“A sore conscience tends to subdue the spirits, my friend, and that is the reason for my behavior tonight. I knew that I must speak, and the prospect of confession, however necessary, is never pleasant.”
“I say, you are sounding frightfully somber, Darcy. Confession! What can you have to confess to me?”
“I have interfered in your life, Charles, in such a manner that I can only regard as the most absurd piece of impertinence that I have ever committed.” Darcy looked down into his friend’s confused but trusting countenance, and regret washed over him as a tide. “My only excuse, if I may be allowed one, is that at the time I had convinced myself I was acting entirely for your good. I have come to see that I was wrong, very wrong, on every side.”
“Darcy! Come, my friend —”
“Charles.” He forestalled Bingley’s denial of his guilt with an upraised palm. “You must understand my offense.” He bit his lip as a sigh escaped him and then took a deep breath. “Without any regard for your feelings or hers, I made it my aim to do everything that was within my power to separate you from Miss Bennet last autumn.”
“What?” Bingley stared uncomprehendingly at him.
“I worked to prevent you from pursuing the connection despite the evidence of your attachment. I had convinced myself of Miss Bennet’s indifference to you and then made it my business to cast doubt upon her character and dissuade you from trusting your own mind and heart.” He stared down into the glass in his hand, unable to look at his companion. “My temerity so astounds me, even as I tell you, that I should not complain should you order me from your house this instant.”
Bingley’s face had gone pale. His hand shook as he set down his glass. “All this time? Do you mean to say that all this time she…But Caroline and Louisa both said the same!”
“Your sisters did not desire the connection, Charles. They have more exalted hopes where your marriage is concerned. Frankly, and to my shame, I conspired with them in this.”
“Good God, Darcy! I cannot believe it of you!” Bingley jumped up and walked away from him, raking his hand through his hair.
“It was in every way reprehensible.” Darcy watched in concern and not a little pain as Bingley paced to and fro. If only he could end it here, but of course, there was more. “My dishonor does not end there, Charles. I must also confess that Miss Bennet was in London above three months last winter, and I directed that her presence be hidden from you.”
“Darcy!”
“I should also tell you that Miss Bennet called on Miss Bingley and waited weeks for her notice, which when it came, was made only to cut the acquaintance. That, also, was under my direction.” The look on Bingley’s face was terrible to see, and Darcy’s heart sank. He closed his eyes, searching for the words for a proper apology.
“I am sorry for the pain I have caused you and Miss Bennet. Heartily sorry, Charles. The only amends I can offer are my assurances that I was very wrong about Miss Bennet and that she, indeed, loves you and would yet make you a very happy man.”
Bingley rounded on him. “Your assurances! You tell me that you deceived me, defrauded me of the love of the sweetest of women, encouraged me to doubt my own heart; and I am to accept your assurances?”
“You are right not to depend upon me, Charles. I have proved a poor friend. Leave me out of it. What is your own view of Miss Bennet?” Darcy asked quietly.
A variety of emotions played across Bingley’s face as he wrestled with what he had learned. Turning away and taking a seat, Darcy allowed him the dignity of silence. He sipped at the last of his port and waited, the hearth fire snapping against the irons.
“That my dear Jane suffered all those weeks in London, Darcy! What she must have thought of me! What all the Bennets must think of me! I cannot understand why they received me with such civility when I returned!”
“Charles, the fact that you were so warmly welcomed by them is further proof that Miss Bennet’s affections are very much in your favor.”
“Yes,” Bingley mused aloud, “that seems reasonable. I was welcomed! Although it is true that Miss Bennet and I are not on quite as easy terms as before, I have only just returned.”
“If I may be allowed an opinion, I believe a proposal on your part will be answered in a manner that will afford great happiness to you both.”
“Do you, Darcy?” Bingley flushed. Drawing back a little, he cleared his throat. “Truly?”
“I have no doubt; do you?”
“I don’t know!” Bingley resumed his pacing. “I think…Last night she…Oh, if I dared to ask! Darcy!” he pled, coming to stand before him.
“Wait if you wish, but it will end the same, Charles, and with that I am silent now on the subject!”
With a shout, Bingley grabbed his hand in a crushing grip. Thereafter such a flood of words poured from that gentleman as went far to assure Darcy that, though he had behaved abominably, he had not lost a friend and that that friend forgave him everything in light of his future happiness.
Chapter 11
The Course of True Love
London was yet thin of company, most of its exalted inhabitants remaining at their hunting boxes as long as possible before Parliament and the Season called them back to the frantic activities of Town. The normal dizzying round would be greatly exacerbated, Colonel Fitzwilliam told his cousin over a glass at Boodle’s, when they heard the news that Bonaparte had been denied Moscow, albeit at a terrible price. Darcy shook his head. What could one say to desperation so great that it drove men to burn their own homes — an entire capital city! — to the ground rather than leave them to that rapacious monster.
“What are you tsking at now, Darcy! Good Lord, you look like two old men!”
Darcy twisted around at the voice but gave up trying to see its owner and bounded from his chair to pound him unmercifully on the back. “Dy! My God, when did you get back? Why did you not write?”
Lord Dyfed Brougham held up carefully manicured hands in protest at such a greeting and took a step away when Fitzwilliam rose as well. “Write? Too fatiguing by half, old friend! And you, Fitzwilliam, may shake my hand but no more. Yes, that will do.” He grinned at the two of them in fatuous triumph and then helped himself to a nearby chair and motioned for them to sit down. “Write? No, no…thought to surprise you, which I have, quite handily it seems.” Darcy resumed his seat, the absurdity of Dy’s words a signal of the persona he wished to play.
“And how was America, Brougham?” Fitzwilliam sat, stretching out his lanky frame. “You don’t look like it agreed with you.” Looking closely at his friend now, Darcy had to agree, and the closer he looked, the more alarming were his conclusions. Dy was dressed elegantly as always, but his clothes hung about him in an odd manner. His face, neither broad nor fleshy to begin with, was now grown very thin, his cheeks almost sunken. It could not have gone well with him over the sea.
“Do not, I beg you, mention that place in my presence!” Dy laid a dramatic hand over his brow. “How I ever allowed myself to be talked into going, I shall never know. The voyage was brutal, Fitzwilliam, absolutely brutal! The natives are completely without culture or the least morsel of sensibility. It was ghastly!”
Richard hooted at Dy’s description, then asked, “Which natives were these, Brougham? The Algonquian, the Iroquois?” He looked at Darcy for help, but Darcy could only shrug his shoulders.
“No, no, old man.” Dy looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. “The natives of Boston and New York!” He removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket and dabbed at his temples. “Dreadful, simply dreadful.”