Karen Wasylowski - Darcy and Fitzwilliam: A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer

“Your wits are merely the first of many sacrifices to come.”

The quiet warmth of the room and the strong bonds of love and family kept them quiet and content for a long while. Then, suddenly unwilling to delay a moment longer, he hugged her tight and said a silent prayer before delivering his long-overdue confession. “I found the letter from Caroline,” he whispered. “I never realized before how evil and cruel she could be. I must confess to you, Elizabeth, that I did see her at Netherfield, but only because she had tricked me into going there. She forged a message to me from Charles, saying he needed help with a problem. I thought it concerned Jane and didn’t want to stress you if it was something I could handle alone.” He scrubbed his face roughly. “So much for my consideration. Anyway, I left immediately upon learning of her deceit.”

Stunned for a moment, she said nothing. “But you could have told me, William. I would have understood.” She then remembered her sporadic pregnancy ravings and sighed. “… Or not. Well, perhaps it was best that you said nothing. But that trip was months ago. Why send the note now, when we are so vulnerable? Could she have deliberately timed the letter’s arrival?”

He could not speak for a long while. “If I thought that, I don’t know what I would do to her, can’t even let myself think. But I tell you we won’t ever again see or hear from her. I will have to tell Bingley the whole story, and you will need to confide in your sister Jane so that we can arrange our visits with them without coming into contact with Caroline. Is that all right with you, Elizabeth?”

She nodded. “I would never lose Jane through this. I think they will both understand. I hope so, at any rate.”

“Now, go to sleep. I’ll put the angel back into his cradle.”

All around him, as far as he could see, Fitzwilliam saw babies, cooing babies crawling where there should have been the mutilated dead bodies of grown men. This was unacceptable. It was going to take him all night to collect these children and bring them somewhere that would be safe, and then who would feed them? He turned to his sergeant major, sorry to observe that the entire side of the poor man’s head was still blown away. He tried to help the soldier reattach the jawbone of his shattered face then pointed to the babies crawling between them, around them. The man nodded in silent understanding, and they both began to walk to the glacis surrounding the burning fortress.

Fitzwilliam was standing once again at the siege of Badajoz, and the constant pounding of the cannonade in his dreams gradually altered itself into ordinary knocking on their bedroom door, easily dismissed at first, but soon the unrelenting persistence grew closer and louder, and Richard awoke.

Amanda’s eyes, however, had blinked wide open immediately with the certain knowledge of what was happening. “Don’t say a word,” she whispered into his ear. “Ignore her. Please.” They heard someone call his name. It was the morning of their third day at Pemberley House, their departure delayed for many reasons—contentment at being together finally, complacency over their success at escaping, minor difficulties in obtaining just the right coach, passage to the Continent becoming intermittent, ruled by the weather. Besides, no one had bothered them. The sense of urgency had diminished.

“Colonel Fitzwilliam. It’s the nursemaid, sir. Mr. Darcy is at the dressing-room door and says he must speak with you immediately. There are some people outside, sir.” She sounded anxious.

Fitzwilliam scrubbed his eyes with his hand to force the sleep from them. He heard Darcy in the distance bark an order down to someone on the first floor, sounding angrier and more urgent now. “I must see to him, Amanda. Darcy would never be pounding on our door like this if it wasn’t important.” She attempted to stop him, but he patted off her hand and was pulling on his smallclothes, breeches, and shirt before she could say anything more.

He walked quickly across their bedroom, pulling open their door.

“Excuse me, please, Colonel, for disturbing you like this, but Mr. Darcy is that insistent.”

“Yes, that’s quite all right. I understand. If you would, bring the child in here to his mother.” He turned toward Amanda to give her some instruction, but his breath caught at the sight of her. She stood in the corner of the room, looking small and petrified. He smiled faintly at her and then whispered to the nurse as he passed, “Please close the door to the bedroom after I leave.” She nodded in understanding.

***

“What has happened?” Richard watched as Darcy stormed past him into the sitting room. Plainly about to explode with anger, he turned around at the table before the fireplace, his hands on his hips. Richard raised his hand to stay him, giving a quick glance at the closed bedroom door. “And please keep your voice down. I don’t want Amanda unnecessarily alarmed.” It was a moment before Darcy could calm himself enough to speak.

“I’ll tell you what has happened.” Darcy moved closer. “The world has gone mad. That’s what has happened. There are at least a dozen hideous-looking Bow Street thugs out there—poor old Winters was nearly struck by one of them. They tried to force their way into the house, the bastards! Luckily, my hideous-looking thugs are bigger and so managed to keep the scoundrels out. But here’s the thing—I believe they are demanding the boy be brought out immediately. I overheard someone exclaiming loudly that the child had been kidnapped, if you can imagine a mother being accused of that! And a crowd is quickly gathering. Evidently, the entire area has suddenly decided to use a good woman’s personal tragedy as diverting entertainment.”

“Damn it! I am so sorry to have brought this to your doorstep. I should have known. Blast, we should have left yesterday.”

“The point is that we must shield Amanda and the boy. I cannot permit a child to be taken from his mother, most especially a member of my own family, and they are both part of this family now.” Darcy was storming back and forth before the fireplace, pounding his fist into his hand.

“You know you’re beautiful when you’re angry.”

“Oh shut up. Now, how do you want to handle this?” He sat down on the edge of the desk, his arms folded before him. “I was informed that there is a clerk of the court present with some sort of legal document to deliver, probably a court order. I say we present a type of combined front of bullshit, intimidate the man enough to buy some time, perhaps even turn the crowd against him until we locate someone who can return to override any immediate custody order he may have.”

“Well, we outfoxed footballers four years our senior at Harrow, we should be able to bluff our way through this.” Fitzwilliam began rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “Bloody hell, this is entirely my fault! Amanda tried to warn me about the woman’s vindictiveness, but I thought she was overreacting. Never imagined the old witch would take this to the courts! I’ve been expecting her footmen to come first with her demands. Damn, I suppose I should have listened, taken this more seriously. If only we had more time!”

“Have you heard anything from the lawyers? Surely, now that you are her husband, she’ll have more standing in the courts.”

“As a matter of fact, I have Drake and Poole working on something very promising.” He placed a bare foot on the seat of one of the chairs, resting his forearm across his knee. “But they must request a review by parliament. You know how it is, with all the lawyers involved and then the mind-boggling slowness of the House of Lords—this could drag on for some time. Shit! Well, if he does have a court order, we have little choice in the matter. The boy shall have to be returned. Oh God, this will break Amanda’s heart. She obsesses over that child, is terrified of being separated from him for even the smallest moment.”

“How could someone be heartless enough to separate a mother and small child permanently? Do you think the old woman is only bluffing?”

“I have no idea. Bah! The whole thing is out of our hands, for the moment anyway. I know the child would not be in any physical danger left alone with his grandmother. From what Amanda has said, the woman adores the boy, dotes on him. I have no doubt he would be well cared for. We will eventually obtain custody, of that I am certain.”

Darcy studied his cousin intently. “Frankly, I don’t foresee Amanda taking a separation from her son that lightly, Richard. She seems a most devoted mother.” Darcy’s memory went back to his own exhausted and half-dead wife begging him to take her life to spare her child’s, and then further astonishing him by clawing her way across her bed to reach her baby. He felt the unease of impending disaster. “I don’t believe mothers are easy in their minds over any separation from their children, no matter how slight a duration.”

“Well, naturally I understand that. I am not totally insensitive. I’ll explain my reasoning to her. She’s a good, loving wife, Darcy, as well as a good mother. She understands that in a proper marriage the husband must sometimes make hard decisions and the woman must follow. She’s a truly wonderful person.”

Darcy shifted nervously, alarm bells clanging away loudly in his head. After all, he had been married longer than his cousin. He gave an involuntary shudder.

“What is it now, Darcy?” An exasperated Fitzwilliam was getting heartily tired of being contradicted.

“Well, a wonderful wife she may be, Fitzwilliam, but… she is a woman, too, and an American woman at that. She may not be as obedient as you wish.”

By the time Fitzwilliam threw on his coat and boots and he and Darcy had descended to the foyer, the small group of curious onlookers had grown, scattered now both up and down the street and beginning to drift across the square. Carriages on the avenue occasionally needed to maneuver around the milling crowd, and two had even stopped to fight over right of way. The sight that had attracted everyone’s interest was the gang of rough-looking Bow Street Runners assembled before Pemberley House, the undisputed jewel of the avenue. All of those said runners were large, hideously ugly, and disgraceful-looking.

It was great fun.

To further pique the crowd’s delight, the runners were facing equally distasteful-looking footmen, coachmen, and gardeners, brutes all, attired in the exquisite Pemberley livery of scarlet and grey. They stood guard on either side of the doorway where poor old Winters was under intense verbal attack.

“What is the meaning of this?” Darcy’s sudden appearance at the door hushed the crowd—the show had begun. He scanned the onlookers, measuring their mood, then confronted the official-looking gentleman who was apparently the occasion’s spokesperson.

“Might I come in, sir?”

“No, you may not.” The crowd shuffled uneasily.

Dramatically, a document was withdrawn from the gentleman’s inside pocket. He nervously cleared his throat. Ahem. “Charges have been filed with the local magistrate demanding immediate resumption of custody of the child of the late Sir Augustus Penrod to Lady Marguerite Penrod, his mother. We have reason to believe that the child in question was kidnapped”—the crowd gasped—“two evenings past and was brought here.” Smatterings of appreciation emboldened the man. He turned a dignified and self-righteous face to the crowd.

“How dare you toss about such inciting accusations!” Darcy barked. “I should have you thrown into the street, you and your pack of apes!” The crowd grew unhappy with this response, judging it to be possibly undignified and still being unsure of their collective position. A few disparaging remarks were thrown into the air.

Meanwhile, Fitzwilliam had stepped up and snatched the court order from the clerk’s hands. He read it through thoroughly.

“Take this gang of thugs and leave my property immediately,” Darcy commanded.

“No, sir, I can assure you that with the safety of a child involved, we will not.” There was a smattering of applause. “I have the law on my side, and you, sir, should have a care for what you say.” He was a truly proud man at that moment. He smiled smugly.

Fitzwilliam folded up the order and stuffed it into his coat pocket. Casting a murderous look at the clerk, he elbowed his way before Darcy. The clerk’s smug smile quickly evaporated; he was suddenly intimidated, tongue tied in the presence of a minor celebrity. “How dare you speak to this fine gentleman in such a manner!” Fitzwilliam barked. “Have you no shame? Do you have any idea who this man is? Do you? Well, sir, I shall tell you. Why his great, great, great, well, many greats I can assure you of that, grandfather was executed as a traitor by none other than the magnificent Henry VIII himself!”