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“I had hoped you were wrong that Caroline would lower herself to attempt a compromise. It seems that was a vain hope,” Bingley said sadly. “What do you suggest we do to head her off before she ruins herself?”

“If it did not have the potential to affect anyone else, I would say allow her to make her attempt and see her ruined,” Fitzwilliam opined. “However, that is not the case. Her actions, especially if she means to try and force William’s hand by acting the town crier about what occurred, will redound on Bingley and the Hursts no matter how much we would not want them to.”

“Hurst, where are they?” Bingley asked.

“In the main drawing room on the first floor,” Hurst responded. “Why, what are you thinking of doing?”

“I, well, that is, Hurst and I, need to confront Caroline and kill her delusions once and for all. She must be sent to Scarborough. My late father’s younger brother, Uncle John, and his wife, Aunt Hildebrand, will take Caroline in hand,” Bingley decided. “Louisa will be my hostess, like she should have been had I not given into Caroline.”

Even though he had always called Bingley a puppy, Fitzwilliam was pleased to see him stiffen his spine and begin to take responsibility for his family.

Following Bingley, the men filed out of the sitting room.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Try as he might, not a single girl in the damned town would give George Wickham the attentions he believed were his due, especially if he were to pluck some of the newly blooming flowers he had seen around the town.

It looked like his only chance would be with light-skirted Lydia Bennet. She was the perfect age at fifteen—he discounted the fact that no other girls of that age were interested in him—and she would be an easy flower to pluck. The problem he had to take into account was that she was gently born.

Unlike some of his past seductions when he was able to use threats to intimidate the girls into not speaking of their surrendering their virtues to him, Miss Lydia was loud and brash and would crow of her conquest and their impending marriage. Had Wickham been able to slip away from the militia without committing a capital offence, then, bedding the flirt before he absconded and disappeared would have been just the thing. That avenue of escape, however, was closed to him, so he had to explore other ways to gain that which he desired.

Each time Miss Lydia and her sister, Miss Kitty, the one who followed her about like a lamb does an ewe, was in his company, they expressed deep sympathy for the unfair way Wickham had been treated.

The first thing he needed was blunt. How was he to survive on one pound a month when he had to pay coin for anything he wanted? It would be close to five months until the Colonel would cease garnishing his wages. That was when Wickham had an idea.

Seeing that the two youngest Bennet chits were sympathetic to his cause, he would hint how short he was of coin. He was sure they would give him some blunt. How they acquired it, he cared not.

He knew that Miss Elizabeth had swallowed his tale of woe; however, he had not heard the fiction repeated in the town. It was for that reason Wickham decided that trying to get money from Miss Elizabeth would not be a good idea. Unlike the youngest two sisters, Wickham being certain that she believed him notwithstanding, Miss Elizabeth was too intelligent to hand over any of her coin to him.

Even though Miss Elizabeth was older than he preferred them—he had learnt she was twenty—Wickham was still thinking of ways to seduce her. First, he needed some funds; nothing else was as critical to him.

If he did not succeed in having the Bennet chits bring him blunt, he would have to borrow some from his fellow officers.

Wickham’s mind drifted to Darcy. Luck had been on his side insofar as he had not been in the prig’s company since that uncomfortable meeting in Meryton. The only problem was the ball, which would be at Netherfield Park in less than a sennight. He would not want to spend a whole night hiding from the bastard. There was only one thing for it. He would have to manufacture a reason not to attend and place the blame at Darcy’s door.

At least, Fitzwilliam was not in the area.

Chapter 18

Miss Bingley had just been whinging to her sister that none of the men were spending any time in their company—she did not count her lout of a brother-in-law being soused and sleeping as male presence—when the drawing room door opened, and the men entered the room.

She sprang up and headed towards Mr Darcy intending to take his arm as she did often when they were in company together. Miss Bingley wanted to guide him to the settee to sit next to her. She froze when Mr Darcy spoke.

“Have I ever offered you my arm?” Darcy asked frostily.

“No, but you have never objected. As we are such good friends, why would you?” Miss Bingley cooed as she tried to ignore Mr Darcy’s tone of voice, which was decidedly not friendly.

“Let me be rightly understood. My only friend with the name of Bingley is your brother. You have never been my friend. Nor will you ever be more than my friend’s sister, whom I am forced to tolerate for politeness’s sake. Well, no more. You have gone too far, Madam,” Darcy responded firmly.

“I do not know to what you refer? I have impeccable manners, and my behaviour is as good, if not better, than any other at our level of society,” Miss Bingley claimed.

“What level is that, Miss Bingley?” Darcy shot back. “My cousin and I belong to the first circles; Mr and Mrs Hurst are part of the third, or perhaps lower second circles. Your brother, if or when he purchases an estate, will join the lowest level of the landed gentry. However, you are the daughter of a tradesman. The first time you spouted that pretentious drivel about us being of the same level of society, I should have corrected you firmly. In deference to your brother, I did not. I own that was an error on my part.

“You took it as a sign that there was a level of intimacy between us which did not exist. It is also my mistake that I did not tell you to release the death grip you held on to my arm the first time you took it without my offering. In any polite society, a lady places her hand on the man’s forearm gently only after said man offers his arm to said lady.”

As she looked around the room for some support, Miss Bingley found none. Louisa was not looking at her; instead, she was playing with her bracelets and bangles. Charles did not look happy. That must be because of the way Mr Darcy was speaking to her. She ignored the looks of disgust from Colonel Fitzwilliam and her sot of a brother-in-law. Regardless of what he said in this moment of insanity, Mr Darcy would marry her or her name was not Caroline Maleficent Bingley. There were more than enough witnesses in the room.

To effect the compromise, Miss Bingley threw herself forward at Mr Darcy expecting him to catch her.