Page 79 of A Most Favourable Match

“If I had my way, you would have none,” Darcy told him. “However, there are many places in the country where I will never find you. You would be wisest to make your home there.”

“And if I don’t?” Wickham said with defiance. “What if I refuse your demands?”

“Then, from my consultation of local tradesmen, I imagine it would not be hard to put you in a debtor’s prison, if not a criminal one. If you write the letter I have requested and vanish tonight, however, there will also be some money for you.”

“Are you threatening me or bribing me?”

“Both, although I assure you the money comes from Bingley’s purse and not mine. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I am threatening you and he is bribing you, but it is a payment for speed as much as for execution. If you do not cooperate with me tonight, you get nothing.”

If there had been another chair to throw, Wickham looked as though he might throw it. Then, not finding one, he seemed to become resigned and went to a battered desk in the corner of the sitting room, taking out a writing tray, paper and ink from its drawer.

“I’m tired of this dump anyway,” Wickham said sullenly as he picked up a quill and dipped it in the ink. “What do you want me to write?”

At Darcy’s dictation, the letter was written within ten minutes, formally resigning Wickham from the regiment with immediate effect and stating his commitment to leaving Hertfordshire forever.

“Sign and date it,” Darcy snapped when Wickham seemed ready to lay down the pen without these necessary touches.

In a few more seconds, it was done. When the ink was dry, Darcy folded the paper without another word and placed it in his pocket, dropping a small bag of gold and silver coins onto the desk in exchange.

“Goodbye, Wickham,” Darcy bid him from the doorway. “Make sure that we never meet again.”

“Go to hell, Darcy,” snarled the other man.

Within a half hour, Wickham’s letter was delivered directly into the hands of Colonel Forster, and Darcy breathed a long sigh of relief as he remounted his horse.

Now, he could finally undertake the mission on which he had been set all day, even while he worked to untangle Wickham’s evil web. His suit might now be dusty and his hair less tidily combed than when he left Netherfield that morning, but Darcy’s heart was more certain than ever of what he wanted.

The victory over Wickham even buoyed Darcy somewhat, giving him a hope that he had not quite dared to feel before. Was it possible that Elizabeth might love him too? Knowing that there was only one way to find out, he took the road for Longbourn.

∞∞∞

A rather puzzled and unusually subdued Mrs Bennet showed Darcy out into the modest Longbourn gardens.

Charles Bingley was already there, strolling arm-in-arm with Jane Bennet along the paths around the lawns. Meanwhile, Elizabeth walked alone near the wilderness at the other end of the garden, twirling a sprig of some bush or shrub in her hands thoughtfully as she paced with discernible impatience, as though waiting for something, or someone…

Was she waiting for him? Darcy hoped so. He wished himself on her mind as much as she was on his.

“Mr Bingley and Jane are here, Mr Darcy,” Mrs Bennet rattled on. “They are to be married, you know, and very pleased I am to hear it. He is a fine young man of fortune, even if he has no title, and his sister is to marry Lord Grantchester directly.”

“So I believe, Madame,” remarked Darcy, finding himself no longer as irked by Mrs Bennet as he had been on earlier acquaintance. The woman had at least one very great claim to his affection, after all, for she had raised Elizabeth. “It all seems very well settled, to my mind.”

“I suppose it is,” she sighed. “Ah well, there is Lizzy over there, although why you should particularly want to speak to her, I do not know. Will you stay to supper, Mr Darcy, now you are here?”

Darcy looked towards the woman who had come to hold his heart in her hands. Elizabeth was strolling in the long grasses, about to disappear from sight through a stone gateway.

“I do not know,” he replied. “It depends upon…”

It depended on Elizabeth’s answer, which would either keep him at her side forever, or send him away desolate.

“No doubt your sister is waiting for you at Netherfield Park,” Mrs Bennet completed his sentence with her own construction. “Well, tell me if you change your mind. We have a large ham and plenty for everyone.”

After a few short words with Bingley to confirm the success of his day’s work in Meryton, Darcy followed Elizabeth through into the wilderness beyond the main gardens. Bingley and Miss Bennet made no attempt to detain him, and he had no wish to delay.

Clearing his throat as he walked through the stone gate, he saw Elizabeth stop and turn towards him, her hazel eyes sparkling and animated in the evening sunlight. Darcy strode up to her and stopped, looking for some encouragement and finding it.

“You came,” Elizabeth said softly, and he nodded.

“I was always coming here to see you today,” Darcy told her. “But I was delayed.”