Duty and Desire

poised over the well, he stopped. What in blazes was he to advise her? Darcy looked stupidly at the quill and paper, then sank into the chair at his desk. The acquaintance between the Bingleys and Miss Bennet had to be cut, and in so decisive a manner as to leave no doubt on either side. It was the only means of settling the affair once and for all. Worrying his lower lip, he cast about for the best approach. In the midst of plucking up and then discarding ideas, he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Yes, enter,” he commanded tersely.

“What! Caught you at the books again? This simply will not do, Fitz, and I am just the fellow to put an end to it!”

“Dy!” Darcy’s head came up as his friend Lord Dyfed Brougham sauntered in, a quizzing glass dangling from his hand. “What have you done with Witcher, you scoundrel?” he grumbled at him good-naturedly.

“Done with Witcher? Not a thing, old man, unless you count slipping him a golden boy to let me announce myself and, hopefully, catch you at something. Did I catch you at something, by the by?” Dy flashed him a curious grin.

“No, nothing!” Darcy picked up the sheet to replace it in its box, but spying the dubious look upon his friend’s face, he paused and in sudden inspiration contradicted himself. “Actually, you rather did catch me. I have been asked for some advice on a matter that is just in your line.”

“Really! My line, you say? And what, pray, is that?” Brougham seated himself in an adjoining chair.

“A matter of some delicacy. You remember Bingley, of course?”

Brougham nodded. “You were trying to convince him to graze elsewhere in regard to a certain young woman, if memory serves. Any luck?”

“Luck or reason, I know not which, but he did come round before I’d left for Pemberley.” Darcy pulled the quill through his fingers, a frown upon his face. “But I would not be overstating the case to say that I believe him still susceptible to the lady. Should they meet again any time soon…” He left the thought hanging as he envisioned such a meeting.

“Little chance of that! The lady resides in Hertfordshire, does she not?”

“Unfortunately, she has lately arrived in Town and desires to wait upon Bingley’s sisters. They are now in an anxiety as to how they should proceed.” Darcy’s dark eyes settled with piercing intensity upon his friend. “What would you suggest, Dy?”

Darcy applied the final strokes of his quill upon the note to Miss Bingley and then searched his desk for wax to seal the single, folded sheet of instructions over which he and Brougham had labored. While he did so, the aforementioned lord rambled about the library, poking a finger here at a book, there at a journal, and occasionally bringing his quizzing glass to his eye in bored inquiry of what he found.

“Very dull stuff you have here, Fitz.”

Darcy looked up from his task in surprise. “You must not have discovered my copy of Siege of Badajoz then. You may borrow it, if you wish. It is there on the shelf to your right. Hatchard sent it to me immediately it was available.”

“Where? Ah, yes.” Brougham brought up the glass again as he examined the spine. “Read it already, have you?”

“Yes, when I was in Hertfordshire.”

“Humph,” his friend responded, continuing to search the shelves. “Would have thought you too busy warning young Bingley off the lovely Bennet sisters to have a chance to read. Here, what’s this?” Darcy rose from the desk in alarm at the sight of Brougham holding quite a different volume than the one under discussion and swinging a shiny hank of knotted threads.

“Nothing!” Darcy reached for the threads, which Brougham, brow cocked in delighted amusement, danced out of his reach.

“That cannot be; it is assuredly something, my dear fellow, or else —”

“A bookmark then. It is a bookmark!” Darcy insisted, grabbing his forearm. With a laugh, Brougham handed it to him, offering him also the book in which it had nestled. Refusing it, Darcy quickly wrapped the threads around a finger, tucked them inside his waistcoat pocket, and turned back to his desk. “Do you wish to borrow Badajoz, then?” he asked, hoping to divert his friend’s attention.

“No, read it already.” Brougham waggled the volume still in his hand before replacing it upon the shelf. “Fuentes de Onoro as well, for what little it is worth” — he yawned — “although I did not have the enticement of such a bookmark to bring me back to its pages.”

“You do not think them accurate accounts?” Darcy regarded him curiously.

“Fitz!” Brougham looked at him in true disappointment. “You cannot be gulled so easily!”

“Why? What do you know?” Darcy’s interest sharpened.

“Oh, nothing!” Brougham returned quickly, his countenance suddenly closed and disappointment was replaced by a mocking derision. “Nothing that a careful reading of the absolutely dreadful prose wouldn’t disclose. The fellow is all ‘guts and glory’! Never saw more than the fringes of the action, I’ll wager, if that! He probably caught some of the story from the poor blighters that survived the front lines and then made up the rest.”

A knock at the door interrupted them before Darcy could pursue Brougham’s interesting remarks. It opened, revealing Witcher at the entrance. “Mr. Darcy, sir. Your letter?”

“Yes, Witcher, here it is.” Darcy took it from his desk and pressed it into the old retainer’s palm. “Now send the boy back with it, and let us hope that is the end of it. Is the tea ready?”

“Yes sir, just ready. Will you take it here?”

Darcy looked over at Brougham. “Would you care to call on Georgiana, Dy?”

“It would be my great pleasure,” His Lordship replied formally, but his voice dropped as he added, “It has been a very long time.”

“Good! Witcher, have the tea sent to the drawing room. We shall be up directly.” As Witcher departed on his errand, the two crossed the hall; but Darcy slowed when the man was out of sight. “You will find her quite changed, Dy,” he began.

“I should imagine,” Brougham interrupted. “It has been almost seven years!”

“Seven!” Darcy exclaimed. “Has it truly?”

“Since University! The last time I saw her was in this house at the do your father gave for your graduation. He and Georgiana came down for a few minutes. I believe Mr. Darcy’s health kept him from staying longer.”

“Yes.” Darcy nodded, his brow creasing in remembrance. “It was the last time he was to appear in public. I’d had no notion of his illness until then. He would let no one speak of it, even to me.” Their long, matching strides had brought them finally to the drawing room doors. “Georgiana,” Darcy called out before the servant who admitted them could announce them, “an old friend has come to see you. Can you guess who it is?”

It appeared that they had caught Georgiana deeply engrossed in a lesson, for her expression upon rising from the books she and Mrs. Annesley had spread before them was of one realigning her thoughts to a subject quite different from that with which they had been occupied. She rose, smiling readily at her brother’s intrusion, and made her curtsy to his companion, but Darcy could sense no light of recognition in her eyes.

“Come, Miss Darcy, do not say you cannot remember me!” Brougham made an elegant bow and, rising, cast her his famous, winning smile.

“My…my Lord Brougham?” Georgiana curtsied again in confusion. “Please forgive me, I did not recognize you.”

“Instantly! Who could deny anything the gracious Miss Darcy requests? But I fear we have interrupted a lesson. Does your brother keep you at your books as he does himself?” Brougham swept his quizzing glass at the open volumes on the low table. “You must be longing for a diversion!”

“Oh, no, my Lord! Mrs. Annesley and I quite…quite enjoy our t-time —” Georgiana stammered.

“Please, do not be ‘My Lording’ me, Miss Darcy.” He sighed. “It fags me to death! Brougham will do, as your brother will tell you.” He brought the glass up to an eye and surveyed her from the tips of her slippers to the curls about her face. “But, bless me, you have grown, my girl.”

Georgiana flushed, bewildered by the creature before her, whose exquisite appearance and peculiar manners