Page 66 of The Widower of Pemberley

Georgiana stared at Darcy with oddly lost eyes. She barely attended to the conversation.

What did she believe after all she had heard Wickham say?

“It must have been the basis for the whole of your relationship,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said to Elizabeth. “I imagine you thought a great deal about the wealthy gentleman who—” He laughed again. “—who thought you were too pretty to dance with. No, but what is the exact story? What did he really say?”

“I see that you are determined to make sport of me,” Darcy said cheerfully from his seat. There was humour, but underneath everything he felt leaden. The weight became heavier and heavier in his belly. “Yes, yes, Emily. There, now I have moved the piece, and Mr. Bennet will have his victory in four moves, I think.”

“Hurrah!” Emily replied. “We’re going to lose! Have we lost yet?”

“I thought you wanted to win.”

“No, I want to lose! It’s no fun when I win.”

“That,” Mr. Bennet said laughing, “explains a great deal about your advice.”

“But Miss Elizabeth,” Colonel Fitzwilliam insisted, “I must hear the exact story.”

Elizabeth studied Darcy’s expression.

He shrugged.

“You can hardly expect me,” Elizabeth said, “to pursue a line of conversation which my husband wishes to avoid—I hope you do not mind that I anticipate the fulfilment of our vows by a few hours.”

“Youwill follow every command of your lord and master?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked. “If only I could find such a woman.”

Elizabeth smiled at his manner, but Darcy had a distinct sensation that she was ill at ease.

“Sir,” she said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, “I am as you see me.”

“Your loveliness makes it clear why my cousin pointedly refused to dance with you—but how did the whole proceed after such a promising beginning?” Colonel Fitzwilliam smiled at Darcy. “Hesays nothing about how the connection was established except to insist that we understand every particular, which proves thathe was motivated by no worldly consideration in accepting your offer of marriage.”

“Myoffer of marriage?” Elizabeth replied with raised eyebrows. “You are mistaken.”

“I mean to say,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “that a woman has ways of encouraging a man, of making it clear to him that his interest will be welcome. Darcy, I am sure that you knew Miss Elizabeth was eager for your suit. That is simply what I mean.”

“I believe Mr. Darcy assumes that all eligible women are at all times eager for him to make his most eligible offer of marriage to them,” Elizabeth replied somewhat tightly.

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “Youunderstand Darcy’s character.”

Darcy looked up from the board, which was now one move from Mr. Bennet’s inevitable and complete triumph. “I am not so vain.”

“You are,” the colonel replied with a friendly grin.

“If I did draw him in,” Elizabeth said, “it was not by design. I was utterly astonished when Mr. Darcy made the offer of marriage to me.”

“All of you, stop it!” Georgiana stamped her foot and nearly shrieked. “How can we banter? How can we talk? How can we forget that murder is in the air? We cannot. Fitzwilliam, you cannot mean to fight George. Lizzy, do you not at least see that we cannot talk? We should not be happy, not when—how can anyone ever feel the right to be happy? I do not wish to ever be happy again.”

She burst into anguished sobs.

Emily rose and went to her aunt, hugging her tightly. “There, there,” the little girl said, echoing how Darcy had talked to herwhen she cried after Mary died. “Sometimes sad things happen, but there will also be happy events.”

Nausea worked its way through Darcy’s body. He felt sick. A dead body could not be shaken from his mind’s eye. His stomach hurt.

His own voice from earlier echoed in his ears: “By Jove, I mean to put a bullet through your heart.”

It was suddenly too much.

He rushed out of the room, to where he remembered a chamber pot was hidden. He barely reached it in time, hurling the door to the closet open and then bending in front of the pot as he vomited up everything he had eaten all day.