Chapter 16

B ingley and Darcy were seated in the study poring over the ledgers when Mr Nichols entered the room looking bewildered. "Yes, Nichols, what is it?" Bingley asked.

"A Lieutenant Wickham to see you sir, he claims to be Miss Bingley's husband. She is with him and did not contradict the officer," Nichols reported.

There was no missing the building fury on Darcy's face at hearing who had come calling. "Nichols, please wait in the hallway for a few minutes," Bingley requested .

The butler withdrew after a bow to the men and pulled the door closed behind him. "Darce, calm yourself. It is time for us to teach both of them a lesson they will never forget. I suggest we meet in the library where you will be able to sit in the small reading room with the door cracked. I will give a signal when it is time to show yourself."

As angry as he was, Darcy knew it was a good plan. If only Richard were here… "Bingley, before we proceed, may I write a note for my cousin and have it sent to London with my courier? Have Nichols tell them you will be with them as soon as may be." Bingley agreed and Darcy wrote what he needed to.

Mr Nichols was called back in and given his orders. He was handed the short note to be given to the Darcy courier with instructions to make all speed. The butler was then told to send for the Hursts to join the master as quickly as possible, and then wait until a footman indicated all was ready before bringing the Lieutenant and his so-called wife to the library .

Bingley sat on the settee facing the door while Darcy ensconced himself in the reading room after leaving the door open a few inches. The Hursts entered and looked at Bingley questioningly. "All will become clear very soon," he promised as he nodded at the footman waiting to inform Nichols he could now announce the couple.

"Lieutenant and Mrs George Wickham," the butler announced. The newly married couple entered the library looking well pleased with themselves.

"Will you not congratulate me on my conquest?" Mrs Wickham crowed. The former Miss Bingley headed towards an armchair to sit, but stopped when she saw what looked like a smirk on her brother's face.

"It is good you did not sit. As far as I remember, no one invited you or your husband to be seated. When did this travesty occur?" Bingley drawled.

" TRAVESTY !" Mrs Wickham screamed. "Just you wait! When I am mistress of Pemberley, I will ruin you. All of you who did not pay me the respect I am due!" she screeched.

"You are married to the son of Darcy's late steward; a paid member of the staff, mind you. How on earth does that get you to be the mistress of Darcy's anything? Have your delusions finally driven you insane?" Bingley asked. There was no missing the amusement in his voice.

Wickham was not sure what was happening, but this was the last reaction he had expected. Did they all know something he did not? He pushed that thought from his mind. As long as he was given access to her dowry he cared not.

"My husband is the true heir to Pemberley, not that rake who masquerades as a gentleman," Mrs Wickham insisted.

"But Caroline, if Mr Darcy is so, why have you chased him for the last five years?" Mrs Hurst enquired. "I thought you wanted to marry the man; the man who you are now denigrating. "

"I was misled and am now aware of his true character," Caroline sniffed.

Ignoring the ravings of his younger sister, Bingley turned to look at the man who was now his brother-in-law. "Pray tell, Mr Wickham, how is it my friend will give over all of his possessions and property to you?"

Knowing that he needed to maintain the pretence at least until he had her dowry secured, Wickham affected his sad, put upon look. "It seems, Brother, you have been duped by Fitzwilliam Darcy, like so many before you." Wickham was positive the weak man before him had no information to refute his tale. Thank goodness, Darcy was not present. "We are half-brothers…" He told a condensed version of the story he had spun for the then Miss Bingley.

Seated behind the door in the reading room, Darcy listened to the fiction Wickham was spewing. He had to fight to keep from laughing at the ridiculous lies. He had heard his former friend tell some big ones before, but none had come close to the web of fiction he was now spinning.

When her husband had completed telling his tale of woe, Mrs Wickham glared at her family with a look of triumph on her countenance.

It had been just as difficult for the three seated in the library listening to the cow excrement spewing from the man's mouth to refrain from guffawing as it had been for Darcy. In fact, Mrs Hurst could not stop herself from giggling behind her hand.

"These are heavy misfortunes," replied Bingley. "But any friend of a man as honourable and good as Mr Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of comfort and fellowship necessarily attached to their situation. Only those who have been accepted into his circle of friendship could upon the whole have no cause to repine knowing him."

"How can you say that after hearing of the way your friend mistreated his own brother?" Mrs Wickham bellowed. She had noticed that Mr Darcy was absent, but she had not thought anything of it.

"Do not waste your breath, Dearest," Wickham said as he patted his wife's hand. "Unlike you, your family was taken in by his supposed wealth and consequence. If my brother has not already, I am sure he will request a loan from your brother and then never repay it."

"Why on earth would Darcy who has far more wealth than me ever need a loan?" Bingley played along.

Darcy heard the way his friend emphasised his name. It was their pre-arranged signal. The reading room was behind the Wickhams, so when he slowly pulled the door open, they were unaware of his presence. As stealthily as he could, he stepped out of the reading room and stood a few feet behind the couple. Bingley and the Hursts had to fight to school their features.

"Then my brother has very effectively hidden his vice of gambling from you. He has lost much of his wealth at the tables." Wickham saw the look of horror on his wife's face. "Enough is entailed that he is not able to…" Wickham stopped speaking when he heard the clapping of hands behind him.

"Bravo, Wicky. I have rarely seen performances on the stage to rival yours here today. It is interesting you described me as you are. And who would be simple enough to believe you, the son of a steward, are the heir to Pemberley?" Darcy drawled as he walked past the couple and seated himself before them. "You are as much related to me as Bingley is, and you know it."

Wickham had turned white, and his knees felt weak. How was it bloody Darcy was here? Why had the shrew not mentioned his presence to him?

"Husband, tell them it is all lies, you are the true heir to all Darcy properties and the fortune left that this man was not able to gamble away! You are his brother!" Mrs Wickham implored.

"Yes, Wicky, please allow us to hear you answer the questions your wife has asked of you," Darcy challenged.

"It is of no consequence; I have proof of our marriage. As you can see," Wickham withdrew the page from his regimental jacket's pocket. "We were married in the Meryton church this morning, and we have already consummated the wedding so there will be no annulment. As her husband, I demand her dowry. Also, unless you add ten thousand, Mr Bingley, I cannot guarantee your sister's treatment." Feeling pleased with himself, Wickham turned to Darcy. "You will pay me little Georgiana's dowry, or I will let it be known how you were jilted."

Mrs Wickham stood rooted to the spot. Had she been played for a fool and married the son of a servant and not the heir to Pemberley and Darcy House. She was trying to process what she had heard. Surely she was too intelligent to be taken in the way it seemed she may have been.

This time, none of those seated restrained their laughter. Bingley wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes. "Hand me the certificate," Bingley requested once he had brought his mirth under control. Wickham gladly handed it over.

Once he had read the page, Bingley handed it to Darcy.

The latter read it over. "It looks to be genuine, and Wicky knows how easy it would be for us to go speak to Mr Chambers. He would not lie about something so easily verifiable." Darcy folded the paper and handed it back to Bingley.

"We all agree the marriage occurred this morning, Tuesday the thirtieth day of October, do we not?" Bingley verified.

"Of course, as you see," Wickham confirmed with some asperity. Why was no one cowed by him? Surely Darcy did not want it to be known he was a jilt? Something was not adding up. At least, Darcy had not attacked him physically .

"And you want your wife's dowry?" Bingley enquired.

"As it must be, seeing there was no settlement signed before the wedding," Wickham spat back. This was getting tiresome. "Turn over her twenty thousand pounds, and I will leave your sister in your custody."

"No thank you," Bingley replied calmly. Wickham stood with his mouth hanging open and lost some of his colour again.

"To which part?" Wickham almost squeaked.

"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 per annum ," 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 bedded that ."

"We anticipated our vows yester-afternoon after your proposal!" Mrs Wickham contradicted loudly. Seeing everything 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.

" MRS BENNET, YOU WILL NOT EVER REPEAT THAT LIE AGAIN !" Bennet thundered. "If I ever hear that drivel come from your mouth, or it comes back to me that you have repeated it or anything similar to another, I will banish you to a cottage, and you will never receive pin money from that point forward! Do I make myself clear?"

Somewhat shaking from fear, Fanny gave a tight nod.

"That is better." Bennet turned to Elizabeth. "You asked to speak to us, we are here and listening to you."