Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

Chapter One The Catastrophe

The study of Darcy House was a sanctuary of leather, vellum, and solitude. At three in the morning, the silence was absolute, save for the rhythmic ticking of the mantel clock and the aggressive scratching of a quill against parchment.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, aged twenty and possessing the suppleness of a granite obelisk, sat at his father's desk.

He did not slump. He did not yawn. He maintained a posture of rigid verticality that would have pleased a Grenadier Guard.

It also made the marble busts of Roman emperors on the mantelpiece look positively relaxed by comparison.

He dipped the quill into the inkwell with precision.

He paused, examining the sentence. It sounded impressive. It sounded adult. It sounded like the sort of observation a future Master of Pemberley should make when his father arrived from Derbyshire on Friday.

Old Mr Darcy was a man of exacting standards. He expected his son to be diligent, his steward to be industrious, and his godson—George Wickham—to be a gentleman.

Darcy sighed, the breath disturbing the candle flame. Two out of three was a passing grade in most universities. In the Darcy household, it was a crisis.

The door creaked open.

Mostyn, the butler who had served the family since Darcy was in short coats, drifted into the room.

He carried a silver tray bearing a pot of coffee that smelled strong enough to tar the hull of a frigate.

He was without his tailcoat—a scandalous state of undress at any other hour—yet his dignity remained firmly buttoned up.

"Coffee, sir."

He placed the tray on the corner of the mahogany desk, moving a stack of legal texts to make room. He adjusted the sugar bowl by a millimetre, ensuring geometric harmony.

Darcy rubbed his eyes, the fatigue finally cracking his facade. "Thank you, Mostyn. I apologise for the hour. The theories of Adam Smith do not lend themselves to daylight."

"Indeed, sir. Mr Smith can be taxing." He picked up a discarded piece of paper from the floor. "I assume we are still waiting for Mr Wickham?"

Darcy flinched. The name hung in the air, heavy and unresolved.

"He went to the theatre." He kept his eyes on his notes. "Toprice invited him. Macbeth, I believe. It ran late, I suppose."

"The Scottish Play generally concludes before midnight, sir. Unless the witches have invited the cast to a tavern."

Mostyn's face remained impassive, but his tone suggested that he knew exactly which tavern, and that he disapproved of the ale selection.

Darcy stood, abandoning Adam Smith. He walked to the window, pulling back the heavy velvet drape to peer out into the gloom of Grosvenor Square. The street was empty. A thick London fog curled around the oil lamps, swallowing the cobblestones.

"He will be back soon," Darcy insisted, though the knot in his stomach tightened. "He knows Father arrives on Friday. George would not risk a lecture. He has been... better. This term."

"Mr Wickham is full of spirit, sir."

"Spirit," Darcy muttered, letting the curtain fall. "Yes. That is the word Father uses. Spirited. Charming. A light in the gloom."

He turned back to the room, pacing the length of the Persian rug.

He felt the crushing weight of his own dullness.

George was the favourite. George was the one who could make Old Mr Darcy laugh until he coughed.

Darcy was the one who balanced the ledgers and ensured the carriage wheels were greased.

"I merely wish," he said, straightening a stack of books, "that his spirit did not require quite so much management."

"Genius often requires a keeper, sir." Mostyn moved to the door. "I shall leave the coffee. If I may suggest, sir? The text on crop rotation might serve as a sedative if you intend to sleep before dawn."

"I shall sleep when the prodigal returns, Mostyn."

The butler bowed and vanished into the hallway shadows.

Darcy returned to the desk. He picked up his quill. He stared at the Enclosure Acts. But the words blurred. The silence of the house was no longer peaceful. It was an accusation.

Where was he?

The peace of Grosvenor Square did not end with a polite knock. It ended with the crash of a body colliding with a very expensive front door.

Darcy dropped his quill. A blot of ink, dark and jagged, bloomed across his essay on tenant rights.

"Damnation," he whispered, a profanity he would never dare utter in Derbyshire.

The heavy knocker slammed against the wood. Once. Twice. A frantic, desperate rhythm that suggested the person on the other side was fleeing a fire or the Watch.

Darcy was out of his chair before the third knock. He rushed into the hallway, ignoring the impropriety of running indoors. He reached the end of the hallway just as Mostyn, moving with a speed that defied his considerable age, unbolted the main entrance.

The door swung open.

George Wickham fell into the hall.

He did not step in. He poured in. He stumbled over the threshold, clipped his shoulder on the doorframe, and landed on his hands and knees on the marble floor.

"Safe!" He gasped, his voice a ragged wheeze. "Home! Sanctuary!"

Darcy ran to the entrance, his heart hammering against his ribs.

"George!"

Mostyn stepped back, his nose wrinkling. The reason was immediately apparent. The crisp night air of Mayfair was suddenly overwhelmed by the aroma of cheap gin, stale tobacco, and the distinct, acrid scent of the Thames at low tide.

George rolled onto his back. He lay spread-eagled on the black-and-white tiles, staring up at the chandelier with wide, bloodshot eyes. His cravat was gone. His waistcoat, usually a masterpiece of embroidery, was torn at the shoulder. And, Darcy noted with a surge of horror, he was missing a boot.

"Fitz!" George grinned. It was a terrible, lopsided expression. "You are awake! Diligent old Fitz. Always burning the midnight oil. Or the midnight wax. Which is it?"

"Get up," Darcy hissed, grabbing George's arm and hauling him upright. The man was dead weight, his limbs loose and uncooperative. "You are foxed. My God, George, look at you. Where is your boot?"

"Boot?" George stared down at his stockinged foot, wiggling his toes. "A sacrifice. To the gods of the cobblestones. Or perhaps a dog took it. It was a very large dog, I am sure. A hound of hell."

"Mostyn," Darcy barked, struggling to keep George from sliding back onto the floor. "Close the door. If the neighbours see..."

"The neighbours are asleep, sir. As all Christian souls should be." Mostyn shut the door, sealing the disaster inside. "Shall I fetch a bucket? Or the fire tongs?"

"Help me get him to the study. We cannot drag him upstairs in this state. Mrs Crauford will have an apoplexy if she sees mud on the stair runner."

Together, they marched the stumbling prodigal down the hall. George giggled, his head lolling onto Darcy's shoulder.

"You smell of libraries, Fitz," he slurred. "Paper and dust. I smell of life! Adventure! The theatre of existence!"

"You smell of the gutter," Darcy corrected, kicking the study door open. "Sit. No, not on the velvet chair. The leather one. It wipes clean."

They deposited George into the wingback chair. He collapsed, limbs sprawling, looking for all the world a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Mostyn adjusted his lapels. "Will there be anything else, sir?"

"Go to bed, Mostyn. I will handle this."

The butler offered a small, grim bow—a gesture that conveyed deep sympathy for the task ahead—and withdrew.

Darcy stood over his childhood friend, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. The anger bubbled up, hot and sharp.

"Father arrives on Friday." He kept his voice deliberately low. "He expects to see a gentleman. He expects to see a scholar. Instead, he will see a man who loses his footwear in the gutter."

George waved a hand, dismissing the concern. "Friday is ages away. Centuries. I shall recover. I have remarkable recuperative powers. Remember the time I fell out of the apple tree? Right as rain by dinner."

"This is not an apple tree, George. This is London. And you are a mess." Darcy grabbed a pitcher of water from the side table and poured a glass. He thrust it at Wickham. "Drink. And tell me why you appear as if you have been rolled through a coal chute."

George took the glass with trembling hands. Water sloshed over the rim, staining his torn waistcoat.

"It was not my fault," he whispered, the bravado suddenly cracking. His eyes darted to the door, then back to Darcy. Fear, sharp and genuine, replaced the drunken haze. "I was waylaid. Tricked. It was a setup, Fitz. I swear it."

Darcy felt a cold prickle of dread at the base of his spine. "Tricked? By whom?"

"Shark," George breathed. "A shark in a velvet coat."

Darcy watched his friend as George huddled in the leather chair, clutching the water glass as if it were a holy relic. He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. He forced himself to breathe evenly. Panic would not help. Logic was required.

"Start from the beginning," he ordered. "You went to the theatre."

"I... intended to go to the theatre," George corrected, staring into his water. "But I met a fellow. A charming man. Said he knew a place where the cards ran hot and the wine flowed free. You know how it is."

"I do not know how it is," Darcy stated icily. "Because I do not follow strangers into dens of iniquity."

"You are so rigid, Fitz. That is your trouble. No flexibility." He took a gulp of water. "Anyway. We went to a place in Covent Garden. The Serpent's Tooth. Very plush. Very exclusive."

"And you played."

"A few hands. Whist. Piquet. I was winning, Fitz! I was up fifty guineas. I thought... I thought I could buy that new mare your father refused me. Starlight is too old and unfashionable for me to ride anymore. And I wanted to show him I could provide for myself."

Darcy closed his eyes. The familiar cycle. George felt slighted. George sought a shortcut. George fell into a pit.

"And then the luck turned," he guessed.

"The cards turned," George hissed. "They were marked. I know they were. The man... they call him The Butcher. He kept raising the stakes. I could not back down. It was a point of honour."

"Honour," Darcy repeated the word, tasting the bile in it. "So you lost. How much, George? How much do I have to write a draft for this time? Fifty? One hundred?"

Darcy was already mentally calculating his own allowance. He could cover a hundred. He would have to skip the books he wanted, perhaps cancel his order for the new boots, but he could do it. To keep the peace. To keep his father from looking at his godson with that disappointed sigh.

George did not answer. He shrank back into the chair.

"George?"

"I did not have the coin, Fitz."

"You played on credit?"

"He would not take my marker because he did not know me. He wanted collateral. An object of value. Just until the morning. Just until I could go to the bank."

The air in the room went very still. The ticking of the clock seemed to grow louder, each second a hammer blow.

Darcy pushed himself away from the desk. He walked slowly toward the chair.

"Collateral." His voice came deceptively quiet. "What collateral, George? You own nothing but your clothes and a very expensive collection of cravats."

George glanced up. His face was pale, stripped of all its usual charm. He was young, scared, and wretched.

"The box," he whispered.

Darcy stopped. His brain refused to parse the word. "The box?"

"The Emerald Snuffbox."

The world tilted on its axis.

"No," Darcy breathed. "No. You cannot mean... Father trusted you to take it to the jeweller to be polished."

It was a test. Darcy knew it was a test. Old Mr Darcy had handed the priceless heirloom—a gift from a Duke to a Darcy three generations ago—to George. Take it to Bond Street, George. Show me you can be responsible.

"I meant to take it!" George cried, tears spilling over his lashes. "But the shop was closed! I had it in my pocket. I thought it was safe. I thought I would win the hand, take the money, and get the box back. It was only for an hour!"

"You bet the Darcy Emeralds," Darcy shouted, the control finally snapping. "On a hand of Piquet? In a Covent Garden gaming hell?"

"I lost, Fitz!" George sobbed, burying his face in his hands. "He took it! The Butcher took it! He says I have to pay five hundred guineas by Friday or he sells it. Or he melts it down!"

Darcy staggered back, pressing a hand to his chest. His heart was racing, a frantic, bird-like fluttering.

Five hundred guineas. He did not have five hundred guineas.

And Friday.

"Father arrives on Friday," he whispered to himself. "He will ask for the box. He will want to see it shining."

If George did not have it, the lie would be exposed. The gambling. The recklessness. Old Mr Darcy would be forced to cast him out. And the news would travel to Derbyshire. To the steward's cottage.

"My father," George moaned, rocking back and forth. "If he finds out... his heart, Fitz. The doctor said any shock..."

"He will die," Darcy finished.

He looked at the weeping man in the chair. In his mind came the ink-stained essay on Paternalism and efficiency.

There was no efficiency here. Only ruin.

He turned to the window. The fog was pressing against the glass, grey and impenetrable. He was twenty years old. He was a student. He was supposed to be worrying about treatises on drainage.

Instead, he was standing on the precipice of a disaster that would shatter two families.

"We cannot tell Father," Darcy said. The decision settled over him like a shroud.

"What can we do?" George wailed. "We have no money! We have no weapons! We are students!"

Darcy stared at his reflection in the dark glass. He was pale. He was terrified. But beneath the panic, a gear clicked into place.

"We are not merely students, George. We are Derbyshire men."

He turned back to the room.

"Mostyn!" he roared, his voice cracking with desperation. "Wake the footman! Send a runner to Matlock House. Wake Richard and Robert, discreetly. Tell them it is an emergency."

"Fitz?" George sniffled.

"Be quiet, George." He grabbed a fresh sheet of paper. "I am organizing a council of war."