“I am not to blame!” Wickham bristled indignantly. “Not entirely, at any rate. She would come with me, the silly chit!”
“Why did you leave your regiment, then, if not for the purpose of taking advantage of her?”
“You know very well why!” Wickham grimaced darkly. “I found myself to be quite impossibly in debt. My honor was vigorously called into question by some sniveling brats with quarterly allowances that would set me up for a year. It followed soon after that satisfaction was demanded forthwith. Naturally, I was obliged to leave!”
Darcy’s lips pressed together, stifling a heavy sigh. It was ever thus with George Wickham. “And now what, George? What are your plans?”
“I have not the slightest idea, as yet!” Wickham paused to swallow the last of his glass, then pounded the flat of his hand upon the table to catch the attention of the slatternly woman behind the bar. “Another round, there’s a dear.” But instead of the mistress, a scrawny boy appeared with the pitcher from behind the smoke-darkened bar and carefully filled the glasses with the frothy brew.
“All right an’ tight, govn’r?” he asked with a slow wink only Darcy could see.
“Yes, that will do.” Darcy recognized the urchin Tyke Tanner had designated to shadow him. Good, he thought, Wickham will not be able simply to disappear. The boy pulled on his forelock and retreated to the other side of the taproom.
“I shall resign, of course, but where I shall go or what I shall live on, I cannot say.” Wickham pulled a weary face and sipped at the new foam atop his glass.
“And the young person upstairs?” Darcy persisted. “Why have you not yet married her? Although her father may not be imagined rich, he would be able to do something for you!”
“Marry Lydia? Good God!” Wickham looked at him in mock horror.
“You must have some feelings for her, to have engaged her affections so far as to convince her to fly with you.”
“No convincing was necessary, let me assure you.” He took a gulp of his ale. “She was quite happy to go adventuring.”
“Adventuring! Wickham, she is a gentleman’s daughter! She can no more return to her life after this without marriage than —”
“I promised nothing but some fun and a chance to spite those who did not appreciate her lively spirits.” Wickham leaned over the table, his hand tightly gripping his ale. “Any ill consequences may be squarely laid to her folly alone.” At Darcy’s silence, he sat back and took another gulp. “It was never my design to marry the chit!” he growled. “Her family is scarcely wealthy enough to suit my requirements. Believe me, Darcy.” He raised his glass to him. “I have finally come to see my limitations. My only recourse is to marry very, very well, and that will not likely happen in this part of the country with my debts shadowing me like a hangman. No, I shall have to go elsewhere. Scotland, perhaps, or I understand that there are some exceedingly rich Americans who think an English son-in-law is just the thing to add to the respectability of their names.”
“You realize we are at war with them.”
Wickham shrugged his shoulders. “South America, then, or a rich planter’s daughter in the Indies. It is all the same.”
“I see.” Darcy eyed him steadily and prepared to set out his bait. “What if there were a more immediate source of relief for your present situation? Not as great as a planter’s heiress, by any means, but a comfortable solution.”
The familiar gleam of avarice sprang into Wickham’s eyes. “I might be persuaded, if the solution is suitably ‘comfortable,’ as you say.” He paused, regarding Darcy shrewdly, then asked, “But come now, Darcy, what is your interest in this? How is it that you have become involved?”
There it was, the question he knew would come. Darcy slowly leaned forward, his eyes holding Wickham’s. “Interest? My interest is simply this: that you cease to be a menace to innocent young women. I kept silent concerning your seduction of Georgiana and in so doing have allowed you to prey upon others. If I had spoken, the girl upstairs — and possibly others — would have been kept safe from your careless use of them. But I did not speak, and your indifference to the consequences of your appetites has brought the respectability of an entire family of my personal acquaintance into disrepute. What my silence has effected, I will all do that is in my power to put right.”
“What do you propose?” Wickham had not flinched at the recital of his behavior but shifted forward to the edge of his chair in anticipation. Darcy sat back and held his peace, allowing Wickham to shoulder the weight of beginning the negotiating. “I suppose that a wedding would be expected,” Wickham advanced cautiously.
Darcy rose. He had Wickham’s attention, and that was all he wished to secure at this juncture. Let him flail about in uncertainty for the present. “I wish to speak to Miss Lydia now, if you please.”
“May I come in?” Darcy inquired gently as Lydia Bennet pulled her eyes away from Wickham’s retreating figure and turned them up to him in confusion. She was so very young. How had this been allowed to happen? Neglect, his conscience answered, a neglect not so very different from yours. “I assure you most solemnly,” he continued, “I mean you no harm, but I should not wish any neighbors you may have to overhear our conversation.”
“If you must,” she replied and motioned for him to enter the tiny room. Inside was only the meanest of bedsteads, a rickety table and lamp, and an equally unstable chair. Clothes, bottles, and dishes lay about the place, all in a state of profound disarray. As he turned his regard back down to her, her tense attitude recalled to him Georgiana’s protest that his presence was intimidating even to those who loved him. In such cramped surroundings, his height could not help but seem threatening to a very young woman in her circumstances. He carefully lowered his weight onto the chair, composed his face in what he hoped were beneficent lines, and examined his charge.
It was quite obvious that Wickham had done little to see to her comfort. The gown she wore was rumpled and stained, her hair was a tangle. It appeared that she had come with little more than could be packed in a valise. They were, very likely, all but destitute. His hopes for the interview rose. “Miss Lydia, please be at ease. I have not come to offer you an insult,” he assured her. “I come as…as a disinterested acquaintance to ask you to consider the position into which you have been led and to provide a way to return to the anxious bosom of your family with as much honor as may be.”
If it were possible, Lydia’s eyes opened even wider. “What?” she replied, every evidence of astonishment upon her face. “Are you joking?”
“I assure you, I am not,” he answered, surprised by her response but maintaining his composure.
“I am to be married,” she informed him smugly. “I shall be Mrs. George Wickham and quite honorably so, if you please.”
“Has a date been set, then?” he asked, his regard steady.
“N-no,” Lydia admitted, turning away from him. “We must wait until some horrible people who are jealous of George can be repaid some trifling sums.” Her words were merely a recital of an excuse she’d had from Wickham. Poor girl, she believed the wretch. “Really, it is most unfair!” She rounded on him suddenly. “Why must people be so cruel to my poor Wickham?” She looked at him, her eyes accusing. “And you are among them. George has told me!”
“My relationship with Wickham is a long and difficult one, Miss Lydia.’ ” He shifted his position, the chair threatening to take him to the floor. “My presence here has nothing to do with that, nor any tale of hardship with which Wickham has entertained you.” At his words, Lydia’s chin tilted up in a manner so like Elizabeth’s that his heart nearly seized. He persisted. “Please, hear me. Your family are beside themselves with worry for your safety. Since Wickham cannot, as you admit, offer you marriage at this time, why not return to your family until he can come to claim you with all honor?”