"Richard!"
"Do not lecture me in morals, Mrs Darcy. I have had enough with your husband! You two are certainly well matched!"
He left his glass of port untouched on the mantelpiece, and turning on his heels, meant to storm out of the library, leaving Elizabeth speechless. Recovering from the surprise of such an address, Elizabeth dashed to the exit and called him back in.
"That is hardly an excuse, Colonel, to expose an honourable married lady to the contempt of the world! Even if you did it in heartbreak, I dare say I had no part in it. If I recall properly, it was you who abandoned me after our engagement."
"I abandoned you? Indeed I did not!"
"Oh, yes you did. You left me with one foot in the altar. You left me and it was my heart which was broken!"
Fitzwilliam chuckled. "Well, I dare say you did a great job at mending it. No sooner had I set foot on France than Darcy had climbed your bed."
Elizabeth was crimsoned to the point of excess.
"How dare you say such a thing?"
"How dare I say it? Are you going to deny it?"
She struggled to find the words but to no avail. He was sadly right. Tilting her head she answered contemptuously. "I do not wish to deny it. I dare say Jane has had a great time passing all this information to you. How did you manage to break her confidence? What were you trying to do?"
"Your vanity astonishes me, cousin," said he with disdain. "Do you believe your power over me so great so as to render me incapable of falling in love with another? Jane is innocent and so am I. She was merely telling me that she had decided to look after happiness ever since you had confided your love life to her. It was your own tongue that betrayed you. What were you trying to do, putting your most secret affairs into the intelligence of a third person? That was folly indeed. How could Jane ever imagine you had been engaged to me, and that I was the one who had… well… who… you know."
"I dare say your pride has not been harmed, Colonel, as much as my respectability."
"You are mistaken, madam. My pride has indeed been irremediably wounded, yet your respectability remains unharmed."
Fitzwilliam turned around and did not look at her. His frustration was great indeed. Much as he had voiced his love for Jane, deep inside his heart he knew he would always covet that whom his cousin possessed. Elizabeth, pained beyond expression, approached him from behind.
"You hate me, do you not?"
"I do. I must."
Out of the corner of his eyes, he spied Elizabeth's figure. Her face was saddened and worried.
"Do not come any closer," he warned her.
She sighed and stepped back. Fitzwilliam could hardly restrain his emotions. He was broken, his mind unable to think clearly.
"How could I ever hate you? Nay, Elizabeth. Upon my word, I will always, always hold you in my heart. You, madam, are the first woman I ever loved, unconditionally so, and, despite myself, there is nothing in the world I can do to change that."
"Fitzwilliam!" she gasped.
But he was not listening. He wished he could press his lips on hers one more time, but knowing perfectly well of the iniquity of such doings he kept his distance from her. She, on her part, intuitively felt his emotion. There was a moment which they saw coming and going in which they both thought they would invariable end up holding and kissing each other, as it has so often happened in the past. But Darcy's figure interfered and they never hinted what they had felt.
"You must not remain in my company, Elizabeth. It is no good. I love you."
"You… you said you loved Jane," she stammered putting further distance between them.
He chuckled. "I do. I love her as much as you love me."
Indeed, she could comprehend that. Yet, regardless of that fleeting moment in which the past had cast a spell on them, Elizabeth's love for her husband was now complete and absolute. She had overcome every delicate feeling that she had kept for Fitzwilliam.
"I shall not admit anyone to sentence me or Jane for our actions." Fitzwilliam warned her, endeavouring to wave away the awkwardness of the previous moment.
Ever so hesitantly, she stammered a question. "Does… Darcy know all this?"
Fifty-Two
—
The Half-Blood Heir
Fitzwilliam was about to protest that it was none of his business whether Darcy had read the letter or not, a bit tired of this gratuitous telling-off from his new cousin and former lover, when he saw the worry on her face and he swallowed his complaint.
"Indeed. Darcy found a certain letter intended to reach me while we were at Rosings." He saw her face shrunk as he passed her the news. Her eyes darted to his face, desperately seeking an answer to her unspoken questions. Did he mean that letter? Had Fitzwilliam not received it? Did Darcy read the letter -- the love letter, that she had written for Fitzwilliam? "I cannot figure out how it ended up in one of the pockets of Darcy's mourning coat," Fitzwilliam confessed.
Elizabeth gasped in horror, comprehension dawning on her. She remembered the gloomy corridors at Rosings Park, her haste and the confusion. Had she in her befuddlement mistaken the dressing rooms and delivered the letter to the wrong recipient? Apparently, she had! "So you think Darcy read that letter?" she inquired with great apprehension.
"No, I think not. He handed it over to me unread and sealed. Still, he was terribly upset and we had a bitter row that evening. He left Rosings the next morning for Pemberley."
"He did not return to Pemberley," declared Elizabeth with embarrassment.
"He did not?"
Shaking her head lightly, she flopped herself on the couch, her face as white as a sheet. "No. He unexpectedly repaired to London and stayed there ever since. He did send me a letter every now and then. I had not seen him until yesterday, when he came upon us in the corridor."
Fitzwilliam could hardly recover from his astonishment. Yet he reckoned it was just like Darcy to behave in this manner. He knew it was Darcy's preference to recoil and flee before facing his difficulties. "Well, hang him! Resentful as ever! That is very much like Darcy. He must be suffering a great deal, I imagine. Now that you are telling me this, this morning he seemed in confusion as regards his fatherhood."
Elizabeth sprang to her feet. "What?"
Fitzwilliam knew not how to smooth this intelligence over to her. He was a man used to passing information blatantly, with total disregard of what the recipient's feelings might be as regards the news he was imparting. Yet with Elizabeth it was different. His feelings for her were still an open wound. And yet there he was, with his two feet in front of her, pouring vinegar onto it, reining in a ludicrous necessity to protect and comfort her, and at the same time exposing his adulterous relationship with Jane. "I had confessed Darcy I was involved with… a married woman while we were in London this summer," he said hesitantly. "As a matter of fact, I endeavoured to… hint him who she was on that occasion, but he seemed so absorbed with his own life that he did not pay much attention to my words but to tease me about it."
Elizabeth barely heard his voice, so entranced she had become by her own meditations. Richard felt a great necessity to get his confession over and done with as soon as possible. Same as one wants to hurry a parting when it has already been settled; or a funeral when a death has occurred.
"When he called on me at Rosings Park a few months ago," he continued, "he came upon the letter. Lord, I am still mystified how it fell in his hands! He quickly figured out about our past relationship, and Gad only knows what he thought… he grew terribly upset and he surmised that the woman I was … that it was… you who…. Indeed, he was extremely pained. He feared you and I had been… you know," he flinched in discomfort.
Elizabeth, unable to subdue her bewilderment, stared into the air, too distressed at the intelligence of her husband's real motives to have parted with her for so long. She hated the feeling, forlorn, deserted, abandoned… Would he do it again, she wondered?
Fitzwilliam's voice continued buzzing into her e
ars, each word exacting accurate blows on Elizabeth's sensibilities. "This morning I was venting my fears for my… for Jane's child. I confessed him it was mine. Now I see he must have thought I was talking about your baby." Elizabeth's eyes widened.
"Of course I would have denied such a stupid notion had I realized what he was thinking," he said in mitigation. "He was so blind with jealousy!" he chuckled. "In truth, I somehow enjoyed his idiotic face for a while. I rarely see him thus."
Elizabeth failed to find the amusement in the situation. Puzzled as she was by the conclusion Darcy had arrived at, she found it difficult to grasp it at all. Still baffled, she asked: "He thought my child was yours?"
Fitzwilliam nodded in the affirmative, one hand on his lips biting back his mortification; the other on his hip, standing stoop in what appeared to be a pensive pose. "I dare say he did."
Elizabeth turned her back on him, covering her face with both hands.
Seeing her embarrassment, Fitzwilliam cast aside his own, realizing that the situation called for some reassurance. "He is exceedingly jealous, Elizabeth," he repeated. "Darcy is well known for his excess of pride and resentful character, as you very well know."
Elizabeth's head was swimming. She grew all colours and then lost every one. So pale and shaky she became, Fitzwilliam feared she would faint, which in the end almost happened, as her knees failed her and she was lucky Fitzwilliam reached her before she swooned on the floor.
Would her husband reject her? Would he ever leave his resentment aside and forgive her? Was there anything to forgive?
Fitzwilliam carried her to the couch. He rested her body there and sat by her side as he tried to reanimate her with light slaps on her face. Fortunately, she came around before long.
"May I give you anything?" he asked terribly concerned by the pallor of her countenance.
"Water," she managed to say gasping for air.
"Are you sure? Would not brandy be better? You look truly ill."
"No, just water."
Fitzwilliam immediately rose and fetched some water. He watched her as she gulped the glass content, solicitously holding the glass for her while she drained it, his eyes roaming tenderly over her countenance.
"Better?" he whispered in a sweet, soothing voice. She nodded. "Will you have the brandy now?" Again she nodded demurely.
He rose once more and fetched the brandy, happy to be able to help her. In fact Fitzwilliam was enjoying every bit of it. This time she took short sips of the liquor. A few minutes later she had recovered some colour on her cheeks.
"You must not concern yourself." Fitzwilliam said as he tucked away a stray lock from her face. "Darcy will recover his wits and go back home with you at Pemberley. He loves you," he chuckled. "Unlike me, has never loved any other."
"Will he Richard? He abandoned me when I needed him most."
"He thought you were my lover," he whispered with a tint of longing in his voice. "He even thought I had fathered your child."
"How could he? It is simply ridiculous. I have not parted with him since we got engaged!"
"Did Jane ever leave her husband, Lizzy?" he reasoned. "I have always been around. I know he should be aware of your total devotion to him by now. And certainly he should have known I would have never caught him with such a low blow. Still, he realized I once tried to take you away from him, with very good results, I should add. Your letter was the last straw. He must have remembered my confession and his pride and jealousy did the rest."
"Still, he left me," she sobbed. "I can hardly believe he acted so abominably."
"His pride is his greatest flaw, Elizabeth. He was deeply hurt."
"I thought he had changed."
"Oh, changes in a man are skin deep. A man can change his character in the surface, Elizabeth. But deep inside, he remains practically the same. The moment he is in a tight corner, his true personality will rise again. You must understand this if you wish to be truly happy by his side. Darcy will always be like this: A loyal partner, a loving husband, but haughty and proud and excessively jealous."
"Elizabeth!" Darcy's voice startled them from behind. Richard immediately rose and took a few steps back to allow his cousin to see to his wife's well being. In noticing her unwell, Darcy rushed to her, visibly concerned. Kneeling at her side, he asked her in a hurried, frightened voice. "Are you unwell, Elizabeth?"
"I am feeling better, sir. You must not concern yourself."
"Is the baby… are you…"
"The baby is fine. I was merely dizzy. 'Tis nothing out of the ordinary."
"I must call the doctor."
"There is no need, I am feeling very well now."
"No, you are not. You look exceedingly pale. Fitzwilliam! Call for the doctor." He turned around to talk to his cousin, but this latter had discreetly exited while he was talking to his wife.
"Darcy, I am not ill. 'Tis nothing, I assure you."
"You must rest. I shall carry you to your bedchamber."
She caught his gaze, her eyes glistened with tears. Ever so lowly her voice pleaded him. "Only if you stay with me."
He said nothing in reply, but assented with a light nod; and with an effortless movement, held her in his arms and carried her to the bedchamber. Elizabeth sighed heavily, encircling his neck with trembling arms, her head she rested on his shoulder, eyes half closed, his familiar scent she had so much missed over those lonely months enveloping her as much as his arms.
~•~
The next day, Elizabeth was removed to Pemberley. Mr Wickham readily agreed to escort her, happy to be of some use to Darcy, eager as he was to rise in his estimation. Darcy, grudgingly admitting Wickham would be useful for once, had no other option but to resource to the captain's assistance. Two maidservants and Darcy's personal valet accompanied them. Darcy stayed at Longbourn to see to his sister's recovery, very much puzzled at Fitzwilliam's insistence to remain at Netherfield.
This latter, for his part, had begun to plan his future. At the end of another day or two, Jane grew visibly stronger and Colonel Fitzwilliam began to talk of removing her to Rosings Park. But before that, Fitzwilliam sent an express to his parents at Matlock, to apprise them of his oncoming union to Jane.
But Fitzwilliam's parents were not ready to accept their younger son's plans without a fight. Before long, Lady and Lord Matlock arrived in a haste journey at Hertfordshire, with the unseemly purpose to prevent their son from committing what they considered a grave mistake that might irremediably ruin their family's respectability.
"Her Ladyship is very much concerned with your thoughtless behaviour, Richard. I dare say one would have expected better from you. I fail to comprehend what is it that you expect us to do about it," Lord Matlock snapped.
"I shall expect nothing from you, neither do I need anything, Milford. Though you bestowed upon me many a favour, for which I am wholly grateful, to this day, I owed you nothing but the gift of life, which I would heartily appreciate you allowed me to live in the manner that I choose best."
Lord Matlock, accustomed to his youngest son's submission, was wholly unprepared for retaliation from his part. But indeed his son was in the right. He was his own master now, no longer dependant on his father's fortune and good will.
"Is it truth that the lady in question is carrying you heir?" his mother inquired.
"Or maybe my heiress. Yes, madam. She is." Lady Matlock gasped in horror and dropped her body heavily on the couch with a thud.
"Fitzwilliam, you cannot expect us to approve on this marriage," Lord Matlock growled.
"Mi'lord, with all due respect, I care not for anyone's opinions in this regard. I have unfortunately made a mistake, a big one, but I am not the kind of man who will throw the stone and hide the hand. I must assume my responsibility. I shall marry Jane, and my child shall bear my name."
"It shall certainly not!" cried Lord Matlock. "This shall not be endured! Have you forgotten what you owe to yourself and to all your family? Are you lost to every feeling of prop
riety and delicacy?"
"And what does your Lordship propose that I do?"
"Why, ignore the situation, of course. You must let things be. The lady has her own husband's name. The man will not be able to deny his fatherhood."
"Richard, we came here with the determined resolution to dissuade you from making this mistake," interrupted his mother. "You must remember honour, decorum, prudence, even interests."
"Interests?"
"Yes, son. Interests," his father chanted. "Why should you leave your inheritance to the child of your mistress? Why should you father her half-blood child?"
"Half-blood? Whatever that means, sir? I shall marry Jane precisely because those very reasons: honour, decorum, prudence – nay, true feelings claim it. Yes, Milord. Even love. I love the… half blood child she is carrying."
"And what about your family's respectability and good name, Richard? Do not expect to be noticed by family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted and despised by everyone connected with you until now. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never be mentioned by any of us."
"I would not be so sure," thundered Darcy's voice from behind. He had been a silent witness of his relatives' abusive treatment of Fitzwilliam and decided that his intervention would be necessary at this point. "Be not mistaken, sir. Should the whole of London give Fitzwilliam their back, I shall not do such a thing."
"Darcy! Do you approve of Fitzwilliam's doings?" cried Lord Matlock.
"I do not approve, sir, far from it. Yet, I am persuaded Fitzwilliam and his bride shall certainly have many extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to good feelings; that they could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine if they effect their union."
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