Richard cleared his throat. “So, it is that, then.” He turned to look at me. “Is this why you’re a snail?”
“Me?” I said, touching my chest.
“No, I suppose you are quite in love with Miss Bennet.” Richard continued to rub his forehead.
“What are you planning to do, colonel?” Bingley’s voice was low and nearly musical, but there was something lethal in it.
“No, no,” said Richard. “Truthfully, being in the war, where there is the company of men and only men and… one sees things. Things are… done. So, you needn’t think that I shall…” He leaned back in his chair and contemplated the ceiling. “So, the idea is that you and Mr. Bennet will be companions, and that you marry his sister, and the three of you can do as you like, and her presence hides whatever you are with him, and no one thinks anything of it.”
“Yes,” said Bingley.
“And you,” said Richard to me, “you don’t really want to marry her, anyway. You spent the whole night up, raging at me,telling me you didn’t. And he just said that he would not mind—and why would he—if you were intimate with his wife.”
“Well, some precautions should probably be taken,” said Bingley. “I don’t want you getting her with child or something, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t think she’ll agree to such a thing,” I said.
“Well, James does,” said Bingley. “He thinks that if we offer her this, she will agree to marry me, and I said that it would be much less awkward if James weren’t here for the conversation—”
“God,” I said, clutching my chest, thinking of the idea of that, Bennet coming and offering me the chance to bed his sister. “That’s disgusting.” I shook my head at Bingley. “I don’t see how you thought this conversation would go, anyway, with Richard here.”
“Yes, I had not really thought about him,” said Bingley. “I am glad that he’s being so pleasant, in the end.” He gave Richard a little smile.
“It solves all your problems, Fitz,” said Richard. “Just agree.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not what I want. This isn’t about… that.”
They both raised their eyebrows at me.
“Furthermore, she was insistent that she wait with Mr. Wickham. She said something to me about it mattering less about the eyes of society and more about the eyes of God.”
“Well, that was before she was agreeing to marry a man who buggers other men,” said Richard. “So, I think whatever concern she’s had about the eyes of God, it’s something she’s set aside.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “And I am not going to take a woman into my bed and then let her go off and be married to someone else.”
Bingley spread his hands. “It could be an ongoing arrangement, you know? And I certainly am not going to touchher, so there’s no, erm, sharing. It would be like having a mistress you don’t have to pay for.”
“You lucky blackguard, Fitz,” said Richard. “How is it that everything just drops in your lap?” He turned to Bingley. “If he says no, do you think she’d be at all interested in me—”
“Richard,” I interrupted. “How dare you? I have asked this woman to marry me.”
He shrugged.
“No,” I said to Bingley. “The answer is no.”
“Oh, but Darcy, don’t you at least want to think about it?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “No, and never bring up this travesty again.”
But all that night, I lay awake worrying that she would choose Bingley anyway, and that I should be left to pursuing her in that dreadful avenue if I wished to see her or that I would have no recourse but to swear her off forever, to forget all about her.
I could not forget her, however, something that became clear as days passed, one after the other, and Miss Bennet had made no decision.
I was not good company, and Richard told me so on several occasions. He was still miffed that I would not have taken Bingley’s offer, saying I was daft and idiotic.
On the fourth day after my proposal, I left the house all on my own without telling him and I went to visit Lady Susannah.
She was all astonishment that I should alight on her doorstep without any warning, but she was polite enough and she showed me in. “Mr. Darcy, I have to say, you are the last person I should expect to come and call upon me. Do you wish to have another conversation about women ceding their property to their husbands, like your cousin did?”
