Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (53 page)

Under the specific circumstances, no one else might have been. Elizabeth, however, was astonished when she espied Wickham standing in her foyer awaiting to be announced.

Astounded dismay temporarily immobilised her.

It had been several years since last she had seen him. Time had not altered him in appearance or demeanour. He stood with one hip cocked, one hand resting upon the hilt of his sword. His cape was tossed with studied rakishness over one shoulder, and whilst tapping the toe of his highly polished boot, his eyes expertly took measure of the lobby. Twice he twaddled the tips of his fingers in his mahogany curls as his gaze paused at the tall entry mirror. Much as in Hertfordshire, Wickham’s uniform was still more a prop for his vanity than an announcement of his occupation. His pose allowed the shine of his boots to be fully appreciated by whoever might chance to gaze upon his figure.

Before Elizabeth could react, either by hiding or outright fleeing, Wickham caught her in his eye.

“Elizabeth!” called he, “how good to see you! It has been far too long!”

“No, it has not,” Elizabeth thought meanly, but replied a reluctant, yet mild, “Indeed.”

The scheme that she and Jane had hatched appeared to be taking a rather startlingly ill turn. They had merely hoped to apprise Wickham that he had a son in preparation for the sisters taking upon the highly anticipated office of John Christie’s long-lost aunts. Never once did Elizabeth consider Wickham might come to meet his son himself.

Immediate of discovering that John was their brother-in-law’s illegitimate son, Elizabeth had hied to Kirkland Hall. With all due diligence, the sisters carefully explored the implications of his heredity. Forthwith, Jane returned to Pemberley to have her newly discovered nephew pointed out. They both admired the young man’s heretofore unremarked upon handsome features, whilst Elizabeth expounded upon his innate intelligence, kindness, and lack of family. It was during an extended conversation about their Christian duty to humanity that the plan was concocted for Elizabeth to write to Wickham and tell him of his son.

If there was a particular protocol in introducing bastardy into the family fold, both sisters reasoned the first step was to notify the father.

As a result of their collabouration, Wickham stood unexpectedly in her foyer. Thereby, Elizabeth concluded, for them, collective reasoning was not necessarily an improvement. (Elizabeth would happily share the blame with her sister for their blunder.)

Indeed, Lydia’s husband bowed, inquiring if Darcy was about before quite compleating his flourish. At hearing he was not, Wickham visibly exhaled a sigh of relief, one that was synchronous to Elizabeth’s. Neither evidently wanted that particular -confrontation. Thereupon, Wickham took Elizabeth’s unoffered hand mid-curtsy and kissed it. So distasteful was this affectation, she reclaimed her hand.

The withdrawal of her hand was exacted with such dispatch, she very nearly gave him a labial abrasion.

Her haste bade him look askance, and from his upturned countenance, she discerned a likeness to John Christie so strong, it struck her dumb.

Quite unbeknownst to her, Elizabeth was overtly staring into Wickham’s face. She was searching it, exploring it for markers of similarity betwixt his countenance and John’s. They were there. How could she have mistaken the similarity for that of Darcy?

The nose was straight like her husband, but John’s was longer. Wickham had an aquiline nose. But none had quite the same smile, for Wickham smiled incessantly, Darcy rarely and John not at all. The chin was familiar. She had once thought the cleft in John’s chin reminded her of Darcy’s, but she saw then that it was Wickham’s.

Wickham had a cleft in his chin, as did John. The area that lay uncompared were the eyes, for John had usually kept his cast away. When Elizabeth’s eyes finally rested upon Wickham’s to take their measure, she was almost startled. For his two orbs stared back at her with unexpected licentiousness.

If that distracted her, it was but fleetingly, for her chief concern was that of privacy.

Of the belief that any frank talk of their groom’s parentage should best be done in private, Elizabeth reluctantly invited Wickham into the drawing room. They crossed its width and so smoothly did he slide onto the satin settee next to her, she well-nigh landed in his lap. She settled at the far end and folded her hands primly upon her knees. Imperceptibly, Wickham leaned toward her. Just as imperceptibly, she drew away.

If Wickham looked upon Elizabeth as the object of a seduction, as the manipulated party of Elizabeth and Jane’s faltering strategy, he too was a victim of events.

He was this, of course, as much as the result of his own self-deception than at the hands of anyone else. For as it might be suspected, Wickham did not come to Pemberley in search of reuniting with his lost son born of Abigail Christie. His reason was two-fold and representative of his objective in life in general. He hoped to partake of an intrigue and get rich in the process.

However, Wickham was labouring under several misconceptions. Primarily because he could not imagine that Elizabeth would write to him personally only to tell him about a long forgotten bush-begotten baby. If he had no interest in such an event, he did not fathom her own. Therefore, why she initiated contact with him was a mystery to be uncovered.

The second involved the widespread partnering of people of wealth into marriages of convenience and the rampant belief that was an exclusivity. Wickham had never reconciled within himself that Darcy had married Elizabeth for love. He believed it was inevitable that Elizabeth Bennet Darcy was bored and lonely. Upon the fringes of good society, Wickham had serviced the occasional unhappily married baroness. He was only one of a contingent of Lotharios who undertook these aristocratic assignations. Thus when Elizabeth looked with trepidation into Wickham’s seriously lascivious gaze, he thought he saw chance befall him. The opportunity seemed ripe for a rare triple success of seduction, bribery, and revenge.

His very favourite things.

“You look particularly lovely, Elizabeth.”

“I thank you,” she said, and sought to alter the subject. “If you have come all this way, you must be impatient to see your son. But I am not certain he is about.”

She struggled frantically with what to do, for nothing yet had been said to John about his parentage. She certainly did not want to introduce him to Wickham without warning. But at the mention of his overgrown misbegotten, Wickham seemed taken aback, as if he had forgotten why he was there in the first place.

Elizabeth looked at him curiously, but he quickly recovered.

He said, “You understand, this is embarrassing. We men do have our youthful indiscretions. Better, I fancy, to have too many sons than none at all.”

The remark was far too pointed, and Wickham far too conniving, for it to have been a slip of the tongue.

She said (a little sarcastically), “One must suppose.”

“Lydia has told me of your disappointment, Elizabeth. My heartfelt sympathy.” His eyes batted several times before continuing, “The silence of this large house must be quite unbearable.” (Commiserating loneliness seldom failed him.)

She was uncertain whether first to disabuse him of the notion of her forlornness, explain implicitly that their “disappointment” was not to be spoken of by a man with the morals and sexual appetite of a particularly libidinous goat, or simply smite him across the forehead with the fireplace poker. This deliberation was not lengthy, but during the time her mind took her upon that fanciful trip of possibilities, her breath grew heavy with rage and her face flushed.

A misfortune. For in her reluctance to tell her sister’s husband that she was considering violence upon his person, he continued to believe her heaving bosom and heightened colour resulted from the employment of his considerable charms. He continued to speak, but in a low murmur.

“You are far too enchanting to be without company, Elizabeth. ’Tis no fault of yours, of course, this I know well. You recall your husband and I were once exceedingly close friends.”

Careful not to speak his name, Wickham continued, coaxing, “He was of a somewhat priggish nature when it came to…love. A passionate woman such as yourself deserves better, Elizabeth…”

Incredulous, Elizabeth interrupted and asked him bluntly, “Are you offering to avail yourself of me?”

“Well, I should not put it so plainly,” he said, pressing her back, his puckered lips making little kissing sounds up the length of her neck.

Compleatly flabbergasted and the poker out of reach, she brought her hand upward to slap his face but he caught it by the wrist.

“You always were a saucy wench, Miss Eliza!”

It came to Wickham at the exact moment he realised Elizabeth was seriously not interested in his attentions, that when she said Darcy was “not there,” she might have meant he was “not in the house,” not he was “not in Derbyshire.” This premonition struck him a little tardy, for he had time neither to rise from her nor to release his hold upon her wrist. Hence, when he felt the cold metal tip of a blade beneath his chin, it sent a shuddering chill of naked fear down his spine.

“Step back now, Wickham, or I shall spill your blood upon this floor.”

Having been apprehended in mid-inveiglement, not only by Lydia, but by more than one irate husband, Wickham had been threatened all manner of retribution. Nevertheless, he had never once had a blade drawn upon him and that Darcy held the other end led him to believe the warning of bloodshed not just a threat. With the blade yet beneath his chin, Wickham, with all due care, rose from Elizabeth.

Knowing the merest flick of the blade would render Wickham a second leer, Elizabeth held her breath. Under it, she implored her husband to contain his rage.

“Do not do it. Do not do it,” she repeated silently. “Dear God. Do not do it.”

As Wickham backed the length of the room, the sheath at his waist dangled loosely. He felt it empty, thus allowed himself a considerable relief. Few might have felt reprieve at that moment, but versed as he was in such reckoning, Wickham realised the blade poised at his throat was his own. No duel had been called. Yet his armpits produced a cold clammy sweat so copiously that it was discernible under the sleeves of his wool jacket.

If Wickham had a momentary palliation of dread, it was fleeting. For Darcy’s voice betrayed an icy calm, one reflected by his countenance. That was what was most unsettling to all who saw it. His face reflected no emotion whatsoever. There was a time when Wickham had totally dismissed the possibility that Darcy had taken three lives by his own hand. But as he stood within that cold, placid stare, the furtive little darting of his eyes announced Wickham was just then reconsidering his position. Thus, he made a prudent backward retreat whilst endeavouring a less judicious attempt at convincing Darcy not to believe what he had seen.

“I am afraid you are quite mistaken, for I am here upon invitation of your wife.”

Evidently hearing nothing to induce him to expand upon his initial statement to Wickham, Darcy silently advanced upon him. Wickham backed through the double doors. A small crowd of footmen and maids stood motionless in the foyer as he edged his way out. Once upon the doorstep, Darcy lowered the blade and a slight spot of blood could be seen upon Wickham’s neck just above his Adam’s apple.

Wickham brought his fingers to the nick, wiped it with his middle finger. He looked at the blood before turning and taking a careful but brisk leave down the steps.

With a fierce fling of his wrist, Darcy sent the sword sailing toward Wickham’s back. A whirring sound directed at him caused Wickham to take a galloping leap into the air. When the blade imbedded in the gravel-covered dirt of the drive just to the left of Wickham’s feet, the handle was bobbing yet.

With a sheepish look about, Wickham retrieved his weapon and redeposited it in his scabbard. Mustering more dignity than some might have produced under similar circumstances, he haughtily snapped his fingers to the man who held the reins of his horse. Once mounted, he felt secure enough bestow upon Darcy a derisive laugh before he dug his spurs into his horse’s flank, speeding them upon their way.

Wickham’s laugh was an impotent one, for no one saw or heard it save for the man holding the reins to his horse. Darcy was already re-entering the house. Elizabeth did not witness the fling of the sword nor Wickham’s last insult either, for she had not moved from the settee whence Darcy ejected Wickham.

Her husband returned to her alone and carefully closed the door behind him. She sensed Wickham was done no harm.

Regardless, she asked, “Pray, has Wickham departed?”

He nodded.

Overcome with relief, Elizabeth rushed to her husband, grateful his fury over Wickham’s advances was not lethal. Clutching him to her, she began to babble, “The unmitigated gall…how could that man believe…what brass cheek…”

But she trailed off when she realised his arms hung woodenly at his sides. The colour had drained from his face and his chest still heaved with rage. She looked at him, but he waited a moment, perchance allowing himself to tether his temper, before he spoke.

In the clipped intonation that he always used to announce his displeasure, he asked a nonquestion, “You invited Wickham here when I bid you not?”

Trembling, she endeavoured to keep her countenance.

“I did send him a post, because I believed he should know of his son. I did not invite him to come here.”

“Your letter was invitation enough. When I bid you to desist of the matter, I expected you to follow my wishes, not contact Wickham clandestinely. There are things of which you do not know, Elizabeth.”

“I did not contact him in secrecy,” she insisted, certain at that moment she had not.

“You did not do it openly. Anything other is furtive.”

Of course, he was right. She had not meant to act surreptitiously, simply independently.

It ended badly. Before she was ready to concede that point, she accused his own secrecy, for if there were “things of which she did not know,” he had kept them from her.