After nearly an hour of driving, the phaeton pulled up in front of a seedy-looking inn. Any hope Darcy had held that Wickham and his partner were pursuing an innocent course of action faded along with the houses of Meryton.
Because he had not caught up with them until they had left the town, Darcy had decided to follow the pair until they stopped, instead of attempting to waylay the carriage. He did not know what Wickham would have done had Darcy suddenly appeared out of the night, but he couldn’t risk the man taking off at a gallop. That conveyance along this road at night would spell disaster for the passengers.
So, Darcy had kept pace with the phaeton, biding his time until they pulled over.
He was still uncertain who was with Wickham, but whomever it was would not go into the inn with Wickham without first passing through Darcy. He spurred his horse into a gallop and covered the distance between himself and the inn in moments.
“Wickham!” He yelled angrily, swinging out of his saddle and throwing the horse’s reins over the post in front of the inn as he saw Wickham stepping out of the phaeton. Wickham whipped around and Darcy felt a cold satisfaction at the look of shock and dismay upon the other man’s face.
“What are you doing here?” The sneer on Wickham’s face was not quite successful in obscuring his surprise at Darcy’s appearance in the darkness.
Darcy ignored the man and looked past him into the carriage. To his dismay, he saw Lydia slouched in the seat. She was obviously safe, but still quite drunk. Darcy stared darkly at Wickham.
“What are you doing with her?” He asked through clenched teeth, his hands balled into fists at his side. He had never struck another person in anger; he had dallied with boxing during his university years, and he was considered a good fighter, but he disliked the sport and had not sparred in years. Now, however, he felt rage coursing through his veins and he feared he might beat Wickham before the man had a change to explain.
“Mr. Darcy?” Lydia said, her speech slurred. “Why are you here? Wickham, why is he here?” She sat up unsteadily and looked around. “Where are we?”
“Miss Lydia,” Darcy said quietly, leaning into the carriage to better see her face. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
“Hurt?” Lydia giggled inappropriately. “Why would I be hurt?”
“Wickham,” Darcy persisted, attempting to discern exactly what had transpired. “Did Wickham force you to come with him?”
“No!” Lydia said, sounding indignant. “He said he was going to take me somewhere special and give me a surprise!”
“There,” Wickham said, a note of triumph in his voice. “You see, Darcy, she is here by her own choice. You can leave now.”
Darcy stood up straight, taking full advantage of his six feet of height. He overtopped Wickham by two inches and he stared menacingly down at the other man. Wickham did not even have the decency to look ashamed.
“She is drunk,” he said, unable to keep the anger from his voice.
“Not my doing,” Wickham waved dismissively. “She was inebriated before I ever met her.”
Darcy saw a tell-tale lump in Wickham’s jacket pocket, and he grabbed the man roughly.
“Unhand me, sir!” Wickham protested, but made no move to stop Darcy. Darcy found what he expected and pulled a nearly-empty flask from Wickham’s pocket. He opened the top and the smell of cheap brandy assaulted his nose. He held the flask up accusingly.
“Think what you will, but it was not I who gave her the first drink of the evening,” Wickham said, adjusting his jacket.
“She is a child,” Darcy said, pouring out the remaining alcohol onto the ground.
Wickham shrugged his shoulders.
“She is sixteen,” he replied coolly. “And a woman in all the ways that matter.”
Darcy felt ill to hear the man speak of Lydia in such a disgusting manner. Anger flared within him once more, but before he could speak out his thoughts, a quiet voice emerged behind him.
“Darcy,” Lydia whined in the phaeton. “You’re being ever so mean to Wickham. But then again, you’re mean to everyone. I have no idea why Elizabeth likes you, because no one else does.”
Lydia’s drunken comment unexpectedly cut through Darcy’s anger. What did the girl mean, Elizabeth liked him? Had she said something to her younger sister? Darcy shook his head, refocusing on Wickham. In doing so, the fury that had momentarily been forgot surged forward once more.
He closed his eyes and steadied his voice. “Why have you done this?” he asked, opening his eyes.
“Oh, you know Lydia,” Wickham said, examining his fingernails. “Always up for a fun time. And I said I could give it to her.” He gave Darcy a lascivious grin. “Like I gave your sister.”
Darcy could not stop himself. All of the rage he had been keeping bottled up exploded out of him. His fists lashed out and he caught an unsuspecting Wickham full in the face with one punch, then two. After the second, Wickham dropped to the ground, blood streaming from his nose and mouth.
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” Wickham said nastily, his hands examining the damage to his face. “I don’t see why she deserves your protection.”
Darcy glanced down and saw with grim satisfaction that Wickham’s nose appeared broken and his eyes unfocused. That explained why Wickham hadn’t struck back: Darcy had hit him so hard he couldn’t stand. Taking a step away from the vile man, he ignored Wickham’s words; the rogue did not deserve a response.
He took his horse’s reins and tied them behind the seat of the phaeton before climbing into the driver’s seat. He was taking the conveyance. If Wickham had an issue, he was welcome to bring it before the local magistrate.
Darcy almost wished he would: the opportunity to stand in open court and publicly denounce the man as a blackguard was tempting. He even thought it would be possible to keep the Bennets’ name out of the proceedings, keeping Lydia’s role in the whole affair private. But Wickham was, at his core, a coward. He did not pick fights he was not certain to win, which was why he remained sitting in the dirt while Darcy climbed into his carriage. Wickham would not go to the magistrate.
“Miss Lydia,” Darcy said. “I am taking you home.”
“But I don’t want to go home!” Lydia wailed. “And what about Wickham? How will he get back?”
“Your family is worried sick,” Darcy said sharply. “Wickham will have to find his own way back. We are leaving.” Without waiting for Lydia to respond, he flicked the pony into motion.
“You haven’t done anything here tonight,” Wickham called out cruelly as they started heading back toward Meryton. “There will still be talk! I will win in the end, you know I will!”
Darcy’s mouth was set in a grim line. He had no idea why Wickham had targeted Lydia, no idea why he would attempt to bring her away. He hoped Wickham had intended to elope. But he feared that what Wickham said would be true.
“Miss Lydia,” Darcy said after a while, his tone still quite harsh.
“What?” She answered petulantly, her arms crossed over her chest. She was obviously still displeased that Darcy had taken her away.
“Tell me what happened tonight,” he said.
It was possible, if Lydia was lucky, that her presence—and departure—from the ball had not been noticed. And since the runaway couple had never made it inside the inn, there was a chance that no one—aside from Wickham, of course—had seen her that night. If that was the case, then it was just possible that the family could play off Lydia’s disappearance and the subsequent search as nothing more than a silly young girl lost in the fields.
“They wouldn’t let me go to the ball,” Lydia began to whine. “They…”
Suddenly, a coughing fit wracked the young woman’s body. The horrible sound and the wheezes that followed reminded Darcy that she should be in a sick bed. Glancing about the phaeton, he was dismayed to find there was no blanket or wrap of any kind. Darcy shrugged out of his jacket, and wrapped it around the girl with one hand, the other holding tightly to the reins.
“They wouldn’t let me go to the ball,” Lydia repeated when she had caught her breath. “And I’ve been ever so bored—all I’ve done for weeks is sit in bed and sleep! So I decided I would come anyway.”
“Who gave you the drink?” Darcy asked, more out of curiosity than anything else—he felt certain that it was impossible to be more angry with Wickham.
“I’ve heard people talk about how brandy keeps you warm,” Lydia said very carefully, as if concentrating on saying the words correctly through the haze of liquor. “Mama was very worried that I would be cold. So I drank some of Papa’s brandy before I left.”
Had the situation been different, Darcy might have laughed. Wickham might have kept the girl drunk, but it was her own fault she got that way in the first place. The ridiculous girl was lucky she even made it to the ball instead of falling asleep in the park at Longbourn with her belly full of brandy.
“Then I met Wickham before I even went inside,” Lydia sighed tiredly. “He gave me some more to drink and we talked and laughed. I’ve always found him to be quite pleasant and handsome. He agreed with me that I deserve to have some fun. And he wanted to take me to have some fun. So I went.” She rubbed her face. “I think maybe Mama and Papa will be upset I went. But Wickham said it would be alright. So I went…” Her words trailed off into silence.
Darcy sighed to himself, he could not think too poorly of Lydia. She was a fool and drunk and Wickham was the sort of man to take advantage of both. An honourable man would have immediately found her mother and nothing more would have been said on the matter. But Wickham was far from honourable. The poor girl probably had no idea what Darcy had interrupted. There was a part of Darcy, the elder brother in him, that hoped she never realised how close she had been to losing her virtue and her reputation.
“You gave me your jacket,” Lydia said after a few minutes of silence. Darcy jumped at her words, so certain had he been that she had fallen asleep.
“You seemed cold,” Darcy said a bit awkwardly, unsure of what Lydia’s impaired mind was thinking.
“That was nice of you,” Lydia said, running her fingers over the buttons. “Lizzy said you were kind, but I never really believed her.”
“Miss Elizabeth said that?” Darcy asked, somewhat hesitantly. He did not want to take advantage of Lydia’s inebriation, but his curiosity about Elizabeth’s feelings was overpowering his judgement.
“She said lots of things,” Lydia said. Darcy resisted the urge to press her further, instead he waited with baited breath to see if Lydia continued. “She and Jane talked about you a lot while I was sick. Elizabeth kept saying that you were nice and that she thought she might have affection for you, but she was not sure. They thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t.” She giggled mischievously.
“They never talk about such interesting things with me when I’m awake, so sometimes I pretended to be asleep to hear what they said…” Lydia kept talking but Darcy stopped listening, his heart warmed at knowing that Elizabeth had softened towards him.
He was tempted to push the pony for more speed, but even their current speed threatened to overtake the light the lanterns threw onto the road ahead. He needed to speak with Elizabeth, to hear from her lips what Lydia had said. Elizabeth was a person who needed time to think and consider her feelings—perhaps their separation had given her that opportunity. If he could just hear her say those words, it would make the agonising weeks between their meetings worthwhile.
Lydia continued to talk for a while, but Darcy neither responded nor listened to what she said. Before long, her illness, the brandy and the excitement of the night caught up with her and she slumped against the edge of the phaeton in sleep. Her laboured breathing worried him, and he kept a watchful eye on her dozing form.
Several coughing fits afflicted her, but none pulled her from her sleep. He lightly touched her forehead and found that a fever was once again creeping over her. He frowned as he drove, dismayed that Lydia’s foolishness had invited a relapse. He prayed it would not be serious. Lydia was silly, but her actions did not deserve the punishment of terrible sickness.
It seemed like the drive back to Longbourn took twice as long as it should have. Darcy’s nerves felt frayed by everything that had happened in the last hours. His hands were sore and bruised from hitting Wickham and the chill of the evening had cut through his shirt and waistcoat to leave him shivering with cold. His anticipation at seeing Elizabeth once more was tempered by Lydia and her troubled breaths. Was she getting worse? He could not tell, and the anxiety was building with each rattling gulp of air.
He was thankful to see the windows still ablaze with light as he pulled into the drive of Longbourn. He was exhausted and he wasn’t sure he could have carried Lydia the short distance from the drive to the door. With people still awake, he would not have to worry about that. It had been a long night and he was gratified it was finally coming to an end.