The Plight of the Darcy Brothers (42 page)

“Are you implying I am not?”

“I think he's coming around,” Dr. Maddox's voice came in, booming in the room, though Wickham didn't hear it and continued undisturbed.

“You are a gentleman. I will not deny it. But you take it to extremes because you are… disabled.”

“Disabled?”

“You are afraid of people, Darcy.”

“I am not afraid of anything!”

“Perhaps a better word,” Wickham said. Darcy had forgotten that he could display a high degree of intelligence. But he was, after all, the son of Geoffrey Darcy. “Uncomfortable.”

“What do you mean?”

“People that you do not know. People that you
do
know, but lack the means to play that social dance, and I do not mean a literal dance, as you are quite accomplished in that respect despite your lack of practice.”

“I think I've just been insulted and complimented in the same breath.”

“It was not so much an insult. I was not saying you are stupid or mentally ill, but behind all of that propriety and stiff posture is a real man, waiting to get out. Or perhaps, you show him to Elizabeth. She is then a very lucky woman, because you can be quite pleasant if you wish to be, even likeable.”

“So,” Darcy said. “We have a man with no scruples but excellent social abilities, and the very opposite. And one killed the other.”

“It has not been established quite yet whether I returned the favor. It depends on your brother-in-law. You could not find a doctor with proper eyes?”

“He has an excellent record and has saved my life before.”

“I can't quite decide if that is good or bad for me. I did not mean to kill you, Darcy.”

Darcy sighed. “I cannot honestly say the same thing.”

“If I had not attacked Gregory—”

“Still,” He shook his head; that, he could manage to do. “My hatred was too deep for me to forgive, even when considering one of your mistakes was made by accident. Had you approached Georgiana more formally—”

“—Mrs. Reynolds would have said something.” George Wickham, of course, did not have this information. Or maybe he did; Darcy didn't question it. “And while that would have changed our lives, it would have prevented the intended marriage, certainly.” He said in a softer voice, one that actually sounded concerned, “You know I never compromised her. Or even came close. I never laid a hand on her, except to escort her around Brighton.”

“I know.”

“But that does not unburden me—even with her forgiveness. Some things cannot be forgiven, however unintentional.”

“Or perhaps they can,” Darcy said. “You said she did.”

“Yes.”

“Then I must follow in her lead,” Darcy said. He raised his glass so he did not have to say it. “I feel as if… a terrible burden is off my shoulders.”

“Maybe they amputated them while we sat here in front of this pleasant little fire.”

“Be serious.”

“See, we are opposites. Like you and Bingley, only he meets
your stringent requirements of virtue. Otherwise, we are partners in a strange friendship.”

Darcy raised his glass. “To brothers.”

“To brothers. And brothers must forgive and forget. Both of us.”

“Even for the most heinous of crimes?”

“As we both fall into that category, with attempted incest and fratricide, we must overlook them if we are to forgive each other at all.”

“Done, then.”

They clinked glasses, which shattered, along with his world.

“Darcy? Mr. Darcy, can you hear me?”

The picture came back into definition, instead of the haze before him. Dr. Maddox, his manservant, and his wife were across him. He had collapsed on the floor next to his bed. So talkative to the dead, he did not feel up to putting together an answer for the living.

Maddox touched his forehead. “His fever's broken. On two?”

They hauled him back up on the bed, onto fresh sheets, and changed his shirt again. It felt wonderful to be clean and dry. “Thank you,” he mumbled after Elizabeth offered a cup of coffee, of which he managed only a few sips.

“Do you feel ill?”

To his own surprise, he shook his head.

“How is your back?”

He fumbled to touch the spot with his own hand. “It feels— better.” He couldn't find any pain at all. He looked up hopefully at Maddox. “Can we stop now?”

“Yes,” Dr. Maddox said, his own voice bordering on joyous delirium, from Darcy's limited sense of perception. “Yes, we can.”

Darcy nodded and turned his head on the pillow, instantly asleep.

DARCY'S RECOVERY TOOK OVER a month. The Maddoxes would return to Town officially after Christmas because of the doctor's various requirements there, although Dr. Maddox did return briefly to see Brian off on his adventure in the Carpathian Mountains and to check on his royal patient. Darcy was no longer in the prime of youth and had been injured twice in the duel, so he was pained for a long time, so much so that Maddox began restricting the dosage of medicine.

“I will not turn your husband into an opium fiend,” Maddox said to Elizabeth.

He was frustrated with the results of only one aspect of the proceedings, which was that Darcy's hand had lost some of its capabilities. Though it was hardly frozen or limp, its flexibility was limited, to the point that his normally perfect script was illegible.

“It does match Geoffrey's almost perfectly,” Elizabeth said, smoothing out the hair of her flustered and grumpy husband.

Aside from his own recovery and his wife's increasing girth,
Darcy had few things to worry about. In fact, the only thing he could think of at the moment was Grégoire, the monastic secluded from his monasticism. As much as he enjoyed being with his newfound family, and as much as his humility prevented what would have made Darcy outright furious at the stares he got for his appearance, he was not settled in England. He probably never would be, Darcy eventually came to realize (after much prompting from Elizabeth). And in Ireland, where they still clutched onto their Catholicism, the monasteries had been dissolved. Despite his youth, Grégoire was a relic.

Doubling his pain was a letter from the Monastery of Mont Claire. The Abbot wrote in long and lengthy Latin, and whatever it said, Grégoire paled at it and disappeared. When he did not return for lunch or dinner, they sent a party out and found him lying on his father's grave, staring up at the sky.

Darcy called the men off, set the lantern down, and sat down beside him. He barely noticed that Wickham's tombstone had been finished and installed. “I would build you a monastery if I could.”

“You cannot.”

“What did the Abbot's letter say?”

“I don't care to repeat it and slander my Abbot.” He sighed, clutching the cross from Rome. “Well, I suppose he isn't my father abbot anymore.”

“So you were cast out?”

“Yes.”

“On what charges?”

“He made various assumptions about my activities and behavior on the road.”

“Was he correct?”

“Partially… I did ride in a carriage when I could have walked.” He laughed. “I suppose that is a bit ridiculous.”

“A bit?”

“He also wrote that he knew when I walked out the door that I would give in to the temptations of wealth and flesh.”

“But, you have not.”

Grégoire turned his head without sitting up. “Am I a changed man since I walked out of the cloister?”

“I don't see you in a gambling den with a whore on each side, no. In fact, my barber has complained to me about your insistence on trimming your hair in such a fashion that he finds backwards and ridiculous.”

“What did you say to him?”

“That if he every complained again, I would dismiss him.”

There was silence in the cold winter night.

“When I am well enough,” Darcy said. “I will take you back to France or even go as far as Spain to find you a proper abbey.”

“I cannot ask you to travel for me.”

Darcy replied, “You have no idea how many people have told me not to do things for them. I've never listened to them, because I am a ridiculously stubborn man, and somehow I always get thanked in the end. Or shot. Sometimes both.”

The brothers shared a laugh, and Darcy escorted the little monk back to the house.

He had convinced Grégoire to winter in Pemberley, if only to see his new nephew or niece in the spring. On this, at least, Grégoire was convinced, and they arranged for a more abbey like arrangement for him in the private chapel, which was still medieval in character. Mrs. Reynolds even located the old altar furnishings behind a dusty wooden screen, unused since the
Reformation, and Darcy dubbed the room beside the chapel “Pemberley Abbey.”

The families all gathered at Pemberley for Christmas, since Darcy was still slowly recovering and it conveniently was also the birthdays of the Bingley twins. When they realized someone was missing, the Maddoxes made their apologies for Brian's absence.

“He's gone where?” Darcy said, not having been informed in all the commotion of his situation.

“The Carpathian Mountains. In eastern Austria, I believe.” The doctor did not look excessively happy about it.

“To be married to a woman he's met twice.”

“And is royalty,” said Mr. Bennet, still highly amused. “The foreign princess.”

“I would say that I've heard crazier things from Brian, but this may actually be the thing that would qualify him for Bedlam,” Dr. Maddox said, unconsciously looking with concern at his wife, who cradled their daughter. “I can't say I was happy about it, but I have no authority to stop him.”

“Her name again?”

“God, it's impossible to pronounce. He's only said it a few times. Actually, he's been rather quiet and shy about the woman herself.”

“Hmmm,” Caroline Maddox said, “When do men get quiet and shy about women?”

“I don't get quiet and shy about women,” Bingley said.

“That's because you're a social twit,” Darcy said. “The correct answer is apparently when they're in love.”

“
Twit?
”

“Yes, that was what I was looking for, Darcy,” Mrs. Maddox said. “Don't you agree, Mrs. Darcy?”

“
Did he really call me a twit?
”

“Absolutely,” Elizabeth said, “especially when they're deeply, passionately in love but cannot bear to show it.”

“
I know it's his house, but still! Darcy!
”

“What?” Darcy said, pretending to be broken from a reverie. “Bingley, I can only be assaulted on one front at a time, and here I have two women, so will you please just take my side?”

“Against my sister and your wife? Do you think me mad?”

“Well, everyone needs to have a mad brother,” Jane said.

“I've already got one. Sorry, Mrs. Bingley,” Darcy said, ignoring the fact that Grégoire had tossed an olive in his direction, “and so does Dr. Maddox. So really, the Bingley family is lacking in brothers who won't listen to reason unless you look around the other way and count Bingley himself.”

“
Look, I don't have to take this
—”

“Does anyone know the hour?” Darcy looked at his pocket watch.

“Why do we assume our Lord was born precisely at midnight?” Maddox said. “Seeing as how the sun sets faster in the east, isn't it already midnight in his birthplace?”

“Don't mix logic and religion, Doctor,” Mr. Bennet said, “or you'll get something quite combustible.”

“Cheers to that,” said Grégoire, and raised his glass as he crossed himself.