“Two,” Darcy interrupted. “Haven’t reached three…yet.”
“Every bit of three sheets to the wind,” Brougham insisted with a snort. “I do not think I have seen you bosky since that first meeting at university! It was over women then, and we both forswore them at the time, if I recall.” At the remembrance, he suddenly sat up straighter, a look of alarm upon his face. “This is not about Lady Monmouth, I hope!” He gestured to the half empty bottle.
“Sylvanie?” Darcy peered intently at Brougham’s face, the better to bring it into focus. “You must be mad!”
“You are not the first to think so!” His Lordship lapsed into thought. “You seemed rather taken with her tonight, and it naturally occurred —”
“Nothing ‘natural’ about Sylvanie, I assure you.” Darcy laughed bitterly. Then, in a more pensive tone, he continued. “Nor any female, come to that! Not to be trusted, not a one of them — from first to last!”
“That is quite a sweeping condemnation!” Brougham sat back and folded his arms across his chest.
“But true, nonetheless.” Darcy leaned forward and set down his glass. “In their girlhood they learn how to twist men about their fingers, beginning with their fathers, then…” He stabbed at the table with a finger. “Then, they start working their wiles on every honest-hearted man that crosses their path, turning him into a beef-witted Jack Pudding before he knows what he’s about!”
“Indeed?” Brougham’s eyebrows rose.
“Indeed!” Darcy returned and took another drink. He hardly tasted it now, but the fiery liquor seemed to flow into the gaping fissures of his wounds. “Ungrateful, teasing creatures!” he continued as his friend made himself comfortable, “designed by Nature to drive a man mad. They look up at you with eyes that leave you breathless and then steal your soul!” His voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Beautiful eyes that promise a paradise you alone may explore.” He placed his glass down carefully on the table.
“And then?” His Lordship asked quietly after several minutes had passed in silence.
“Then, when a man’s guard is down and his hand is out, they turn on him.”
“Touché?” Brougham quizzed him.
“Touché and the whole damned engagement!” Darcy slumped back into his chair and rubbed at his temples. “Deceitful, May-gaming wenches, the lot of them!”
“Undoubtedly you are right,” His Lordship agreed indifferently. “Perhaps Benedick’s course is the wisest after all, and every man should do himself ‘the right to trust none.’ ”
“Hear, hear.” Darcy, raised his glass, the brandy sloshing dangerously.
Brougham lifted his as well. “To the forswearing of all the race of Deceitful Women…especially those of Kent!”
Darcy lowered his arm in flushed confusion. “Kent? Who said anything of Kent?”
His Lordship looked at him quizzically. “Why, you did; did you not?”
“Did I?” Darcy’s brows lowered in perplexity with his faltering grasp on the conversation. “No, no, the trap was merely set there…in the park.”
“In the park?” Brougham questioned, then his face cleared with recollection. “Oh, yes, Rosings Park! Your aunt’s estate. Well then, it must be the Deceitful Women of London Who Visit in Kent that we are forswearing. And Heaven knows, I heartily agree with you there! To the Deceitful — No?” He stopped his toast as Darcy began to shake his head.
“Hertfordshire!”
“Oh, Hertfordshire!” he expressed with surprise. “Cannot say that I know much about the women of Hertfordshire, not enough to forswear them, I’m sure! You must enlighten me first, my friend.”
A look of supreme distaste crossed Darcy’s face. “They breed them like rabbits in Hertfordshire, at least five to a family! They have tabby cat mothers who do nothing but lie in wait for a likely gentleman to pounce upon and leg-shackle to their daughters, all of whom scamper as they please like hoydens about the countryside running after red coats!”
“In Hertfordshire?” Brougham returned with amazement. “I had no idea it was such an interesting place!”
“Interesting!” Darcy set his glass down with such force that the contents sloshed out, soaking the ruffle of his cuff and sleeve. “Blast!” He pushed away from the table, but not before some had dripped onto a leg of his trousers. His outburst caught the attention of the pub’s young serving wench, who hurried over with a piece of toweling, but upon closer examination of her patrons, she also drew out the clean handkerchief that had served her as bodice lace.
“Here, dearie,” she cozened Darcy as she dabbed the frilly square of cheaply scented holland about his sleeve. “None the worse!”
Withdrawing from her ministrations, he commandeered the piece of cloth with a tersely polite “Thank you, miss,” and bent unsteadily to employ it upon his trouser leg.
“Yer welcome, I’m sure!” she simpered back to him, but as he did not immediately look up from his endeavor, she flounced away to more appreciative customers.
When he carefully sat back up, it was to behold Brougham’s amused countenance. “Certainly you were in no danger in this disreputable shire; your way with women must surely have insulated you against any such encroaching or shocking females as you have described!” He paused as Darcy returned him a scowl. “Or perhaps not all were so shockingly behaved or enamored of red coats and gold shoulder braid?”
“Ha!” Darcy snorted, absently tucking the handkerchief into his coat pocket. “Dress the blackest villain in a red coat and he is instantly a saint whose whispered lies are more to be believed than another man’s entire life and character!”
“Ah, a Serpent in the Hertfordshire garden!” His listener nodded sagely as Darcy took up his glass again and, noting that most of the brandy had spilled out, reached for the bottle. Brougham’s hand forestalled him. “Here, Fitz, allow me,” he drawled and poured him short. “Enough for our vow,” he explained to Darcy’s displeased frown, “which I take us to be offering up against your Hertfordshire Eve. Yes…” His Lordship waxed eloquent as Darcy looked on him in growing confusion. “A highly appropriate metaphor when one thinks on it. Serpent in the garden, Eve in the park — which is really nothing more than a large Garden, you understand — whispers in her ear, Eve figuratively ‘bites’ and then serves you — our Adam — the core of bitter fruit. Yes, the symmetry is near perfect!”
Darcy’s glass hit the table again. “What the Devil are you talking about? I have never been in a garden with a woman named Eve!”
“Then of whom are we speaking?” Brougham asked innocently.
“Elizabeth, you idiotish wretch!” Darcy ground back at him. “Elizabeth!”
“Oh, is that the deceitful wench’s name! Elizabeth!” Brougham looked relieved. “Then I may now in all good conscience offer the vow.” He stood and lifted his glass as his companion fumbled for his own. “To the forswearing of Elizabeth, Ungrateful, Deceitful Wench…”
Darcy brought his arm back down, his mind a muddle. Forswear Elizabeth? She would never be his, he knew that well enough, but to vow against her? Curse even the memory of her? It was not even remotely possible!
“…an Unworthy Creature of the lowest order…”
Darcy stared hard at his friend. Lowest order! Elizabeth? What did he mean by that? “No, not-not low,” he mumbled as a vision of Elizabeth easily, graciously holding her own against his aunt’s imperious demands flashed through his mind.
“…Despoiler of the Hopes of honest men…”
“No, not low,” he argued a bit louder against the laughter that Brougham’s oration was provoking across the room. His speech had by now attracted the attention of the pub’s other patrons, who being already primed for any sort of mill, regarded a show provided by the gentry as especially entertaining.
“…and, let us not forget, Tease, who after having led them on an intoxicating chase down the garden, or rather, park path…”
“No!” Darcy bellowed as he attempted to stand. The room swayed and howled with mirth, refusing to come clearly into focus.
“A Disgrace to — Pardon me?” Brougham inquired loftily. “I believe I was in the midst of —”
“How dare you, sir!” Finally, Darcy had found his feet and rose, belligerently intent upon putting an end to Dy’s slanderous speech. “How dare you bandy about Elizabeth’s name in a public house and in such an infamous manner!”
“Darcy.” Dy began in a conciliatory tone, but his companion would have none of it.
“You are speaking of a lady, sir!” He was interrupted by jeers from across the room. “A lady,” he insisted passionately over their calls, “of incomparable worth!”
“Darcy.” Stepping between his friend and the pub’s raucous patrons, Brougham laid an earnest hand upon his arm. “I would be honored to drink to such a lady…providing you sit down, my friend.”
Eyeing him at first with some suspicion, Darcy slowly resumed his seat as Brougham did the same. For a time, they sat in silence as Darcy tried to read his friend’s face through his self-inflicted haze but, he concluded, Dy was such a changeling to begin with that his state of inebriation was hardly a factor in the effort. With as much acuity as he was able to bring to bear, he searched Dy’s face, and what he saw in his old rival and friend’s countenance was a sincerity of concern and a warmth of sympathy that were impossible to discount as mere playacting. No, the playacting had been the ridiculous toast, the posing as a servant, maybe even the whole frivolous persona he had presented to the world for the last seven years! But here, now, was his truest friend in the world come back from a very long journey, and the timing of his return was impeccable.
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