He shook his head, turning toward Elizabeth. “I will not go so far as to say he consciously plotted to supplant me. I believe it was primarily jealousy. You see, my father and Mr. Wickham had met at Cambridge. Mr. Wickham, the elder, was of modest means, the third son of a country gentleman from Sussex. Their friendship was genuine, but it was Mr. Wickham’s intelligence that won him a position in our household. I am absolutely positive that Mr. Wickham never resented the arrangement, recognizing his good fortune in being steward to a grand estate while also working for a man he respected and held affection for. George Wickham, however, thought otherwise.”

He sighed, running one broad hand over his face. “He is a born manipulator. Quite impressively skilled at it if one looks at it in that light. I was far from stupid as a child, but somewhat naïve, as I have told you before. Sheltered. It was easy to bait me, if one knew how to do it, and Wickham did. He well understood my nature for adventure, the typical wildness of a boy coupled with a healthy dose of pride and arrogance.” He looked at his wife with a crooked grin. “Yes, even then, Elizabeth, I confess.”

Lizzy laughed softly, nodding.

Darcy continued, the smile gone, “Still, I did not go out of my way to inflict injury upon my person. I was cautious for the most part, not one who particularly relished physical pain. Buried deep under the need for excitement and the desire to push myself physically was a sense of restraint. I was sensible and serious, as Mrs. Reynolds would always say. But Wickham knew how to circumvent that. He masterfully, as I now see it, dared and taunted me into recklessness. Such as climbing that ridiculous tree.”

He touched his left rib cage, fingertips absently massaging the palpable bump. “I never gave you all the details, Elizabeth. Do you know it was the massive oak in the private garden, the one that grows over the nymph fountain? I had climbed trees before—what boy doesn’t?—but that tree is enormous. The lowest branch, even now, I can barely touch with my fingers. At twelve years of age, I needed to scale the statue, stand on a nymph’s head, and jump to the branch.”

Lizzy gasped, knowing the scene, and her blood ran cold at the vision of a young Darcy, or Alexander, performing such a feat.

“Indeed,” he agreed with her exclamation. “Utterly foolish. Of course, I was momentarily filled with conceit as I attained my goal, standing on the limb in all the glory of a conqueror. Then Wickham said he did not think I had the nerve to go higher.” Darcy closed his eyes in remembered embarrassment. “Idiot! Headstrong, foolish, imbecilic, cocky. And, as it turned out, incredibly lucky or protected by God, I know not which. I deftly climbed to the next limb and then the one above it before slipping. I hit the lowest branch on my way down, cracking the rib and scraping through my clothes to the skin.” He extended his left arm, one fingertip tracing where the long scar on his inner forearm remained. “It was that impact and the naiad that saved me, I think. Or her hair, more precisely, as my arm caught on the upswept end of her marble tresses, cutting deep, but slowing my descent and flipping me over so that I landed on the mossy ground rather than the fountain edge. I fainted, or was knocked unconscious, I am not sure which, but when I awoke it was to the gardener bending over me. Wickham had fled the scene, leaving me. The gardener found me accidentally.”

Darcy shook his head again, Lizzy spellbound and feeling ill at the story. “He apologized later, saying that he had panicked.” Darcy shrugged. “I was young and forgave him. After all, I was not truly hurt all that badly and in the silliness of adolescence such exploits are deemed exciting, worn as a badge of honor while basking in the glow of womanly soothing. But it was just one of many such incidents that I gazed upon years later with discerning eyes and wondered.”

“What sort of incidents?” Lizzy spoke in a bare whisper, almost afraid to ask.

Darcy, in all his revelations of his youth, a part of his life that was no longer a mystery to Lizzy, never mentioned George Wickham. She knew that they had been childhood friends, although certainly not on par with his friendship to Gerald Vernor, Albert Hughes, or Richard Fitzwilliam. Yet, in relating their daredevil deeds and boyish capers, he ignored Wickham’s existence. She did not press the issue, knowing that memories of Wickham caused him pain and anger. In the end, she had assumed it was not all that important. Now she experienced a shiver of fear, unsure if she was resilient enough to learn the brutal truth about the man her sister was married to.

Darcy obviously wondered the same. He hesitated, studying her closely. Finally, he crossed the thick-carpeted floor, sitting onto the sofa and taking his wife’s hands. “I have no proof for the most part, Elizabeth. As a child it was primarily the aforementioned baiting of me, and his false wooing. Falling from that tree was the worse injury I sustained, but there were other times that I could have been wounded due to bizarre accidents or foolish risks. But he acted my friend convincingly with his innate charisma. I confess that we were all taken in by him, me included. I remember wishing I possessed the easy personality of Wickham, and Richard and Gerald for that matter. I tried to emulate them but could never pull it off.”

He smiled ruefully, Lizzy reaching to stroke his cheek, her eyes tender. He kissed her fingertips gently, understanding the unspoken words behind the gesture: his wife would never wish for him to be other than who he was, reserved and taciturn with a mellow playfulness and wit seen only by those most intimate.

He continued, holding her eyes, “I do not believe that Wickham was born a villain, but came to use his natural gifts for the negative, all due to an unrelenting resentment. As I wrote in my letter to you, Father assisted with Wickham’s education, an education he never would have been capable of under normal circumstances, and Mr. Wickham was grateful. Yet, he continually reminded his son of the disparity in our stations, emphasized their dependence upon and indebtedness to Mr. Darcy. This rankled Wickham, to put it mildly.”

He sat back into the sofa, holding tightly to Lizzy’s hand as he resumed his narrative. “Again, it is hindsight. Comments he would make, expressions on his face, actions that varied depending on who was present. Subtle aspersions against me, impudent interactions with Georgiana, and inappropriate impertinence to the servants. I increasingly felt uneasy in his presence as we aged, but did not begin to see the full truth of his character until we were older, after mother died. Father was distant, often lost to his grief, so Mr. Wickham assumed more responsibility. He did it gladly, but Wickham resented it. Plus, he interpreted the adults’ abstraction as carte blanche. He was bolder, more reckless in conveying his disdain and imperiousness.”

He shook his head, eyes locked with Lizzy, but his thoughts looking inward down the passages of time. “Who can ever say with conviction how events may have unfolded if time turned down a separate path? If Mr. Wickham had not rigidly reminded his son of the gap in our stations. If certain comforts and privileges had not been denied. If our parents had not been consumed with other affairs.” He shrugged, eyes clearing as he smiled grimly. “However, I do not hold with the opinion that a person is exclusively the product of outside influences, to be pitied or excused for their behavior and choices. Wickham was given opportunities far above most men in his place and he abused them all. During those years, there were numerous thefts about the manor. Trinkets, odd pieces of jewelry, silver utensils, and the like. Nothing of great worth, but losses nonetheless. We never were able to discover the culprit, assumed it was a servant although that seemed unlikely, as they have always been largely trustworthy. I have since come to believe it was Wickham.”

“Why?”

“Aside from the fact that it simply fits into his character and that the thefts halted once we left for University is the fact that he always seemed to have money beyond what logic would dictate. Father helped pay for his education at Cambridge, but Wickham should not have been able to… entertain, shall we say, in the manner he did. Even my allowance would not have afforded his extravagant diversions.”

The disgust was plain on his face, Darcy being a man whose principles strongly abhorred such “diversions.” With tight jaw, furrowed brow, and voice steely, he resumed his narrative, “Long before father’s death and the events that unfolded thereafter, I had come to fully understand the character of George Wickham. Those years were an education to me in many ways. A genteel lady such as you, my love, does not require the same education. But trust me, when I said that I knew Wickham was utterly unfit as a clergyman, I know precisely of what I spoke.”

His lips pressed tightly together as a shudder ran through his body. Darcy’s reverence for the Church was profound, his distress over any profanity extreme. Lizzy squeezed his hands tightly, heart aching as she caressed firmly and waited for him to continue.

He sighed, eyes filled with a flinty hardness. “I am no longer naïve or a fool, Elizabeth. I am well aware of the evil nature of people in our world. It sickens me, but cannot be denied. Is George Wickham evil?” He shrugged. “I suppose that depends on one’s definition of the word. But I do know he is not to be trusted and is a scoundrel at the very least. He may not have planned my ruin or death with deliberation, but I am absolutely certain he would have welcomed and reveled in it. And I know his villainy matured because I saw the calculation in how he lied to my father, approached me for his inheritance and for more money, and with Georgiana. And with you.”