These Three Remain (48 page)

“It all will not matter a jot when I go home a married woman,” she informed him airily and turned away to the window.

“You think not? It would be very strange if that were so, and I assure you that your sisters Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth do not regard the matter in such a light.” His statement appeared to give her pause, for she turned back to him. “You would not wish to live under the disapprobation of two of your closest relations whose chances for an advantageous future would be considerably lessened by such actions on your part.”

Lydia’s lips formed into a pout as her eyes slid away from him. “My sisters! My sisters will do very well, or would if they…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes shifted back to him, now bright with suspicious curiosity. “How do you know of my sisters’ regard or, for that matter, about any of this? Lizzy doesn’t even like you; no one does that I ever heard, except for Mr. Bingley.”

The dart, so inelegantly flung, still possessed a sting. Darcy rose from his seat in irritation with both himself and his antagonist and strode to her. The child was entirely self-absorbed, dangerously careless, and hopelessly naïve. How was he to make her see the truth of her position? He looked out the small, grime-laced window for a moment and then turned back to her. “You must know that your sister was to travel with your Aunt and Uncle Gardiner during the summer.”

“Yes, a boring trip north.” She sniffed in disdain. “No parties or balls or picnics. Only Aunt and Uncle Gardiner prosing on and on.”

“On their travels,” he continued, “they stopped to view my estate in Derbyshire. It was there that your sister received word that you had entrusted your future to Wickham. In great distress at this news, your sister confided in me. She and her party left immediately for Longbourn, your uncle to join your father in searching for you.” He paused. Here was the difficult part. “My long association with Wickham put me in a better position to find you both; therefore, I resolved to do so and without their knowledge should I raise their hopes but meet with no success.”

“I still cannot imagine why you should care to trouble yourself,” she replied tartly. “We will be married — in time. My friends will be happy for me. There is nothing so terrible about that, that you should come here and say I should leave George.”

“Can you not imagine the precarious position in which this puts the respectability of your family? They will, if they have not already, become a byword in the neighborhood.”

“Oh, the neighbors!” Lydia stamped her foot. “Old, catty busybodies with no use for fun! Who cares about them? I do not!”

“But your sisters —”

“I shall see to getting them husbands, shan’t I? For I shall be married and before them all!”

Darcy held his silence when she had finished. Lydia Bennet was not to be reasoned with or shamed into leaving her illicit lover. She seemed to have no understanding of the consequences of her actions for herself or her family, nor had she any concern to discover what her behavior would cost them. He looked down at the hat and gloves in his hands in order to conceal the unsettling nature of his thoughts. Unlike Lydia Bennet, his sister had known what she was doing and repented of it, if only at the last. This child — he glanced up at the bedraggled and defiant girl before him — flesh and blood of the woman he loved, had no such advantage. How was he to convince her to give up her dangerous toy? He had only one resource left and, fortunately, permission to use it. Still, he would employ it discreetly.

“Miss Lydia, would it influence you in any way if you knew you were not the first young woman George Wickham has convinced to fly with him?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I have personal knowledge of another who was deceived by Wickham’s blandishments and promises into consenting to elope with him. It was clear that his reasons for courting her without the knowledge or consent of her relations were dictated not by passion but by economics. She was an heiress, and Wickham was in need of money.”

Lydia’s eyes flew open. “What has Miss King to do with anything? George never…Oh!” She stamped her foot at him yet again and took a hasty step toward him. “I may not be an heiress, but I know George loves me!”

“Miss Lydia.” Darcy leaned forward earnestly. “Wickham is ever in need of money. He has no profession. He has tried to live by his wits and by chance, and has failed at them both. He must marry for money; he has no choice.” Compassion welled up in him as he looked down into her set, young face. “You are right; you are not an heiress,” he agreed gently, “and whether he truly loves you or not, for that reason, you must believe me, he will not marry you.”

A flicker of doubt crossed her countenance. Brightness welled at the corners of her eyes. Was it enough? Too quickly, the doubt faded. She hastily wiped at her eyes, and her chin took on an immovable cast that bore an alarming resemblance to her mother’s. “George will marry me, and that is the end of it! Now, I think you should leave!”

Heaving a sigh, Darcy bowed his acquiescence and turned to go. “Miss Lydia.” He looked back at her from the doorway. “May I leave you my card should you change your mind?” She shrugged her shoulders, which he took for permission, and laying it on the table, he bowed again and walked from the room. It had been as he had feared. The girl would not be dissuaded. He must deal with Wickham.

U
pon closing the door on his unsuccessful interview with Lydia Bennet, Darcy walked slowly down the hall and stairs to the inn’s public rooms and Wickham, considering his next moves. The rogue would believe he held the upper hand, and indeed, he did in immediate particulars. The facts of Darcy’s presence and Lydia’s obstinacy proclaimed it. But it was a tenuous ascendancy, and it remained to Darcy to impress upon Wickham every uncertainty and danger inherent in his position as acutely as possible while still keeping his birds in hand. For if they flew, all might well be lost.

Wickham turned from the window as Darcy entered the public room, his perpetual smirk widening as he broadly noted that Darcy came down alone. He sauntered over to the table that they had occupied previously, setting down a half-empty glass before sitting. “Amazingly loyal little thing, is she not? I have not quite decided whether that is an advantageous or an unfortunate trait in a woman, but there it is. What shall you do about it?”

“Indeed,” Darcy replied, taking the opposite chair. “What would you suggest?”

Wickham laughed as if he had made a joke, but his levity trailed and sobered under Darcy’s continued solemn regard. “Well,” he offered, “you might carry her off bodily, you or someone hired, kicking and screaming her little head off. I, nor anyone here, would stand in your way for…” He looked at him speculatively. “Ten thousand pounds.”

“Ten thousand pounds,” Darcy repeated without emotion. “But there is the problem of her reputation, and that of her family. Ten thousand pounds in
your
pocket will not restore
them
to respectability. No, your previous assumption of a nuptial is the direction you should pursue.” He sat back.

Wickham’s mouth turned down in a brief grimace, but his eyes said that he was keen to continue. “All right, ten thousand pounds.” He slapped the table as if he were at a horse auction. “And I marry her!”

Darcy affected a look of mild surprise. “And by this magnanimous offer, am I to assume you to believe that, first of all, I am a fool, and second, your name alone attached to hers will confer adequate compensation for your actions and effect the restoration of the entire family’s name?”

“What do you —”

“What do I believe? Quite simply, that once any appreciable amount of money is in your possession, you will leave her a grass widow to deal with your creditors, and I shall have financed a considerable amount of gross self-indulgence and future debauchery. Or was a reformation of character an addendum you neglected to mention?”

Wickham cast him a look of cold hatred. “Always the tight-arsed prig afraid to dirty his clothes! Character!” he spat out. “Only the rich can afford character, but most of them seem to dispense with it soon enough. They just have the money or the power to buy their way out of trouble before the whispers get too loud, but poor men…poor men are judged without mercy —”

“Yes,” Darcy interrupted him, “there
is
the matter of your debts. Do you have any idea how much they are?” Wickham shrugged his disinterest. Darcy pressed the issue. “Let us only consider, then, those since your arrival in Meryton. What is their amount?”

Wickham shrugged again. “I have no notion, except…” He looked away a moment before continuing. “Except for what in honor I owe to fellow officers.” As if suddenly enlightened, he straightened and pounded the table between them. “They are the cause for this whole damned mess! If those ‘fine young gentlemen’ had not been so bloody-minded, so damned precise about things, and ready to cry to Mamá, I would not be here!”

“I shall pay your debts.”

“What?” Wickham looked at him sharply. “All of them?”

“All of those you have incurred since setting foot in Meryton.”

“You must be joking! All of them? Not knowing their sum?” he asked, incredulous.

“I shall pay your debts, whether from tradesman or officer,” Darcy repeated. He had not moved since sitting back against his chair nor, oddly enough, had he felt the anger or disgust that heretofore had arisen with little more than the thought of George Wickham. He had an objective, and would hone to it, but something had changed, and he was able to deal with Wickham calmly.

Wickham’s incredulity turned swiftly to suspicion. “But that would mean
you
would hold them all. At any time, you could call them in.”

“Yes, that would be true.” Darcy inclined his head in agreement. “You would be dependent upon” — he paused, searching for the word, and was bemused to find it from his sister’s lips — “mercy, which would be excessively large and silent, I assure you, so long as you comport yourself like a gentleman in every sense of the word and treat your wife with honor.” Agitated by the prospect, Wickham rose from his chair and strode to the window. “I do not require that you
believe
in honor — you may continue to despise it all you wish — only
act
in such a way that others believe you do.” Darcy spoke to his back. Wickham turned to face him, his expression unreadable. “But should it come to me that you are mistreating your wife or contracting unwarranted debt…” He let the sentence dangle.

“Bought and shackled!” Wickham’s face contorted in anger. “Where is the profit for me in this charming little picture? I could simply walk away from you, the girl, and the whole damned thing this minute, you know.”

“You could try, but there are so many interested in your whereabouts: tradesmen, angry fathers, your former fellow officers, not to mention your commander. I found you within days of learning of your flight from Brighton. They will as well.”

Wickham blanched, swallowed hard, and then reddened. “You wouldn’t…,” he ground out from between clenched jaws, his eyes hunted and wild.

“I sincerely hope that it will not come to that,” Darcy replied, a sense of calm flowing deep and wide through his body. The veracity of his words took him by surprise no less than they did his adversary. He should have been feeling every sort of exultation in his impending triumph over the one who had bedevilled his life and threatened his family. At least, he should have felt the excitement of closing upon the quarry, but strangely, he did not. Was it pity? Did he pity Wickham? No…it was not that, not precisely.

Wickham relaxed from his rigid stance and resumed his seat across the table. “If I agreed to all of this, how shall I go on and with a wife to support? Satisfying the damned bloodsuckers is all well and good, but what shall I live on?” Darcy’s lack of an immediate reply appeared to worry him, for Wickham’s foot began tapping nervously against the inn floor. “I have no profession.” He looked down at his hands and then up at Darcy. “Kympton! Give me the living at Kympton!” Darcy began to shake his head. “It is what your father desired for me! It is perfect!”

“No! Absolutely not!” Darcy’s voice cut sharply through Wickham’s demands. “There is another possibility, but I desired to reach an understanding with you before pursuing it further.” He rose from the chair. “Do we have an understanding? You will not attempt to flee this inn and will meet with me tomorrow to discuss your situation further, and I will not inform on you or retract any promise I have made to you thus far.”

Wickham considered for a moment and then, sighing, stretched out his hand. “Agreed.” Darcy stared at the outstretched hand, a tightness springing up within his breast. “Ah, well…” Wickham began to withdraw it.

“No, here!” Darcy smothered the imp that would tease him back into black resentment and took Wickham’s hand briefly into his grip. “Agreed. I will call upon you tomorrow afternoon.” He spoke hurriedly. “Make my good-byes known to Miss Lydia Bennet.” Then retrieving his hat and walking stick, he left Wickham standing alone in the public room to think as he wished about what had just passed between them.

Reaching the hired cab, Darcy called up an address to the driver and climbed inside. As the cab threaded through the streets, Darcy threw his hat and gloves beside him on the worn, cracked leather seat and rubbed first at his eyes, then briskly over his entire face. Sitting back into the squabs, he stretched out his legs and evaluated his position. He had found them! The sad meanness of the place in which he had found them was enough to depress the most optimistic of men, and Wickham was not one of that happy tribe. Rather, Darcy was certain, he was chafing miserably at the necessity of being cut off from the life he craved and was desperately eager for a way back into enough respectability to reach for it again. Were the terms he had proposed enough to tempt Wickham? It appeared so; at least for the moment. After the moment had passed, it was likely that only holding Wickham’s debts over his head would keep him between the traces.