had dealt him. Summoning every ounce of hauteur he possessed, he turned on his heel and raised cold eyes to her beautiful, taunting countenance.
“Never, madam,” he answered her, biting off each word in solemn vow, “never on your life!” Not deigning to wait for a reply, Darcy swung back to the door and, with broad stride, walked out into the cool night air.
“The Fox and Drake, Portman Road,” he instructed the driver of the first conveyance that pulled to a stop at the curb.
“Righto, guv’nah.” The cabbie laid a finger to his brim, saluting him.
It was only after he’d been sitting back in the hansom’s dark interior for a few blocks that the anger-wrought tension began to loosen its grip on Darcy and allow him to think.
Darcy closed his eyes against the sights, the yearning slicing through him, painful as a cut to the heart. Yes, the world’s
“That remains to be seen,” Darcy responded. The driver laughed and commanded his horse to walk on, leaving Darcy to inspect the front of the public house. Its sign hung brightly illuminated in lamplight, showing a strong young fox exuding a wide grin while a fat drake dangled from its jaws. “Almost,” Darcy addressed the fox, which he had no doubt was a vixen. “But tonight the drake got away.” He bent and opened the pub’s door. Immediately, he was welcomed by its owner.
“What will it be, sir? I have a room available,” the man offered cheerily.
“No, no room, just a table in a corner,” he answered him. “Are you well stocked?”
“Why, yes, sir!”
“Good! Bring me your best brandy.” The man’s smile grew broader as he put a glass on a tray in front of him and began to open a bottle. “No, you misunderstand me.” Darcy stopped him. “Not just a glass. Leave the bottle as well.”
It was curious, Darcy reflected as he cradled the remains of his second glass of brandy, how every time his thoughts managed to fight their way up into the realm of his control, when he could begin to hope to direct them into rational avenues, they fell down again into a ghastly, maudlin tangle. He sat back and stared for a moment at the glinting amber liquid captured in the glass in his hand, then downed what remained of it. Where was Dy, anyway? If he would only come, the blasted sneaksby, the scoundrel! Acting like a positive coxcomb all these years! Laying the glass aside, he pulled out his pocket watch. Its hands danced wantonly but were not so wayward that he could not in the end verify that, indeed, an hour and more had passed without Brougham showing his face. He shoved the ill-behaved mechanism back into his waistcoat pocket. Well, when Dy did arrive, Darcy would tell him exactly what he thought of him! Yes, the delivery of a good dressing-down would serve admirably in putting a stop to this infernal brooding!
As if to pledge himself to his design, Darcy snagged the brandy bottle and poured himself another, but he missed the snifter’s rim by a hairsbreadth, the liquid fire flowing instead down its side and puddling around its base. With an oath, he moved the glass. That he had fallen into distemper was the conclusion he came to as he sat in a corner of the Fox and Drake and finished his second glass of brandy. Try as hard as he might to argue otherwise, he was forced to concede that he had not yet spent any significant time without Elizabeth Bennet occupying the uppermost place in his thoughts. Nothing had served to dismiss her completely: not his anger at her accusations, his indignation at her opinion of him, or the monumental shock at her rejection of his suit. He imagined her wiping her hands of him, crowing her triumph in bringing him to his knees. Did she and that friend of hers, that Mrs. Collins, laugh together over his humiliation? Darcy’s jaw hardened as he again picked up the bottle, this time finding the glass without mishap. Nothing helped relieve or even mitigate his disconsolation. Solitude betrayed him, sleep fled him, sport offered only a temporary reprieve, and Society — well, look at what his venture into Society had almost done to him! And now, here he was alone, in a strange public house, on his third glass, and with not even the comfort of a friend to keep him from getting ape-drunk. How had he come to such a pass? He retrieved the brandy glass and raised it in toast to himself. “To the World’s Greatest Fool!”
“Oh, I would hazard you have rather heavy competition for that title, old man!” Dy sat down heavily in the chair across from him, his face drawn and tired.
“Where did you come from?” Darcy demanded without looking up and then downed a significant portion.
“The back door,” Dy replied casually. “I know the owner. He told me you have been drinking this.” He placed a new bottle of brandy on the table. “But I did not realize that he meant by the bottle. Let me call for some ale or, better yet, some coffee —”
“This will do very well.” Darcy cut him off and took up the bottle, placing it next to his original before pouring his friend a glass.
Dy eyed him speculatively. “I believe the last time we did something like this was the first time we met.”
“I believe you are right.” Darcy held up his glass.
“To old friends.” Dy tipped his glass against Darcy’s and joined him, then sank back into the chair with a sigh.
“Well, ‘old friend.’ ” Darcy nursed his glass, watching the brandy swirl. “Are you finished playing footman for the night, or must you toddle off soon to play next as my lady’s maid?”
“I suppose I deserve that, but I had hoped better from you, Fitz,” Dy returned steadily. “I had also thought to find you sober enough to hear my explanation,” he added as his friend took another drink.
Darcy raised a brow at him. “I’m sober enough to hear your miserable excuses for deceiving me…deceiving me into thinking you had abandoned your reason in favor of…of what? I never could fathom it, but I still counted you as friend.” To emphasize the point, he replenished their glasses and, picking up his, lifted it to Brougham. “To old friends.”
“We already drank to that,” Dy drawled, a wry smile relaxing the tension in his face. He tipped his glass to Darcy’s all the same and closed his eyes as the liquor warmed his senses. “Oh, what a night!” He shook his head and then leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and studied his friend. “And now I have you to contend with. Were you in charge of your faculties, I might know what to do; but three sheets —”
“Two,” Darcy interrupted. “Haven’t reached three…yet.”
“Every bit of three sheets to the wind,” Brougham insisted with a snort. “I do not think I have seen you bosky since that first meeting at university! It was over women then, and we both forswore them at the time, if I recall.” At the remembrance, he suddenly sat up straighter, a look of alarm upon his face. “This is not about Lady Monmouth, I hope!” He gestured to the half empty bottle.
“Sylvanie?” Darcy peered intently at Brougham’s face, the better to bring it into focus. “You must be mad!”
“You are not the first to think so!” His Lordship lapsed into thought. “You seemed rather taken with her tonight, and it naturally occurred —”
“Nothing ‘natural’ about Sylvanie, I assure you.” Darcy laughed bitterly. Then, in a more pensive tone, he continued. “Nor any female, come to that! Not to be trusted, not a one of them — from first to last!”
“That is quite a sweeping condemnation!” Brougham sat back and folded his arms across his chest.
“But true, nonetheless.” Darcy leaned forward and set down his glass. “In their girlhood they learn how to twist men about their fingers, beginning with their fathers, then…” He stabbed at the table with a finger. “Then, they start working their wiles on every honest-hearted man that crosses their path, turning him into a beef-witted Jack Pudding before he knows what he’s about!”
“Indeed?” Brougham’s eyebrows rose.
“Indeed!” Darcy returned and took another drink. He hardly tasted it now, but the fiery liquor seemed to flow
