is worth so much more than Pemberley.”
“And yet, without her, there is no Pemberley. That makes her the ultimate prize.”
The man’s haughty bravado burned in Darcy’s veins.
He looked at Wickham for a long moment, his features carefully schooled into an expression of boredom while he tried to see Wickham through Elizabeth’s eyes.
No, she was too intelligent and self-reliant to accept such a man without proof of his character. “She will never marry you.”
The wretch’s chest puffed out. “She will. She is indebted to me. When the will is read and your secret is out, she will beg me to marry her.”
Bile rose in Darcy's throat. He breathed through it, steadily, until it passed. Releasing one hand from the ax handle, Darcy raised his finger and pressed it firmly against Wickham's lapel. “Hurt her, and I will hunt you down.”
“You would not dare.”
Slowly, deliberately, Darcy smiled. “Do not make the mistake of believing I am the same boy you once knew. You do not know me. You have no idea what I would do.” Wickham froze under his glare but did not look away.
His desperation was evident, and the realization sent a chill through Darcy. Just how desperate was this man?
For a moment, neither moved. Then Wickham smiled, his eyes cold and his laugh threatening as he turned his back to Darcy and walked to the house.
That ominous smile and laughter told Darcy that Wickham intended to propose. Now. He was going to walk through that door and say the words, and Elizabeth would have to answer.
Should she put her own happiness before the needs of her family, Darcy knew she would refuse. But she had spent most of her life selflessly, dutifully absorbing her father’s negligence and her mother’s ignorance. Her sisters depended on her.
He strode toward the house before he had consciously decided to move.
The hallway was stiflingly warm. Wickham was already being admitted to Mr. Bennet's book room, the old man's face arranged in its customary expression of dry, impenetrable courtesy until he saw Darcy standing behind his preferred guest. “Ah, Mr. Wickham. Come in, come in. Shut the door, if you please.” The door clicked shut behind Wickham’s taunting grin.
Having nowhere safe to go but needing to be near Elizabeth, Darcy joined the ladies in the drawing room.
“A private word with Mr. Bennet!” Mrs. Bennet fanned her face excitedly, looking proudly about the room at her daughters.
Darcy sat by the door and tried not to be sick.
Mrs. Bennet was no different than any other mother who wished to see her daughters settled well, but she gave her approval much too freely.
“Mr. Wickham is no doubt discussing business with Papa, as he has done the past few days.” Miss Mary sent a concerned look at Elizabeth, who contemplated her clasped hands on her lap.
This reply did not suit Mrs. Bennet, nor did it foster sisterly affection in the younger Bennets, who rather wished they were the recipients of frequent calls from a fashionable gentleman.
Elizabeth looked up at Darcy; their eyes met.
Wait for me, Darcy screamed through his gaze.
Miss Bennet saw the exchange, if the narrowing of her eyes was an accurate indicator.
She would gladly let her sister marry out of a sense of familial duty.
Further comment was cut short when a maid appeared in the doorway with a request that Elizabeth join her father in the book room.
Darcy followed her out of the drawing room and down the hall. She turned to face him, a small furrow between her brows. He felt the wrongness of his position acutely: ten days of calculated distance, and now here he was, unable to stay away. “Miss Elizabeth—”
The book room door opened, to Darcy’s dismay and relief. He had no idea what he should say. He only knew he could not let her walk through that door without—
Mr. Bennet appeared, his smile disappearing at the sight of Darcy. Stepping back, he held the door open for Elizabeth. “My dear.” She went in. It was bold of him, but Darcy attempted to follow.
Until Mr. Bennet closed the door in front of him. Rather firmly. Darcy rested his forehead against the door, the voices too muffled to hear through the barrier.
He trusted her. He did. Elizabeth was intelligent, discerning, and impervious to flattery from men she did not respect. She already distrusted Wickham. But…
Behind that door was a man telling her that she need only say yes and the weight she had carried her whole life would be lifted.
Wickham would believe it himself, in his way, because he had always believed whatever was convenient.
It was a dangerous feature of his character that lent sincerity to his persuasiveness.
The truth would come out in two days. Everything was in order.
She did not need to agree to anything today, nor would she give a hasty reply when she still considered herself betrothed to Fitzwilliam Darcy.
She was honorable. He trusted her. Darcy told himself this.
He stood in the hallway with his hands closed at his sides and his jaw tight and his ear bent toward a door he could not open, and he told himself, very firmly, that he trusted her.