Mr. Darcy's Indiscretions Read online

  “Spare?” She shook her head at him, lying down on her side to face him as well. “You realize what you should have paid me for the pleasure of bedding me?”

  “Ah, but it is not that way between us. It never has been,” Wickham said.

  “No, it has not been,” said Lydia. “Not since you told me that you weren’t marrying me after all, even though you had promised.” She pulled an arm out of the covers and shoved him.

  “Ouch,” he said. “That was years ago!”

  “Yes, and you were a blackguard then and you’re still one now.”

  “I am not.” He gave her a wounded look. “Why, what we have together, Lyddie, it’s bigger than marriage. It’s deeper and truer than—”

  “Shut up, Georgie,” she said, giggling. “I don’t know why I ever forgave you.”

  “Neither do I,” he said, smiling at her. Wickham never meant to hurt people. He never meant to make a mess of things. The truth was, he always had the best of intentions. When he took Lydia’s virtue, he had meant to marry her. He had truly believed it would come to pass. But then he began to think about money and obligations and where they would live, and he realized it was a very bad idea, and that he must get out of it one way or the other. So, he’d somehow suckered the colonel to take Lydia off his hands, and that should have been that.

  There had been quite a great deal of women in Wickham’s past. Some he simply flirted with, and some he managed to wheedle into bed. He rarely paid for the privilege, truthfully. He had been gifted or cursed with a certain charm. People liked him. It seemed a gift, but there were times when he was convinced it was a curse.

  Why, for instance, had he caught the favor of old Mr. Darcy all those years ago? Wickham didn’t know. He was an engaging child, even back then. Old Mr. Darcy meant to help Wickham, but he only made him miserable. Now, Wickham knew the taste of all the things that he could not have. Wickham wanted to be a gentleman, but he was not. His suffering was increased. Perhaps if he’d never been sent to school, never been coddled by the old man, never had all the opportunities he’d had, he would have been happy with less.

  Well, he liked to tell himself so, anyway.

  Wickham was also given to fits of self-pity. He tended to inflate his own sorrows far past the amount that he should, making himself seem even sorrier by comparison.

  At any rate, his charm led him where it did, and he tended to have his pick of women. Always had. But there was something about Lydia. She was different.

  Lydia was a kindred spirit, truly. She was just like him. Charming, sweet, eager to please, happy to drink and dance and be merry. They were two of a kind. He loved her. As much as he could love, anyway, in any given moment. His love was selfish and short-sighted. It did not mean that he would put her first or put her needs above his. But as much as George Wickham could have a soul mate, Lydia was his.

  “Besides,” Wickham said suddenly, “it would have all been awful if we had married. Think of the rathole we would have had to live in. Now, you are the most sought-after courtesan in London, and I am…” He grimaced. “Well, I am a pitiful sod, but you, my darling, you are magnificent. You have done much better without me.”

  “That is quite true,” said Lydia. “You are an anchor weighing me down. And I can’t spare any more money for you. I simply can’t. I have told you about my mother’s gambling debts and the state of my sisters, have I not?”

  “I thought Elizabeth was bedding Chivsworth to take care of all that.”

  “Oh, no,” said Lydia. “Not Chivsworth. Darcy.”

  Wickham sat up straight. “What? Darcy made her his mistress? Why, I didn’t think the stick in the mud had it in him.”

  “Apparently, he does,” said Lydia. “And whatever is the case with Elizabeth, there is still not any extra money left for you.”

  Wickham chuckled. “Oh, I remember how much that Elizabeth despised Darcy. She hated him with a fiery passion.”

  “Well, she doesn’t anymore,” said Lydia.

  He turned to her sharply. “No?”

  “No.”

  Wickham grimaced. “It would have been a lot more fun to think that Darcy was paying for a woman who despised him. Ah, well.”

  * * *

  “This… this was a feast you brought us, Lizzy,” said Jane.

  “Oh, it wasn’t much,” said Elizabeth. “There was extra from last night’s supper at the house where I am serving, and they asked me to take it before it all went bad.” Elizabeth and her sister were in the sitting room at the house where the remaining Bennet sisters resided. They were alone now. It was late, and Mary and Kitty had gone to bed. Elizabeth had been about to take her leave, but Jane had asked to stay and talk.

  “Yes, so you said.” Jane eyed her. “Do you think I am stupid, Lizzy?”

  “What? Of course not.”

  “Then why do you feed me the same stories that you feed the younger girls and think that I will eat them up just as they do? They are happy enough with the meat and the wine and pies, I know. They will believed anything you say as long as it means their bellies are full. But I am more discerning. I am engaged in helping you run the finances of this household. So, I know better.”

  “I don’t know what you are going on about,” said Elizabeth.

  “Really?” Jane folded her arms over her chest. “Yesterday, I went to make a payment to the Morleys, because we are paying them in increments, as you know.”

  “Jane, I told you to let me handle—”

  “Well, it was all paid up,” said Jane. “So, I took the money to Mr. Pratt instead, and he accepted it, but I asked him the balance, and it had shrunk rather considerably.”

  Elizabeth looked away.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” said Jane. “You agreed to be Chivsworth’s mistress.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “Listen, you must understand—”

  “Lizzy, how could you? You have thrown it all away. Your good name. Your virtue. Your honor. And for what? For money?”

  “To keep us out of prison!” Elizabeth protested. “And I didn’t have a good name to begin with.”

  “Because of that business with Cumberbottom? But that doesn’t even compare to this. What you would go through now if you were discovered, what the whole family would go through, is so much worse.”

  “Well, it would be the same with Lydia,” said Elizabeth.

  “And how are you bearing it? Is he awful, Chivsworth?”

  “Oh,” said Elizabeth, “it is not Chivsworth.”

  “No?”

  “You remember when Mr. Darcy came to call?”

  Jane’s eyes widened like tea cup saucers. “Mr. Darcy has made you his mistress!”

  Elizabeth nodded and then folded her hands in her lap.

  “Oh, he is as wretched a man as we originally thought, is he not?” said Jane. She laughed suddenly, a harsh sound. “And here I was, going on about his possibly proposing to you. What a thing to think. Of course, he would never lower himself to ask for your hand. Instead, he simply asks you to sully yourself for his pleasure.”

  “Listen, it’s not as bad as all that. He has not…” Elizabeth trailed off, wondering if it mattered that she and Mr. Darcy had not done the deed. She had spent a night wrapped in his arms, after all. In the eyes of everyone in society, that was just as bad.

  “He is the most vile man I know,” said Jane. “We knew him. We went to the same balls and dined together at the same table. And then, for him to treat you as… as…” She shook her head. “You know, it’s all his fault this happened in the first place. If he had never proposed to you, then Lady Catherine would have—”

  “It is no one’s fault,” said Elizabeth. “There are so many ‘ifs.’ If Papa had not died. If Lydia had not become the colonel’s mistress. If Mama had not begun gambling. If, if, if. But things have progressed the way that they have. Here we are, Jane. We cannot change the past now.”

  “I thought you hated him,” said Jane.

  “I…” Elizabe
th studied her fingernails. “He has wrought some wrong on our family, it is true. But he has suffered greatly. He has lost his wife and his child at the same time, and he is a broken man.”

  “So, you aim to heal him by descending to the depths of iniquity? You should have said no, Lizzy.”

  “We needed the money. And it was either him or Chivsworth.”

  “You should have made Darcy marry you,” said Jane.

  “What?”

  “He obviously wanted to bed you. He should have done it the honorable way.”

  “Jane, I cannot… We cannot… We have descended so low—”

  “He would have done it,” said Jane. “I think he would have.”

  Elizabeth sniffed. “I wouldn’t want to be his wife. Think of it, Jane, being forced to entertain the people in his circle? All those awful women who gossiped about me after what happened with Cumberbottom? I couldn’t face them all.”

  “Oh, come now, how bad could it be?”

  “You don’t remember the things that were said about me?”

  Jane sighed. “No, I do. Of course I do.”

  “All of it was awful,” said Elizabeth. “They called me names and they said that I had no morals or that I was simpleminded or… all manner of things. But the worst of it was that I had brought it on myself and that I deserved everything that came to me. When I did nothing! When it was Cumberbottom who—”

  “Lizzy,” Jane soothed. “You don’t have to speak of it.”

  Elizabeth drew in a long breath. “Anyway, I wouldn’t be around those women again for any amount of money in the world. I would never marry Mr. Darcy.”

  Jane was quiet for several moments. Then, she said softly, “Perhaps that’s because you hate him.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I don’t hate him,” said Elizabeth. “Not anymore.”

  “Do you love him, then? Is that why you’re doing it?”

  “No, I don’t love him. I never have,” said Elizabeth. No matter what Lydia said. “No more than you ever loved Bingley.”

  But to that, Jane had no response.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Elizabeth arrived at the masquerade ball alone, because Darcy wished it that way. He did not want to give the appearance of his having brought her to the ball. He thought people might ask too many questions that way, and she thought it was likely he was right. He gave her use of a carriage, though, and she arrived on her own, unchaperoned, in Lydia’s red dress with a feathered mask on her face. She felt a little like Cendrillon, arriving at the ball after she had been transformed by her fairy godmother. Elizabeth felt as if she was someone else. She liked it.

  She had not admitted to herself how much she had missed this—the music, the spectacle, the people, the fancy dresses, the dancing—everything that went along with attending a ball. She had told herself she didn’t care for it a jot, but it was rather lovely to be arriving here, looking out at the room where everyone was standing in their costumes and fancy dress.

  The vast room was decorated with flowers and there were lights everywhere—in the corners on tripods and on every mantle. The air was full of laughter and music and an air of excitement and possibility. Anything might happen tonight, or so she felt. A rush of giddiness went through her.

  For the moment, she was alone, even though she was amongst many. Everyone was too concerned with the other members of their own party or in looking for someone specific to notice her, so she was able to observe on her own. A woman on her own at a ball such as this could only be a woman of ill repute—as she was, she thought with a bit of amusement—or a widow, perhaps. Maybe even a spinster, although older unmarried women were usually attached to younger ones. If someone was looking at her, they would be speculating about her position.

  But she didn’t think she had been noticed at all, not even in this spectacular dress of Lydia’s. She might as well have been invisible.

  And then she wondered if her disguise would be so good as to fool Mr. Darcy. She could get close to him and listen to what he was saying without his knowing she was nearby.

  Except that made her think of the first night she had met him, and the thought of that filled her with distaste. It was odd, she pondered, that he could have said she was not handsome enough to tempt him back then, and then changed to saying she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She would have thought the latter simply a form of flattery meant to ease his having his way with her if it weren’t for the fact that he still seemed reluctant to actually have his way with her. He truly had no reason for saying such a thing.

  So, he must mean it.

  A flutter of happiness went through her.

  “Miss Bennet,” said a deep voice from behind her.

  She whirled. There was Mr. Darcy, with Georgiana in tow. She was quite tall and stood only a few inches shorter than Mr. Darcy himself. She seemed to be all arms and legs, like a fawn. She was dressed as a fox, and had a dress trimmed with fur and a very detailed mask with a fox’s snout jutting out where her nose should be. The effect was rather strange, Elizabeth thought.

  Certainly, there were different levels of detail that people tended to put into a costume for a masquerade. Some people went to great lengths, while others wore a regular ball gown and a matching mask and that was that. But Georgiana’s costume did not make her appear to be an appealing young woman. She looked rather strange. If her attempt truly was to find a husband, as her brother had confided in Elizabeth, then something must be done about that mask.

  Mr. Darcy was not wearing his own mask. He was dressed in a domino outfit, a large black robe over his clothes and a simple black mask, which he was holding. It was a simple, classic costume, and Mr. Darcy had obviously not put a great deal of effort into it.

  “You are late,” said Mr. Darcy.

  Elizabeth didn’t think she was, but she simply smiled. “I apologize, sir.”

  “This damnable mask is itching my face.” Mr. Darcy rubbed at his cheekbone.

  “I should like to get closer to the musicians,” spoke up Georgiana.

  “No, Georgiana, we have spoken about this,” said Mr. Darcy. “You are here to dance.”

  “Perhaps Miss Darcy would care to remove her mask as well?” said Elizabeth.

  “No, no, I am very proud of this one,” said Georgiana, touching it.

  “I told her it would give small children a fright,” said Darcy. “It’s the teeth.”

  “It looks like a real fox,” Georgiana insisted. “Everyone else is always wearing costumes that don’t actually resemble whatever it is that they are purporting to be, but my costume is authentic.”

  Elizabeth cleared her throat. “I, um, I don’t know that authenticity is quite the point of a masked ball.”

  “No?” said Georgiana, sounding a bit worried. “Is it not?” Then she cocked her head. “I say, Fitzwilliam, you have not introduced us.”

  “Oh,” said Darcy, who was stretching his mask back over his head. “Yes, well, um, this is my sister Miss Darcy. And Miss Darcy, this is Mrs. Fieldstone.”

  They had agreed that she should not go by her name, but by a made-up persona. Darcy thought it was easier if she were the widow of some businessman who’d made his fortune in trade. She couldn’t pretend to be part of any of the older, well-respected families. Everyone knew everyone that way. This way, she could seem to have appeared out of nowhere. Her late husband had been from America, they had decided.

  “A pleasure to meet you,” said Georgiana.

  “No, the pleasure is all mine,” said Elizabeth.

  “Now, as you were saying?” said Georgiana.

  “Excuse me?” Elizabeth had quite forgotten that she was saying anything at all.

  “You said that the point of a ball was not authenticity. What is it?”

  “I think… it is rather more important to appear…” Oh dear, what could she say that would not offend? “Authenticity must be trumped by how appealing the effect is,” she decided on.r />
  “Yes, exactly, Georgiana,” said Mr. Darcy, looking her over. “I have told you this before. You look a fright.”

  “Now, I would not put it thus,” said Elizabeth, cringing.

  Georgiana’s face had fallen. “A fright? Truly?”

  “No, no, he did not mean to say such a thing.” Elizabeth glared at Darcy.

  “Didn’t I?” said Darcy. “I have brought you here to find a husband, Georgiana, and no one wants to marry teeth.”

  Beneath her mask, Georgiana’s lower lip trembled. “Well, I did not know. It seemed only natural to me that one would want to make a costume as believable as possible. And I don’t even want to get married. I should like to go home now.”

  “No,” said Darcy. “We’ve just arrived. You must dance with someone.”

  “You have just said that no one will wish to dance with me in this mask,” said Georgiana.

  “Well, remove it,” said Darcy.

  “No,” said Georgiana. “No, I like having the mask.”

  “Perhaps you could wear your brother’s mask,” said Elizabeth. “He does not seem to wish to wear it.”

  “Ah,” said Darcy, sounding relieved. “An excellent solution.” He yanked his mask off and handed it to Georgiana.

  Georgiana sniffed, but she took off her fox mask and put on the plain black mask. The effect was rather astonishing. Now, without the mask, Georgiana appeared tall and willowy and beautiful. She was easily one of the most lovely women in the room.

  Elizabeth smiled. She expected that Georgiana would soon be flooded with men asking for a dance with her, and she was right. Georgiana’s dance card was soon full.

  At the same time, another woman—this one dressed in men’s clothing, in very tight breeches and an open shirt and jacket which showed off her overflowing bosom—was speaking to Mr. Darcy. “Oh, it is so lovely to see you, Darcy. We have been waiting for you to come out of mourning. Practically every single girl in the whole of London has.” She giggled, and it was obvious she’d had quite a few drinks already that night.

  Darcy stiffened at this, his nostrils flaring.

  The woman took no notice of this. “Now, I don’t mean to be forward, but I have a space on my dance card, if you are interested. I have no one to dance the cotillion with, and if should like to ask me—”