Page 31 of Fortuitous Encounters

She tapped her fingers against her chin in thought.

Darcy, fearing he might lose her forever to deeper ruminations, asked, “You mentioned a project?”

“Of course, you may not know about that. As I said, Lydia determined he was a rake and a gambler within seconds, so she managed the project. I think she mostly pegged him by simply looking at yours and his reactions to each other. The town's tradeswomen managed his debts until he got exactly £25 over what he could pay, and of course, we made sure every woman within twenty miles knew what he was about while Lydia distracted him from everyone else. Lydia is quite good at challenges—almost as good as me. Once his debts exceeded what he could pay we simply bought all his vowels and had Sir William send him off to debtor's prison. You do know of course it only takes £20 of debts to accomplish that?”

Darcy sat staring at her in stunned disbelief. Wickham, the bane of his existence, the man who tried to ruin him and his sister, whom he had chosen to allow to roam free in a vain attempt to protect his sister's reputation, had been reeled in and given justice by a bunch of country ladies and tradesman's wives and daughters.

“How long did this project take?”

“Oh, the usual. I believe it took about two months for him to run up that much debt, and of course we had organised a few confederates in the militia to fleece him for some debts of honour just as extra surety. It would not do for him to find enough ready blunt to pay off some of his debts, as then we would have to start all over, or perhaps buy some vowels from you. I did mention Lydia is the best of us, but easily bored, so she agreed to tutor Mary King on the appropriate tactics. Miss King actually finished the task by claiming a mysterious inheritance of £10,000, and he fell for it like a fish to a tasty worm. It was fortunate she had completed her training, as Mr Wickham tried to impose on her by force near the end and she had to—er… well—probably best not to go into detail about our defensive strategies. They are slightly embarrassing in mixed company. Of course, it was Miss King's first defence, so it was not as clean as you might hope for. Her aunt made her clean her own dress, and blood is so difficult to get out, but her aunt said it served her right for wearing white.”

Darcy paled. “Blood?”

“I cannot believe you do not already know of all these things. Fear not, she did not cut off any parts he will particularly need in prison! All is as it should be.”

All was definitely not as it should be!

Game Play

With the tale of Wickham, Darcy realised something important. He was actually in love with a vague shadow of Elizabeth Bennet, but the real-live Elizabeth was even more fascinating and lovely by orders of magnitude. If even a quarter of her statements were true, she would be like a Valkyrie, but he had not the slightest doubt that it was all true; as well as a sense she was toying with him for her own amusement.

Darcy also realised he was walking a high-wire with a gaping chasm on both sides, which meant he needed to either proceed carefully or throw caution to the winds. His proposal he had been ever-so proud of was a shambles, and he was not at all certain he could salvage it, or even retain enough of an acquaintance to start over and court her properly. To buy time, he gathered more details.

“You clearly do not have a headache, so would it be untoward for me to ask the real reason you did not come to tea?”

“To be honest, it is just too tedious. We cannot get anybody within fifty miles to wager about Lady Catherine or Colonel Fitzwilliam because they are entirely too predictable. Mrs Jackson threatened to poison us if we took advantage of the relative inexperience of any of the maids—not that any of us would do such a thing—but we were happy to see her taking charge of her flock as is proper. Charlotte does her gaming while Lady Catherine blathers on, but I have to do mine while walking, so I decided to do some work.”

Once again quite over his head, he started more or less babbling. “Gaming? Work? Walking? Mrs Jackson?”

“Do I need to make Lady Lucas even more insufferable by admitting I was off on tangents yet again? You must be the judge.”

“I believe none of those require chicken scratches.”

“Mrs Jackson is the cook at Rosings, and as you well know the power of the housekeeper is as nothing to the cook. Nobody will wager with her because she almost never loses, and she watches her flock like a mother hawk! She is quite formidable.”

Darcy once again nodded, almost as if he understood.

Elizabeth continued with her instruction. “By gaming, I meant the games we play with gentlemen. We of course cannot do so directly… you know, propriety and all that. We either do the games through the post, or we have a few trusted intermediaries—fathers and husbands and the like—that will go into town and do our bidding. Men tend to be foolish, so we feel a bit guilty about fleecing them, but we usually get over it. What did I leave out? Oh yes, gaming. You do not really believe I idly wander around the woods for no reason to you? That is when I work on my chess games. Charlotte does the same in the parlour, as Lady Catherine's speech patterns are very restful and conducive to deep thought, and there is the added benefit of removing any slight chance her husband will disturb her concentration. I think that about covers it.”

“Chess? You play chess?”

“We do that through the post. It is a little tedious, but it gives our victims more time to think so we abide the inconvenience. Of course, we use the money from the newspaper to supplement our training fund for younger girls, and keep the winnings for our own fortune or spread it among our protégés.”

“The newspaper?”

“Charlotte publishes in the Courier, and I am in the Post. We try to limit our games to a dozen at a time, as we still have our ladies’ pursuits to take care of—tedious as they may be.”

Darcy for the first time in the conversation found himself chuckling, much as his lady love had done at the beginning of the affair, it worked up to a snort, and to full laughter which ultimately threatened to leave his breeches in a quite unsuitable condition, before he was finally able to get himself back in order, wiping tears from his eyes and slapping the table just like Elizabeth had done.

He finally said, “So you are the mysterious EB? I am one of the players in the Post, so I have played several games with you. I do not suppose I could have my £500 back?”

She said quite intently, “I think not, Mr FD! You should really learn to use your knights better, and I can reel you in with a queen sacrifice eight times out of ten. Besides that, if I give you back your £500, it would reduce my personal fortune under £30,000 and I cannot abide that!”

Darcy sat in stunned silence at the enormity of how badly overmatched he was. He had an estate with a park ten miles around and hundreds of tenants, and it would still take him years to amass a fortune like that.

He sputtered and stammered, quite unable to form a coherent thought, and finally asked, “You did not explain your work?”

Elizabeth went back over to the desk and removed one large paper, more complex than the rest, unrolled it, and put paperweights on the corners.