A Required Engagement Part Two Page 4

  “It is a pleasure, as always, to see you and your lovely daughters,” he said to Mrs. Bennet, although he only truly felt an affinity with Miss Bennet. That one was sending him an almost anxious, alarmed look so out of keeping with her character, that he nearly asked aloud what was wrong but realized shortly from her tense body language that he had best not inquire.

  “Our Jane is here, of course, so happy to greet you as well. It is compliment to have you visit our house again, so soon. We have had all manners of visits in the last few weeks, have we not my girls?” Mrs. Bennet turned to the younger women assembled. Catherine giggled, before hiding her mouth behind her hand, and turned to Mary and whispered, who merely shook her head at whatever the younger girl had to say. “I do believe we will have even more once my youngest, Lydia, is brought out into society. She is ever so beautiful. It is said that good fortune falls upon a house that has a beautiful eldest and beautiful youngest, for the eldest will soon marry, and those plain in the middle will not hurt for offers since the youngest will not yet be out,” Mrs. Bennet continued in an almost sing-song voice. Mr. Darcy was startled at the back-handed way in which she insulted both Mary and Catherine, both of whom he would have privately admitted to thinking them plain, but to cut them so in front of an unattached gentleman in front of him…

  There was a delicate flush upon Jane’s cheeks, and her fingers trembled as she continued her embroidery. One could have mistaken the red in her face to be from maidenly shyness, but given the look she cast her mother of one brief moment, Mr. Darcy surmised she was in fact quite cross with her mother for the sharp words the older woman had shared.

  “I shall take that saying under advisement, Mrs. Bennet,” Mr. Darcy said in a quiet voice, “however I do not believe that I should think a single one of my future daughters to be plain. I will love them, as a father does and is proper, for their intellect and talents, whatever that may be.” He smiled at Mrs. Bennet to take the sting from his words as she fluttered a fan, her lips parted in surprise.

  “Oh! Surely you must think me a horrid, critical sort of mother, but truly, I adore my girls, one and all-“

  “Mama,” Jane began, interrupting her mother’s attempt to salvage the situation. “Mr. Darcy has called for a reason, perhaps we should order tea to wet his parched throat.”

  Darcy smiled briefly at Jane, pleased that she had stymied what was surely to be an epically long monologue on the part of Mrs. Bennet.

  “Oh, oh yes, but of course. Immediately, Mr. Darcy, would you take tea with us?”

  “I must admit that the reason for my visit, as abruptly arriving as it was and for that I apologize, was to speak with Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy said, allowing himself to bravely forge onwards and not be limited by his own self-consciousness and awareness that he had the rapt attention of all four females in the room.

  “Miss Elizabeth?” Mrs. Bennet asked, her eyebrows arched high on her face. “Oh dear, that is a shame, is it not? I will have to ask you do stay and complete your visit with us even if she is not here to welcome you. She is out, on a prior engagement for the day, and we do not expect her back until the early evening.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Darcy said, feeling his heart sinking into the vicinity of his stomach, knowing that he could not bear to stand a moment in MRs. Bennet’s company that was not entirely necessary to secure Elizabeth’s hand.

  “She is out, but she has not gone far,” Jane said, cutting in again, much to her mother’s vexed expression. “She has gone to Meryton with Mr. Wickham.” Jane gave Darcy another significant look, her mouth drawn into a straight, solemn line so unlike her normal jovial smile that she wore. Mr. Darcy’s heart sank even further, but at the same time his throat tightened. His Elizabeth, with that cad, that utter scoundrel? It was not to be borne.

  “Mr. Wickham you say?” he asked, his voice as taut as his throat constricted further. Jane gave a short nod, and then thrust her needle into her embroidery with some viciousness. He wondered at her opinion of Mr. Wickham, and given her somber mein it could not have been a very pleasant opinion at all.

  “Yes, yes, Lizzy has gone out, I do believe that Mr. Wickham is considering an offer-“

  “No,” Mr. Darcy said, standing at once. An offer? Wickham daring to offer for Elizabeth, the only woman that Darcy could ever see himself loving? Wickham, putting his damnable, filthy hands upon her sweet flesh, violating her and leaving her broken and used like so many women of lower birth that Wickham had ruined? He would not allow it.

  “Mr. Darcy, I dare say,” Mrs. Bennet gasped, slightly scandalized at his sudden departure from the seat upon which he perched. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “Meryton,” Jane said, standing herself, gathering her embroidery to stomach as she did so. “They’ve taken a little rented gig to Meryton. I would presume you’d find them there, looking in the shops. Mrs. Watson, you might have remembered her as Miss Lucas, joined them, but I do not think her adequate protection for Lizzy and her reputation against Mr. Wickham.”

  “Jane!” Mrs. Bennet had perhaps been scandalized before when Mr. Darcy had practically shouted ‘no’ in her drawing room, but Jane speaking of the implication that Wickham and Elizabeth might be up to some sort of unacceptable assignation was altogether too much for her. “Jane, sit down at once! Oh, Mr. Darcy, I apologize, my girls are usually so well-behaved-“

  “How long ago did they leave for Meryton,” Mr. Darcy interrupted as he crossed the room to Jane. She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze, her eyes traveling across his face. Catherine let out another peal of laughter, and Mary’s pale face was even more drawn.

  “An hour. You might catch them, please, and have her denounce him. I have had word of him, from a friend a few villages away from here where he stationed, and I do not like the sound of his character, not for my sister, not for any woman.”

  “Jane!!” Mrs. Bennet was truly on the edge of a vaporous fit, clutching her side as if in pain.

  “Thank you,” Darcy murmured. “Mrs. Bennet, I must depart. Thank you for the hospitality-“ he bowed his head to her and then the two other girls. He exited the house and was pleased to find his footman waiting there, carriage at the ready.

  “Didna’ think ye’d last as long as ye did, sir,” said Old Thom, who helped him into the carriage.

  “Meryton, I am for Meryton, please, with all haste,” Darcy did not answer the old man’s sally regarding Mrs. Bennet and her reputation as almost intolerable. Old Thom took one look at the expression on Mr. Darcy’ face, and clambered up to the front of the carriage.

  “Away then!” Old Thom cried, just as Darcy settled down into his seat. The carriage clattered out from in front of Longbourn and onto the high road with speed, jostling Darcy as he clung to the open-air window. Wickham’s plots had run faster and deeper than he had anticipated. Damn him! Darcy should have seen this coming- Wickham would stop at nothing to gain the things he wanted, and while the senior Mr. Darcy had looked fondly upon Wickham, he would not give the young man a penny of support unless he was truly making his way in the world in a manner that the elder Mr. Darcy approved of. Finding a wife would do just that, and with that wife would come a gift of gold from the Pemberley estate, and then it would double as revenge upon Fitzwilliam as Wickham denied him the wife he truly desired amongst the Bennet sisters.

  Darcy could not even for a moment contemplate the idea of offering for Jane instead of Elizabeth, as he knew of Bingley’s affection for the girl, and while she would make an excellent, beautiful, and sweet wife she was no Elizabeth.

  He could not imagine his life without the fire and intensity that Elizabeth would bring to his house.

  He hung on to the carriage as it bounced down the road at quite a clip, hoping he was not too late to save Elizabeth from whatever Wickham had planned for her. Even if she denied him, Darcy, he would save her from Wickham. His heart hovered in his throat as the carriage pushed forward.

  Chapter 7

  Fitzwilliam Darcy

 
; Meryton, Hertfordshire

  * * *

  The village of Meryton did not come soon enough into Darcy’s sightline, and he alighted from the carriage the moment they pulled up to the stage stop in front of the postal office. It was not so large a town that he would not find her immediately, he had thought on the way there, however now that he was in the thick of the little village, he realized that perhaps he had been foolish to surmise that discovering where Elizabeth Bennet had vanished too would not be so easy.

  There seemed to be a multitude of young ladies out and about with their families, all in similar dresses and bonnets. He searched in vain for Elizabeth, hoping to find her at the milliners, or the tailors. To his dismay she was in neither place, and it was not until he had stumbled past a book store and seen the crazed expression on his face that he realized the depths of which he had fallen for her.

  He was truly, madly, deeply devoted to her, and if she refused him he knew right in that instant he would not be able to marry another.

  His heart heavy, he would have her or no other, even if it meant that he lost all of his wealth and his good standing in society. None of that pain would compare to not having Elizabeth to love, and cherish for the rest of his days.

  As he was contemplating his reflection, the drawn sour look of his face, he was startled to find his sleeve being tugged. He turned and immediately was greeted by the panicked, and distressed countenance of one Mrs. Watson, formerly Miss Lucas.

  “Miss-Mrs. Watson,” he corrected himself immediately. “Miss Elizabeth was with you-“ he paused as he spoke and look passed her, hoping to see Elizabeth standing there, gay smile upon her face and a happy countenance to greet him. Instead there was no one and nothing except Mrs. Watson, who looked green around the edges of her mouth.

  “Mr. Darcy, how good to see you,” she said in a rush, “I had heard that you have paid special attention to Miss Elizabeth, and I am so grateful to find you here in Meryton. Miss Elizabeth, that is to say,” she stumbled over her words and coughed, swaying as if about to faint. Darcy grabbed her by the sleeve and inhaled sharply as she nearly swooned into his arms.

  “Tell me. Tell me what is the matter,” he said urgently, taking care not to hurt her delicate frame.

  “It is Mr. Wickham. Oh he is a cruel, evil man-“

  “Where?!” he barked the word out, but Mrs. Watson did not shy away. Instead she shook her head and pointed, into the very book store that he, Mr. Darcy, had been staring at his reflection in the window of. He waited not another moment, but ran into the shop, nearly upending a customer who bustled out, a parcel of books in her basket. He blurted out a half-apology and looked down the narrow, cramped shelves in the shop. Of course the book store. Elizabeth was as book-mad as a woman might be, turning pages and finishing off gothics faster than some women sewed new ribbons to bonnets for summer picnics. He had never given it much thought, since his younger sister was quite fond of reading herself and could be ever so focused on the written word as any young gentleman. Some men might find it unseemly in a wife, but Mr. Darcy thought of the hobby with nothing but fondness. A woman should be well read. If Elizabeth were to be anywhere in Meryton, it would be here, amongst the things she loved most dearly.

  He nodded to a young shopkeep who was busy tallying up a new shipment of books and recording their values upon a ledger, and then pushed towards the back of the shop.

  “Mr. Wickham,” came a hissed, distressed voice. “Let me by, please.” It was Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy surged around the corner to discover the couple in a shadowed, hidden little corner of the shop. Mr. Wickham had Elizabeth backed up against a stack of books, an expression of discomfort and upset on her face. He had a hand fisted in her gown, tugging her towards him, and if the tableau could say anything, it was that Elizabeth wished to be anywhere but there in that moment, and that a private assignation as such that kind of shop corner would normally encourage, was unwelcome and unwanted.

  “Now, Elizabeth, don’t be coy,” Wickham said, and Elizabeth exhaled at the improper use of her Christian name, almost as much as an inappropriate familiarity as the way he pulled at her dress.

  “Wickham,” Darcy snarled, and as Wickham turned in surprise at the interruption, Darcy hauled his arm back and struck the other man. His fist met jaw with a satisfying, solid crunch, and Wickham wheeled backwards, stunned for a moment. Elizabeth, to her credit, did not cry out, but instead reached for a rather hefty novel, what looked to be a compendium of herbal knowledge, and in a short moment she had brought the book down over Wickham’s head with a soft phut noise.

  Wickham slumped to the ground, eyes open, a low groan emitting from his mouth. Elizabeth darted around him, scooting behind Mr. Darcy, her fingers pressed to her trembling lower lip. She still clutched the herbal book in her hand, and then yanked it against her stomach as if refusing to be parted with her make-shift weapon.

  Darcy would find time to be charmed by the action later, and instead glared down at Wickham where he lay, dazed and blinking in the dusty moted light of the small bookshop.

  “Here now, here now! What’s this?” the young shopkeep had bustled up behind them, and then let out an exclamation at finding a customer prone on the ground, and to others upright.

  “He’s had a fit,” Darcy lied immediately, “I would call for the doctor, immediately, the one at the military camp just outside of the village.” He put a hand out for Elizabeth, and was gratified to find she took it without question. “I do not know what came over him. One minute we were discussing-“

  “Johnson’s Herbal, a discussion of Irish healing herbs and compounds,” Elizabeth supplied, her voice holding a flat and somewhat distant quality.

  “Yes, Johnson’s Herbal, and the next moment, he was shuddering quite violently to the floor,” Darcy added.

  The shopkeep stared at Darcy and then Elizabeth, before bending down and waving a hand in front of Wickham’s face. Darcy put his hand gently on the small of Elizabeth’s back and guided her away, as the shopkeep tried to rouse the man on the floor.

  “I-“ Elizabeth started to say, but Darcy hushed her gently, and then took the book from her hands. The value of it, a pound ten, was expensive, but since it was the volume that had incapacitated Wickham so thoroughly, Darcy was feeling rather fondly towards it.

  “Let me purchase this for you,” he said, and when Elizabeth stared up at him, her eyes wide. “A gift, a token,” he amended. Her cheeks flushed and she looked away. He reached for his coin purse, and a second shopkeeper, an older gentleman, quickly noted the purchase down in the ledger and thanked him for his custom. Just as a doctor was being summoned to see to Mr. Wickham, Darcy was ushering Elizabeth out of the store.

  Mrs. Watson was on them in a moment, trembling.

  “Oh Lizzy,” she whispered, and then wrapped her arms around the younger woman. “I am so sorry-“

  “Please, it’s alright. I’m alright,” Elizabeth said. “He only… wished to make his affections towards me known, and I in turn wished to express that I was not ready for any such declarations from him.” Elizabeth wrapped her hands around the book, now bound in paper and twine for its journey to her home.

  “Elizabeth-“ Darcy said and both women looked up at him. He immediately cursed the moment, that it was in the dusty if pretty streets of Meryton, in front of Mrs. Watson of all people, but it could not be helped. No word must escape of the moment that Wickham had clutched Darcy’s beloved by her skirts. No improper thought or bit of scant gossip would impugn her reputation. He would not run the risk of losing her to falsehoods or idle tongues.

  He would have her, his Elizabeth, to be his companion for all of his days. He fell to one knee.

  “Mr. Darcy,” Mrs. Watson gasped, and then turned away, her eyes wide.

  “Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth repeated his name as a refrain, her own expression shocked as well.

  “I should never live to see a day where you are threatened, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, the words falling from his mouth
with no large amount of grace. “I will not struggle in vain another day, not knowing what will become of me if I do not have you as the companion of my life. Please, you must allow me to tell you how ardently I adore and love you.”

  He held his breath, staring up at her pale face, and noted that she clutched the herbal even closer to her chest, her fingers crinkling the brown wrapping paper around its edges.

  The world fell away. He did not notice as the military doctor came to call at the shop, entering through the door behind him, and he did not notice as Mrs. Watson stepped away a few feet, to give the couple some well-deserved privacy.

  “Elizabeth?” he asked when he felt his heart could no longer bear the agony of waiting for her response. Then, his chest went tight, as if a leather rein had been wrapped around it, pulling taut. She shook her head.

  “I… Mr. Darcy, no. I cannot… even think, to think? An offer- is this, are you-“ she stammered out her words, for once caught unawares and unable to form a proper sentence.

  “No? Miss Elizabeth, I love you,” he got to his feet as he spoke, reaching out for one of her hands. She jerked back, and then took another step. Mrs. Watson raised her head, staring at them both and moved forward, hovering in Elizabeth’s shadow as if to offer some meager protection.

  “You love me?” Elizabeth asked, the corners of her mouth pulling down. “Is this why you purchased me this?” She offered up the book, a gift, a token that had been meant to salute her bravery.

  “No, it was merely… I had only wished to…”

  “You wished to what?” Elizabeth’s tone had gone from shocked to cool in moments, and her face shuttered all emotion. “I cannot think to entertain an offer at this moment,” she finished. “Good day to you, Mr. Darcy.”

  She turned, leaving him to stand in front of the book shop. Behind him, the bells at the door heralded Mr. Wickham’s removal on a stretcher by the doctor and a few of the military men.