“All of it,” Bingley averred succinctly.
“And you will not receive a single penny from me. Me jilted by that virago? All she ever earned was my disdain, and the only relationship Miss Caroline Bingley ever had with me was in her head,” Darcy reported calmly.
“I still demand my wife’s twenty thousand pounds!” Wickham challenged.
“She does not have that amount. All she has is one thousand pounds in the funds which will pay about fifty pounds perannum,” Bingley informed the libertine.
Caroline Wickham was snapped out of her stupor when she absorbed her brother’s words. “My dowry was set in Father’s will! You cannot reduce it in any way!” she shrieked.
“No, it was not. It was listed as up to that amount, but the will allows me, as the heir, to make changes, which I did last week, as you will see in this document,” Bingley lifted it from the table behind him, “dated days before you married. If you read this, Mr Wickham, you will see it is irrevocable.”
How could this be. He was supposed to have sixty thousand pounds, but the twenty thousand would have been a good start. To be tied to the homely, ridiculous woman for fifty pounds a year was not to be borne. “Restore her dowry,” Wickham demanded.
“If you and my sister had married before I signed this,setting her new dowry in stone, you could have attempted to challenge my decision in court—if you had the funds to do so. However, as the date on this document states,” Bingley held up the documents, “it is clearly before the date you married. You, therefore, do not have legal standing to issue a challenge to the amount or disposition of the dowry regardless of no settlement having been signed prior to your wedding.”
“I thought you had at least a modicum of sense,” Darcy addressed the reeling man. “To believe I would ever attach myself to such a woman, you must be even more delusional than she is.” Darcy’s visage changed from amusement to fury in an instant. “After all you have done, for you to claim we are brothers, I should call you out!”
Wickham knew his skills with either a pistol or a foil did not come close to Darcy’s. If they fought, he would be dead. “I will tell all about…” Before he finished his sentence, Darcy’s fist had crashed into his face with the sickening crunch of Wickham’s nose breaking.
For a large man, Darcy had cat-like reflexes. “Finish that sentence and I will withdraw any objection I may have had to my cousin ending your miserable life. Breathe a word to anyone, especially your wife, and it will be the last mistake you ever make,” Darcy thundered.
Bingley signalled two footmen to help the bleeding man to his feet. One of them thrust a rag into Wickham’s hands so he could try to stem the flow of blood.
“I will have the marriage annulled! I would never marry that bag of bones with no fashion sense without a sizable dowry. For once I agree with Darcy, how could any man want to attach himself to her?” Wickham whinged. “It has only been a few hours, so the parson will attest it is too soon to have beddedthat.”
“We anticipated our vows yester-afternoon after your proposal!” Mrs Wickham contradicted loudly. Seeingeverything she had dreamed of being blown away on the wind like a wisp of cloud, realising she was tied to a nobody with no prospects, and the heir to nothing, whipped Caroline Wickham into a rage beyond anything she had ever before experienced. Her husband was tending to his nose and did not see her as she attacked.
Her extremely sharp nails extended, she clawed at her husband’s face. Wickham dropped the blood soaked rag and lifted his hands to attempt to defend himself. Too soon, he felt the flesh on his face being cut into by her nails. After an incredibly sharp pain, he could no longer see out of his left eye.
“Do you think I should have her pulled off him before she murders him?” Bingley wondered aloud. He nodded to the two footmen who pulled the frenzied woman off her husband. The invectives aimed at her husband, along with a slew of expletives, did not cease as the two men forced her off the cowering and bleeding man. “Have Mr Nichols summon Mr Jones, then see to it my sister is bound and gagged, and kept in the cellar until her husband has been seen.”
“It is about time Wickham felt the consequences of his actions,” Darcy stated. “For far too long he has destroyed lives with impunity. With the scars he will have from today, I do not think he will find it as easy to charm and lie to unsuspecting victims.”
“Help me, I cannot see from my left eye,” Wickham cried.
With the scratches caused by his wife’s nails across the left-hand side of his face, starting above the eyebrow and all the way down to his chin, there was no doubt that George Wickham was blind in that eye now.
Mrs Nichols wrapped his wounds as best she could with cloths and directed two footmen to move the wounded man to one of the nearby sickrooms. There they would wait for Mr Jones to arrive. Bingley, Darcy, and Hurst took themselves to the study.
“Do you think my sister can be prosecuted for attacking her husband in that way?” Bingley enquired.
“Not being a man of the law, I am not sure. However, I am aware that under the law as it is today, a man can do anything short of murdering his wife with no penalty. I do not think the same is true the other way around though. If Wickham decided to make a complaint to the magistrate, I believe Mrs Wickham could be arrested,” Darcy opined.
“If any of his wounds become infected and he dies, my sister would be tried for murder and end up hanging,” Bingley realised.
“It would be a scandal connected to the Bingley name,” Darcy warned. “It would be better if I have my uncle sign an order of transportation.”
“She is not a Bingley. The scandal would attach to the name Wickham. Add to that, this is Hertfordshire, not London. If my information is correct, the assizes are held in Hertford,” Bingley related. “It may sound callous of me, but after the way Caroline behaved towards my Jane and contributed to her end, I would allow the law to run its course without interceding. So no, Darce, I would not want your uncle to transport her if it comes to that. I would have never thought I would say such a thing about my sister, but whatever that creature is, it is no longer Caroline. She is already gone.”
“Let us wait and see what will be,” Hurst suggested. The other two men nodded.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Mr Bennet, what is the meaning of forcing me out of my mourning for my daughter to attend you in your study, with threats no less!” Fanny whined as soon as she entered the study without noticing Elizabeth’s presence.
“Close the door and sit, Mrs Bennet. It is time we had a long overdue conversation,” Bennet commanded.
When she closed the door, Fanny noticed her second…no, eldest daughter… seated on the settee below the windows. “What has this to do with that wilful girl? Had she nursed Jane properly…” Fanny closed her mouth with a clack when her husband interjected by yelling at her.
