Page 23 of One Night with Mr. Darcy
Just…
All right, here is how it was with Wickham.
They were boys together. Wickham’s father was the steward of Pemberley even still. He was old and didn’t do a lot anymore except to look after the books and oversee the staff expenditures. That was why they’d hired the butler, after all.
So, in some ways, Wickham was sort of family. He was always around, and he’d actually come to Cambridge with Darcy when they went to school.
Mostly, then, they were friendly but did not associate with each other overmuch. Wickham had his friends. Darcy had other friends. They sometimes dined together or went carousing. That, truly, only on occasion.
It was on one of those occasions, however, that Wickham had done something that bothered Darcy. They were out at a tavern somewhere, and a girl came out. She must have been twelve, maybe thirteen. A girl, truly, and Wickham had made some comment about her, some lewd comment. Darcy didn’t even remember what it was.
He knew that the girl’s mother worked at the tavern, serving. She had been pulled here and there on men’s laps and she had been quite agreeable and flirtatious, but she heard Wickham say it, and she sent the girl off, shooting glances at him over her shoulder,frightenedglances.
And they were drunk and it didn’t matter, and Darcy… well, Darcy could not say when a girl was, well, no longer a girl and then a woman. He supposed there was some sort of debate about such things, really. And women were married off very young, anyway.
So, he would be inclined to let it go. Indeed, hehadlet it go. Entirely. Never said a thing about it.
Only, there was another time with Wickham, this was later on. They were still at school, but this happened over the summer holidays. Wickham had come with the Darcy family to the sea. There was some young woman there. But she was truly a youngwoman. Well, she was sixteen, anyway. She didn’t rightlylooksixteen in Darcy’s mind. She was, as it might be termed, well-formed and stout—quite mature in appearance.
Wickham got into some sort ofthingwith her, and they were discovered together.
The girl—she was the daughter of some servant, near as Darcy could remember—she said she’d seduced Wickham herself, that she’d lied about her age and pretended to be older because she was so eager to have him.
She was punished.
Nothing happened to Wickham.
It was all…
Well, what these things added up to, he didn’t know, but when his father insisted that Wickham have a position as rector in Derbyshire, Darcy didn’t like it. He went to Wickham and said that he would personally give Wickham money to further his schooling, to perhaps become a lawyer or to buy some place of business, anything really, except the church.
And Wickham was very, very interested in the clergy, however, despite never seeming remotely holy.
Now, this.
Once, he’d found Wickham with Georgiana. This was… Georgiana had been fifteen at the time? He’d had this thought, that her dress was hanging off her shoulder in some…
Well, but then he’d asked Georgiana about it.
He’d sat her down and said, “That man is not to touch you. You’re not to be alone with that man. If that man ever makes you uncomfortable, come to me.”
And she had laughed at him, and said that One—this was her pet name for him for they were Georgie-One and Georgie-Two, something established in her toddlerhood—was a holy man who was only trying to see to Georgiana’s eternal soul.
Georgiana was particular about touch. Since she was a girl, it had only been a certain kind of fabric her gowns and underthings could be made from, a specific kind of blanket to touch her skin, and she wouldn’t let anyone embrace her. Never. When she was tiny, she used to wriggle out of her mother’s grasp, shrieking at the top of her lungs.
So, she would not allow Wickham to…
Especially not… likethat.
Besides, she was not fifteen anymore. She was seventeen, nearly eighteen, old enough to be married. And if he had a taste like that, for… well, she was too old, then. So…
Darcy made it to the rectory very quickly.
He did not announce himself. He stalked down between the pews.
Georgiana looked up from where she was seated with Mr. Wickham, at the front of the place. A bible was open on her lap. “Fitz!” she said, surprised.
“Aunt Catherine is dead,” he said to her.
