“Darcy!” The shout came from behind him. He knew it could only be Monmouth, probably sent by O’Reilly to hunt him down. Darcy hesitated, for a moment his breeding holding him hostage to convention, but Monmouth’s second shout of his name propelled him toward the stairs. He had reached them, the post at the head of the stairs under his hand, when a grip closed about his arm from behind. “Darcy!” Monmouth breathed heavily. “The evening has only begun! You cannot be leaving?”

Monmouth’s touch made his skin want to crawl, but he controlled the urge to pull away and turned back to his old hall mate with a remarkable calm. “Yes, I fear I must; another engagement, you must understand, which I ignore at my peril.”

“But Sylvanie is to sing in only a few moments! Surely your appointment will allow for that!” Momouth urged him. “And she will be extremely disappointed if you do not stay and hear her. A song and a drink, what do you say, old man?” An undercurrent of panic colored the reasonable words of his request and the wary look upon his face, putting a period to any doubts Darcy may have had about Dy’s veracity.

“Impossible, Monmouth,” he replied firmly. “I am behind the time already and beg you will excuse me.”

“You made no mention of another engagement when you arrived,” His Lordship persisted. “Come, if something has offended, allow me to make amends. For old times’ sake, Darcy.”

“Old times’ sake, Tris?” Darcy could no longer mask his disgust. “How could you?” he demanded of him and pulled away. Monmouth’s protests were met by his back as he stalked down the stairs and requested his things from the footman. A flurry of activity warned Darcy that the plans for his entrapment had not yet been given over by all the participants. As he placed his beaver atop his head and took his walking stick from the footman, Lady Monmouth appeared at the head of the stairs.

“Darcy!” Her voice, low and entreating, called to him. Propriety and good breeding, he very well knew, demanded he acknowledge her, but right now his feeling about social niceties were that they could be damned! Taking his stick into a ferocious grip, he turned pointedly to the door, causing the doorman to spring for the handle and wrench it open.

“Another time, then,” Sylvanie promised with a scornful laugh, “when you are less easily frightened by the world that is coming.” Those in the hall and on the steps around her tittered appreciatively.

Darcy stood motionless, beyond measure angered and stung by her mockery and the public humiliation she had dealt him. Summoning every ounce of hauteur he possessed, he turned on his heel and raised cold eyes to her beautiful, taunting countenance.

“Never, madam,” he answered her, biting off each word in solemn vow, “never on your life!” Not deigning to wait for a reply, Darcy swung back to the door and, with broad stride, walked out into the cool night air.

“The Fox and Drake, Portman Road,” he instructed the driver of the first conveyance that pulled to a stop at the curb.

“Righto, guv’nah.” The cabbie laid a finger to his brim, saluting him.

It was only after he’d been sitting back in the hansom’s dark interior for a few blocks that the anger-wrought tension began to loosen its grip on Darcy and allow him to think. Think! He wrested the privilege of mocking himself from Sylvanie’s duplicitous hands. How have you fallen into the role of the world’s greatest fool? That you have been deceived for years by one of your oldest friends and twice entered willingly into the orbit of a woman bent on using you for God knows what nefarious purposes? That the woman you love…He looked out the window. The streets of London were alive yet with the city’s more exalted citizenry and would continue so until the small hours of the morning. Ladies leaned on their gentlemen’s arms, laughing and excited, eager for the glitter and whirl of gatherings within the lofty halls of the many ballrooms and drawing rooms promised by row upon row of stately homes.

Darcy closed his eyes against the sights, the yearning slicing through him, painful as a cut to the heart. Yes, the world’s greatest fool! And what the world’s greatest fool needed now was a drink! The hansom pulled to a stop. Darcy climbed down and threw the fare up to the driver, who caught it handily. “G’night, gov’nah!” He nodded as he pocketed the coin.

“That remains to be seen,” Darcy responded. The driver laughed and commanded his horse to walk on, leaving Darcy to inspect the front of the public house. Its sign hung brightly illuminated in lamplight, showing a strong young fox exuding a wide grin while a fat drake dangled from its jaws. “Almost,” Darcy addressed the fox, which he had no doubt was a vixen. “But tonight the drake got away.” He bent and opened the pub’s door. Immediately, he was welcomed by its owner.

“What will it be, sir? I have a room available,” the man offered cheerily.

“No, no room, just a table in a corner,” he answered him. “Are you well stocked?”

“Why, yes, sir!”

“Good! Bring me your best brandy.” The man’s smile grew broader as he put a glass on a tray in front of him and began to open a bottle. “No, you misunderstand me.” Darcy stopped him. “Not just a glass. Leave the bottle as well.”


It was curious, Darcy reflected as he cradled the remains of his second glass of brandy, how every time his thoughts managed to fight their way up into the realm of his control, when he could begin to hope to direct them into rational avenues, they fell down again into a ghastly, maudlin tangle. He sat back and stared for a moment at the glinting amber liquid captured in the glass in his hand, then downed what remained of it. Where was Dy, anyway? If he would only come, the blasted sneaksby, the scoundrel! Acting like a positive coxcomb all these years! Laying the glass aside, he pulled out his pocket watch. Its hands danced wantonly but were not so wayward that he could not in the end verify that, indeed, an hour and more had passed without Brougham showing his face. He shoved the ill-behaved mechanism back into his waistcoat pocket. Well, when Dy did arrive, Darcy would tell him exactly what he thought of him! Yes, the delivery of a good dressing-down would serve admirably in putting a stop to this infernal brooding!

As if to pledge himself to his design, Darcy snagged the brandy bottle and poured himself another, but he missed the snifter’s rim by a hairsbreadth, the liquid fire flowing instead down its side and puddling around its base. With an oath, he moved the glass. That he had fallen into distemper was the conclusion he came to as he sat in a corner of the Fox and Drake and finished his second glass of brandy. Try as hard as he might to argue otherwise, he was forced to concede that he had not yet spent any significant time without Elizabeth Bennet occupying the uppermost place in his thoughts. Nothing had served to dismiss her completely: not his anger at her accusations, his indignation at her opinion of him, or the monumental shock at her rejection of his suit. He imagined her wiping her hands of him, crowing her triumph in bringing him to his knees. Did she and that friend of hers, that Mrs. Collins, laugh together over his humiliation? Darcy’s jaw hardened as he again picked up the bottle, this time finding the glass without mishap. Nothing helped relieve or even mitigate his disconsolation. Solitude betrayed him, sleep fled him, sport offered only a temporary reprieve, and Society — well, look at what his venture into Society had almost done to him! And now, here he was alone, in a strange public house, on his third glass, and with not even the comfort of a friend to keep him from getting ape-drunk. How had he come to such a pass? He retrieved the brandy glass and raised it in toast to himself. “To the World’s Greatest Fool!”

“Oh, I would hazard you have rather heavy competition for that title, old man!” Dy sat down heavily in the chair across from him, his face drawn and tired.

“Where did you come from?” Darcy demanded without looking up and then downed a significant portion.

“The back door,” Dy replied casually. “I know the owner. He told me you have been drinking this.” He placed a new bottle of brandy on the table. “But I did not realize that he meant by the bottle. Let me call for some ale or, better yet, some coffee —”

“This will do very well.” Darcy cut him off and took up the bottle, placing it next to his original before pouring his friend a glass.

Dy eyed him speculatively. “I believe the last time we did something like this was the first time we met.”

“I believe you are right.” Darcy held up his glass.

“To old friends.” Dy tipped his glass against Darcy’s and joined him, then sank back into the chair with a sigh.

“Well, ‘old friend.’ ” Darcy nursed his glass, watching the brandy swirl. “Are you finished playing footman for the night, or must you toddle off soon to play next as my lady’s maid?”

“I suppose I deserve that, but I had hoped better from you, Fitz,” Dy returned steadily. “I had also thought to find you sober enough to hear my explanation,” he added as his friend took another drink.

Darcy raised a brow at him. “I’m sober enough to hear your miserable excuses for deceiving me…deceiving me into thinking you had abandoned your reason in favor of…of what? I never could fathom it, but I still counted you as friend.” To emphasize the point, he replenished their glasses and, picking up his, lifted it to Brougham. “To old friends.”

“We already drank to that,” Dy drawled, a wry smile relaxing the tension in his face. He tipped his glass to Darcy’s all the same and closed his eyes as the liquor warmed his senses. “Oh, what a night!” He shook his head and then leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and studied his friend. “And now I have you to contend with. Were you in charge of your faculties, I might know what to do; but three sheets —”