Darcy gave a harsh laugh. “Believe me, that is one lesson I have down very well, thank you.”

“You cannot distract me that easily. Now, as your cousin, and your friend, and Georgiana’s guardian, I am asking you to tell me what is wrong.”

“For God’s sake, stop it! If I need to talk, I promise, I will come to you.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam stood up. For a moment Darcy thought that he had won the point, but then he saw his cousin was only going as far as the side table. Bringing the decanter of port and an unopened bottle of wine back to the desk, he refilled Darcy’s glass. “If you want to do this the hard way, we will do it the hard way,” he said in a voice the officers under his command would recognize instantly.

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“It means I plan to drink you under the table, cousin, and sooner or later you will be drunk enough to talk. Waste of good port, though.”

“What makes you think you can out drink me?”

“I’m a soldier. It’s one of the few useful skills we learn. Drink up, now.”

Darcy, exhausted, rested his head in his hands. “Look, Richard, if I tell you what it is, will you leave me alone?”

In a somewhat gentler voice, Colonel Fitzwilliam replied, “Probably not.”

They were silent for some minutes. Finally Darcy said, “It is the oldest story known to man. I fell in love with a woman, and she refused me. Are you satisfied?”

“She refused you? Darcy, I can’t think of one woman in the world who would refuse you. Well, maybe the Duchess of ____, she has enough money and lands of her own, and no use for handsome young men, or so I hear. Of course, she is also old enough to be your mother.”

“Very amusing, Fitzwilliam. Yes, there is a woman out there who would and did refuse me, for the very simple reason that she could not like or respect me.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam sat back and pondered this information. Recalling his cousin’s unusual behavior at Rosings, an idea began to form in his mind. “Darcy, is it possible that we are speaking of the lovely Miss Bennet?”

Darcy drained his glass. “Touché, my friend. I applaud your deductive reasoning,” he said with some bitterness.

“Well, I applaud your taste. If she only had money, I might have offered for her myself. I am surprised she refused you, though; I would have thought her more practical than that.”

You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it. “You cannot be aware of how grave my sins are in her eyes, then.”

“I know she found you high-handed. Are there other sins besides that?”

I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. “There are so many to choose from, it is hard to know where to begin. You could start with the fact that she received her information about my character from none other than our dear friend George Wickham. Then there is the small matter that I broke her sister’s heart by discouraging Bingley from marrying her, and that I was unforgivably condescending and rude to her in my proposal… I think that covers the main points,” Darcy said bitterly. “Let us not forget that I am arrogant and conceited as well.”

“It was her sister that Bingley was in love with?”

“I thought she was indifferent to him, and apparently I was wrong.” Do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man, who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?

“What did she say when you explained it to her?”

Darcy stared into his wineglass. “I was too angry to explain at the time. I wrote her a letter afterwards, telling her the truth about Wickham, and my reasons for separating Bingley from her sister. If she believed it, if she did not tear it up without reading it, then perhaps she no longer thinks quite so ill of me, though that does me little good now.”

“What—do you mean to tell me that you are giving up on her so easily?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“What other choice do I have? I have told her everything I can say in my own defense, and as for the rest, I can try to change my behavior, but she will never see the results. I hardly think it likely that our paths will cross again.”

“You could go to her and let her see you as you really are. Perhaps your letter did change her opinion, but you will never know unless you make the effort. It is not as if she can write to you, nor can she call on you or attempt to move into your social circles. You cannot expect her just to appear on your doorstep one day.”

“You do not understand. I am quite resigned to never seeing her again,” Darcy said wearily, his words causing a wrenching pain inside him. “She made it quite clear that she dislikes me, and frankly, I think she is right to do so. I do not deserve her love.”

“Good God, if your father had thought the way you do, you would never have been born! How many times did he propose to your mother before she accepted him?”

“That is hardly the same. When she refused him, it was because she was already promised to another, not because he was the last man on earth that she could ever be prevailed upon to marry!”

“I still say your father would have told you to keep trying, if you love her that much.”

Darcy ran his fingers through his hair. “I cannot,” he said grimly. “She holds too much against me.”

“You have defended yourself against whatever Wickham charged you with, and presumably Bingley and her sister have their chance to work things out now. Do you think she will not be able to see what you have done?” he challenged, increasingly frustrated with Darcy’s self-pity.

“Bingley knows nothing of this.”

“You haven’t told him that you were mistaken? Why ever not?”

“Fitzwilliam, he would be justifiably furious with me.”

“So you leave him suffering?” he said with some incredulity. “My apologies; you were right all along, and you should give up now. You certainly do not deserve her.” He set his glass down carefully, and stood to leave. “And be careful with that port; you haven’t the head for it. Good night, cousin.”

Darcy reflected bleakly that he had not even told him his most dishonorable reason for not talking to Bingley. If Bingley married Jane Bennet, Darcy would perforce have at least occasional contact with her family, and would someday be subjected to the agony of seeing Elizabeth married to another man. He cradled his head in his hands, wondering if it were indeed possible to feel any worse than he did now.

*   *   *

Georgiana anxiously awaited the arrival of Colonel Fitzwilliam in the breakfast room the next morning, hopeful he would have some kind of information for her. When he finally arrived, she barely let him sit down before beginning her questioning. “Did he tell you anything?”

“Good morning to you, too, Georgiana. Please, I need some sustenance before tackling difficult discussions. And I would advise against trying to talk to your brother this morning. He should have the dickens of a headache when he finally wakes up.”

“Actually, he has been awake for some time and has already gone out.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Where would he go at this hour of the morning?”

Georgiana shrugged. “To see Bingley, apparently. I told him I thought it was a little early for social calls, and he said he thought it was actually rather late, whatever that may mean at seven in the morning.”

“To see Bingley, eh? Good for him. Maybe there is hope for the boy after all.”

Georgiana sighed dramatically. “Are you going to be mysterious as well?”

He laughed. “Afraid so, sweetheart. I did get him to talk, but I believe that what I heard is confidential. You are going to have to trust your old Cousin Richard to take care of it this time, at least insofar as your brother allows me to help.”

“I hate it when you treat me as if I were still only eleven,” she said with a scowl. “You can be even worse than William as far as that goes.”

“Worse than William in what way?” asked Darcy from the doorway.

Georgiana jumped. “Back already? Was he not at home?”

“Oh, he was there, all right. What I had to tell him did not take long,” Darcy said grimly with a sidelong glance at his cousin.

“I imagine that even Bingley has little to say this early in the morning.”

“If you say so. Do you not have some business in town today, Fitzwilliam? Or even better, some that will take you very far away?”

“William!” Georgiana cried.

The colonel patted her hand. “No need to worry yourself, sweetheart. This is how your brother and I stay friends, now that we are too old for fistfights.”

“Speak for yourself, cousin. Given how I feel this morning, you should feel fortunate that it is not pistols at dawn.”

“I told you he would be grumpy, did I not?” the colonel asked Georgiana. “Never mind, I know when to retreat. It is one of the other things they teach us in the army.”

She glanced from her brother to the colonel. “Will you be back for dinner?”

“I expect I will have to dine with the Major General, though the very idea is enough to make me lose my appetite. I should be back in the evening.”

“If you live that long,” grumbled Darcy.

Colonel Fitzwilliam smiled beatifically. “Glad to know you are feeling better, Darcy.”

As he left, Georgiana turned to Darcy. “What was that about?”

He gave her an oblique look. The last thing he needed was a disagreement with his sister, given that she seemed to be the only person he cared about who still thought he had any redeeming features, now that Bingley had joined Colonel Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth in the ranks of those who were disgusted with him. “Ask me again when you are older—say, after your first grandchild is born.”