An Unexpected Ally

Part 22

The Netherfield parlour was silent but for the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Ordinarily, Darcy found the quiet comforting but that afternoon the tension was so thick that silence merely kept his already frayed nerves perpetually on edge.

"Perhaps -" Caroline began to speak, but hurriedly swallowed the rest of her sentence at the glare her brother shot her.

Darcy drew a breath, wondering who, if any of them, might be able to break the silent stalemate that had fallen over the room. He was spared the challenge of trying, however, because there was a knock at the parlour door, which opened immediately to admit a servant who skirted Bingley altogether, going straight to Darcy's right-hand side. If Bingley took a slight from being thus ignored in the house that was technically his, he did not show it, and whilst Caroline might ordinarily have reacted angrily, she was too concerned with her brother to notice.

"Sir, you have a caller..." The servant kept his voice quiet, shooting a glance over his shoulder that betrayed he was particularly careful of not being overheard by the newest arrivals. "It is Colonel Fitzwilliam."

Darcy straightened, casting a concerned glance at his friend, but the servant did his job well, keeping his voice a low whisper that did not carry.

"I have shown him into the study, sir, thinking it best you meet him there."

"Indeed!" Darcy stood, pacing a quick retreat towards the door with the servant in tow. "Quite right." He paused at the threshold, glancing back towards his friends, who scarcely seemed to notice he had moved. Charles continued to glare fiercely towards the fireplace, stewing over the wrongs that had been done to him, and Caroline and Georgiana both watched him helplessly.

With reluctance, and a pressing wish to meet and dismiss his cousin as soon as possible, Darcy hurried along the corridor to the study and pushed the door open, finding Richard standing to attention before the fire.

"Darcy."

He did not smile, and Darcy felt again the chill of estrangement that had crept up between them. I am not to blame for that! he recalled, taking a seat and wordlessly gesturing his cousin to another.

"Am I not welcome in the parlour now?" Richard's voice was cool, but Darcy thought he could sense genuine hurt in his cousin's eyes.

"I much prefer to meet you here," Darcy said, taking care to push the door closed. "Where we might have privacy."

"Privacy?" Richard smirked, taking the chair Darcy had pointed to. "From whom? Ah, but I shall not question Fitzwilliam Darcy on modes of etiquette. There is sure to be some fine reason behind your actions that a rough colonel cannot begin to grasp."

Darcy said nothing, but steepled his hands and stared past them at his cousin in silence. For a long moment, neither gentleman said a word.

"What do you want, Richard?"

It was Darcy who spoke, at last, rueing the sharpness of his voice in the otherwise quiet room. It made the request sound more like censure than he meant it to, and Richard stiffened, any ounce of amiability in his manner dropping completely.

"I came to call on my cousin at home. And to mend fences after our disagreement last evening." He muttered something else under his breath, casting a dismal look at the fire, and in the end seemed to come to some unspoken agreement within himself. He stood, striding towards the door. "I see now I have made a mistake in doing so. Fear not, Darcy, I know when I am not wanted."

He strode out into the hallway, leaving the door to the small study wide open behind him, and Darcy did not let go of the breath he held until Richard's sharp footsteps retreated into silence.

That solved nothing. He rubbed his forehead, the scowl sliding back into place and hiding a headache he could already feel forming. Richard had tried to make amends, perhaps even to explain himself, and Darcy had denied him even the chance of reconciliation.

I did not prevent it altogether, he reasoned. Richard might have said anything in his defence and I would have listened. All told, though, he could not mourn the fact that his cousin was safely gone from Netherfield and safe from Charles Bingley, at least for a little while longer. He did not yet know how he was going to dissuade his friend from pursuing his claim against Richard. A duel would spell disaster, for Darcy did not doubt Richard's prowess with a rifle, but he certainly did not wish to be caught between the two duellers. If only he had not written to Charles! But this, too, was a vain hope. His friend would have come having heard nothing, just as eagerly as he had come after receiving Darcy's letter, he knew that. But had his deliberate mention of Richard been the fuse to Bingley's rarely seen anger?

"Darcy?"

It was Georgiana's voice that called to him and Darcy stood, rearranging his features into a smile just in time for her to knock lightly at the open study door, stepping inside cautiously.

"Oh, you are alone! Good." She smiled with relief.

Darcy nodded, saying nothing. He had not managed to make sense of the conflict between Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam, nor think how to resolve it. He had not imagination spare to consider how best to handle Georgiana's presence in Meryton, and Wickham still so close by.

"Do not look so seriously at me," Georgiana warned. "I know you are poised to tell me I ought to have remained in London and I shall simply demand to know what good I could have done there, with all this chaos going on here?"

"Chaos?" Darcy asked, wryly. "Is that what this is?"

"You have a better word?" Georgiana smiled, tightly. "But together I am sure we can puzzle out a solution." Her breath caught and she glanced over her shoulder. "And it is for that reason I came to find you. Charles - that is, Mr Bingley - is eager to ride over to Netherfield and see Miss Bennet. I offered to go with him. I don't think it wise he go alone, not when he is so out of temper, and Miss Bingley is too tired to make the journey, she says. I wondered..." She looked at him with eyes bigger than usual. "Might you be persuaded to come with us?"

Darcy's heart sank. What he wouldn't give to acquiesce to Georgiana's request! He could see Elizabeth again, who, despite all that surrounded him, was never far from his thoughts. He could ensure Bingley not say or do a thing he regretted. He could have the joy of seeing his sister welcomed and well-liked - for how could she not be - by a whole family of friends.

"Very well," he said, at last, his voice little more than a sigh. "Let us go now, and perhaps between us we can keep Charles from making an even greater fool of himself than he has already."