Page 84 of The Fee Entail

“May I presume you do not intend to just disappear again?”

“I will not!” he said with a finality I admired.

Jane nodded, seemingly not in the least perturbed by the assertion. “Then I should like to know.”

Mr Bingley looked around at all of us. The drivers had returned to the coach and taken it well out of hearing, so it was just those of us intimately involved.

He finally shook himself and spoke with a half-grin.

“Mrs Bennet sends her regards.”

Campaign

Darcy

I am a careful and diligent man, and during that month at Pemberley and the trip back, I planned my campaign with great care. It was to be a quiet, but relentless campaign. I would first work out a way to save Longbourn without Elizabeth going through with that mad scheme her father cooked up.

That would require finding Wickham and making sure he came to the attention of the militia, his creditors, or both. The dozen men I had assigned to the task were not producing results, so I would make it two dozen or three; or maybe I would hunt him down myself. Bad things can happen on a troop ship, or in debtors’ prison, or maybe just on the field of honour at the end of my sword if I became impatient.

I would have to somehow work out a way to save Longbourn, though with all five Bennet sisters under my protection, I may have just let it go. The community had not died when Bingley left Netherfield, nor would it collapse when the Bennets quit Longbourn. Bennet was just being hyperbolic. There was no need for Elizabeth to do all that to protect her sisters when all I had to do was convince her I would protect them with my life. I had only been reacquainted with them for a day when the attack in the parsonage came, so Elizabeth had never seen my love for them at first hand; but she would.

After that, it would be a slow campaign. I had already earned her trust. Next would be her friendship, and eventually I would just wear my quarry down with my displays of love that might well take months or years to produce results, but eventually I would prevail.

Yes, it was a good plan. An excellent plan.

My campaign lasted around ten seconds and ended with the rough equivalent of the enemy king suing for peace while my groomsman was still asleep and my warhorse still unsaddled.

At the end of that FIRST KISS, I was well and truly besotted… not that I was not before, and nothing could ever make me unhappy again.

After the first minute or so with Elizabeth in my arms, I could well imagine our life in Pemberley, our children hanging off her skirts, the skinned knees of our sons when they fell out of trees, the anguish of our daughters when they put frogs down their dresses… or with Elizabeth for a mother, I probably had that precisely backwards. Either way, frogs and scrapes would be part of our loving family, and all would be right with the world. One day I would be old and grey, looking back on a life well lived, and I would be doing it by reminiscing with Elizabeth.

Somehow, a few minutes into that magical afternoon that made no sense to anybody, I settled Elizabeth on my lap where she truly belonged. She was still so small and skinny after her illness she seemed little bigger than Georgiana had been the last time she did the same, but she was recovering, and I had no doubt I would have to get her on her own horse or she would be dragging me for miles through Pemberley’s woods within a fortnight.

I was just coming to my newly revised battle plan, which mostly centred on the relative proximity of the archbishop versus Scotland, when Elizabeth very impertinently put Bingley and Jane in the exact spots where she had that awful conversation with her father that began this mad adventure.

While I despised her father, I had to thank whatever gods of fortune were smiling on me that I got to eavesdrop on that conversation that finally ended in such a feeling of happiness. Who could have imagined that just a few months of the calendar, and just over a week in each other’s company, could have produced such a result? I had not the slightest idea how I had been so lucky, but I would take my luck where I could get it!

Bingley’s tale both exhilarated and frightened us, and I was just beginning to learn how to give comfort to my love, a process I expected to take some time to perfect. I could feel tension grow in first her legs and then her back as the tale became more and more dangerous and daring. I felt her taking on the weight of Bingley’s risk as it was abundantly clear he had done it either in her honour, or because he still loved her sister, or just because he felt it was time for him to become a man. Each explanation placed her squarely in the middle of the ordeal, and I felt I had to fight her tendency to take the burden of his choices, which he freely made.

Looking at Bingley, I could see a new confidence and stature in him. He was no longer a boy who would take advice from his mentor, and considering how bad the advice turned out to be, that was for the best. He might discuss his issues with me as a friend in future, but we were certainly equals in all ways now, and in courage and fortitude, one could make a good argument he was my superior.

As I was thinking such weighty thoughts and Elizabeth was becoming too tense for my liking, I found I could soothe her anxieties by gently rubbing small circles on her back or shoulders, or by squeezing her waist against me with the hand that was across her stomach. Given our complete abandonment of all manners and rules of propriety for the moment, all those seemed the right thing to do there and then. Some of Bingley’s words made me tense up in shock as well, and she would squeeze my hand or put her hand over my heart, or simply tuck her head tighter into my shoulder to return the comfort.

By the time Bingley finished his mad tale and stood there looking lovingly at my sister, I wondered… truly wondered at the tricks of fate. Jane had been right. Neither of them would have found contentment and happiness starting from the Netherfield ball, but I had no doubt they were both of the right calibre now, and supposed I might be dealing with him more as a suitor than a friend before too many months went by. Actually, that was probably wrong. I thought days or weeks might be more to his liking, presuming Jane did not discourage him, which she did not seem likely to.

When his astounding tale was complete, the parsonage was finally running out of things to burn. Many of the locals had come by to see what was happening, but since the parsonage was isolated enough to just let burn, I found that my carriage men and some of Aunt Catherine’s footmen formed a sort of protective circle around our group and allowed nobody close enough to see or hear us.

When we all decided it was time to return to Rosings, I spoke up, “Bingley, I presume my aunt offers you the hospitality of Rosings. Will you be joining us?”

To his credit, he looked first to Jane to get a small nod from her, then to Charlotte to get her small nod, and to Elizabeth, who was not satisfied with a nod.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Charles! You survived St Giles; you can survive a house full of women. We are not all that much more dangerous!”

With that, the rest of the sisters made sure he was welcome, and he finally accepted, though his opinion of the relative danger of Bennet sisters versus St Giles was not remarked upon.

Before we left that magical spot, I spoke up one last time.

“My friends and sisters, I have one more thing I would like to say, just to make certain everything is absolutely clear and unambiguous.”