A Witch For Mr Darcy Read online

  “Very good, miss,” Mrs. Jergen said, nodding smartly and getting on with her list of chores.

  Lizzy chose three bundles of leaves from the pile, slipped them into a muslin bag, and followed Lydia out of the workroom. They found Jane in the wide front entrance hall already dressed for their walk. She was the most beautiful of the five daughters of the house and knew how to stand gracefully and wait with patience, no evidence of exasperation on her countenance. Lizzy believed Jane could stand there all day without being annoyed with anyone, for Jane’s character was amiable, good-natured, and kind.

  Though Lizzy never spoke of her preference aloud, privately she acknowledged that her beloved eldest sister was her favorite of all her sisters. Indeed, there was no person in the world whom Lizzy loved more than Jane. Not even her father, and not her mother, either. Perhaps, one day, if fortune and God favored her, she might find a man whom she would love above all others. However, since they lived in rather restricted society, Lizzy did not expend too much energy upon that possibility.

  “Jane, how lovely you look. Should I change, do you think?” Lizzy asked, glancing down at her day dress of olive green with striped ivory and green sleeves and a flounce of the same striped cloth at her hem.

  “Certainly not.” Jane smiled broadly. “You look delightfully, as always. Here, I have brought you your pelisse and bonnet,” she said, holding out both items. “And your reticule. Our mother and father both know of our outing and merely bid that we give our aunt their love and that we return in good time for our dinner. I told them that we would stop for tea at Aunt Esther’s. I do not have our tea chest because I thought you might bring something interesting for us to try.”

  “I have.” Lizzy passed her the muslin bag in exchange for her things. “Black currant leaves.”

  Lizzy took her straw bonnet, tied it on beneath her chin, placing the bow to one side, and then slipped her arms inside the sleeves of her nut-brown pelisse while Jane held the garment up for her. Kitty hurried into the front hall, dressed for their outing and dragging a reluctant Mary behind her.

  “Ah, Mary,” Lizzy said, smiling at her. “I am so glad you have chosen to join us.”

  “I had planned on practicing the pianoforte,” Mary said, a frown gathered between her brows, “before Kitty burst in upon me and said you insisted that I join you all. And we all must do as you say, must we not?”

  Mary’s expressions were her worst feature. She often appeared worried, or sanctimonious, or desperate to please. However, whenever she relaxed and smiled with unaffected pleasure, Mary could be seen to have a quiet beauty all her own.

  “You do not have to do as I say, other than that I am older than you,” Lizzy said with a teasing frown. “Mary, you know as well as I that walking is excellent exercise. You will be in good company, too.”

  “How is that?” Mary shoved her bonnet down upon her dark-brown hair. She had brushed her hair into smooth bands and pinned them severely at her nape without a single curl to soften the severity of the style. “How shall I enjoy good company when Kitty and Lydia will run ahead of us and you and Jane shall walk with your heads together in conversation that will exclude me?”

  “Mary—” Jane began, holding out a gentling hand as though to place it on the middle sister’s arm.

  “Do not concern yourself with me,” Mary said, walking stiffly toward the open outer door, ignoring the proffered kindness. At the threshold, she paused and looked at them. “I know my own worth in this family. ‘And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience, And patience, experience; and experience, hope.’ I hope sisters, that we will have a congenial walk together. Shall we?” Mary asked, exiting the hall in the wake of her two younger sisters.

  Lizzy and Jane stared after her, blinking. They slowly followed.

  “Was that Romans, do you think?” Lizzy asked finally.

  Jane sighed and said, “Yes.”

  “Have we heard her quote that scripture before?”

  “I believe so.” Jane linked her arm with Lizzy’s. “Our mother is most concerned with finding us all husbands but I believe she should concentrate her efforts on Mary first.”

  “You believe Mary would be happier away from us?” Lizzy asked, astounded. “I cannot conceive why you should say so, dearest, when you desire all of us to be happy together.”

  Jane frowned. They strolled now along the gravel driveway. Mary stalked ahead but waited for them at the main gates.

  “But Mary is not happy with us, is she?” Jane commented quietly. They approached Mary’s position and Jane called out, “Mary, tell us about what you have been studying recently. At breakfast this morning you mentioned something about slavery.”

  Mary narrowed her eyes and glanced between them. Seemingly satisfied at their interest, or perhaps merely hoping that they held true curiosity, she replied, “I am reading a pamphlet I found in our father’s book room. It is called ‘Thoughts Upon Slavery’ and it was written by John Wesley.”

  Lizzy released Jane’s arm and linked one of her own with Mary’s. “Tell us about it.”

  Jane took Mary’s other arm.

  “You have no true interest,” Mary said, her eyes still narrowed. She turned her head to look at first one sister and then the other.

  “I confess that I do not know if I am interested or not, for I am ashamed to confess that I have never considered the subject before now,” Lizzy said, keeping her tone reasonable.

  “Nor I,” Jane said. “I know that John Wesley, and others, formed the Methodist church. So, come, enlighten us further, if you please.”

  “Very well,” Mary said cautiously. “It is good that the day is fine, for the information is not so.”

  And she proceeded with her discourse and the next half-hour passed most satisfyingly for all three sisters.

  ∞

  That same morning, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy woke with a clear head. He rolled over, eyed the Hertfordshire sunshine with a degree of approbation and even greeted his valet, Birch, with a smile.

  “Good morning, sir,” Birch said in his quiet way, shaking the drawn window curtain out so its folds settled in an orderly fashion. “I can see by your smile that you passed a restful and uneventful night.”

  Darcy scooted up in the bed so his shoulders rested against the headboard.

  “I did.”

  Darcy watched the small, dapper man who had been his manservant since he left the hands of his nurse and moved into “grown-up” rooms in Pemberley. Upon his return home for his first Christmas holidays from Eton, Darcy had discovered his things moved into a bedchamber in the family wing. Birch had awaited him in that bed chamber. The valet had been a young man then, just beginning his career as a gentleman’s gentleman. During the intervening years—almost twenty—Lord, has it been that long?—Birch had nursed him through every illness, every painful episode that had plagued him since he fell from a crooked old oak tree the summer he had turned thirteen. Birch was, therefore, intimately concerned with his master’s well-being.

  Darcy had nearly cracked his head in two. George Wickham had run for help and some of the stable lads had carried him into the house. He had missed a year of school recovering. Yet he had not recovered.

  Not truly.

  “No headache this morning, sir?” Birch asked, approaching the bed while holding up his master’s maroon and black brocade dressing gown.

  “No, thank God,” Darcy said with fervent gratitude.

  “Amen,” the balding henchman murmured. “No dreams, sir?”

  Darcy shook his head.

  “A relief, sir,” Birch commented, before moving toward the dressing table. He picked up a hairbrush.

  “Indeed. Is Mr. Bingley down yet?” Darcy asked, buttoning his robe.

  “No, sir. I have it from his man that Mr. Bingley intends to ride before breaking his fast.”

  “I shall join him. Send one of the footmen to inform him of my intentions.”

  Bir
ch bowed, set down the brush, and walked sedately over to the door and opened it, revealing the footman in the corridor beyond.

  Darcy joined his younger friend at the bottom of the Netherfield steps. Two grooms led their horses—a roan gelding and a black stallion—toward them from the stables at the back of the house. Darcy had brought the stallion with him from Pemberley.

  “Good morning, Darcy,” Charles said heartily, clapping him on the shoulder. “You look in fine form this morning, by Jove. And Agamantha is raring to go, I see. You will have the devil of a time getting him to behave, what?”

  “He knows his master’s hand,” Darcy said, grinning widely. He approached the black and placed a soothing hand on the stallion’s neck. Agamantha immediately stopped his fidgets.

  “Well done,” Bingley said.

  “Thank you, Charles.”

  Their grooms held out their linked hands and threw both men into their saddles. After a walk to warm the saddles to their horses’ backs, they exercised their mounts by cantering across the park. When they came to a rise that allowed them a view of the house and its environs, Bingley drew up and Darcy followed suit.

  “What do you think of Netherfield, Darcy? Does it not have a delightful aspect?”

  Darcy chuckled. “At this time of year, all of England’s countryside has a delightful aspect.”

  Charles laughed self-deprecatingly. “You take my meaning, Darcy. Do you approve of my choice? I have let Netherfield for a twelve-month. I mean to see her in every season.”

  “Netherfield is a handsome house. And it is, I grant you, conveniently situated to London. This must make Miss Bingley happy,” Darcy observed. “For she will, I warrant, find the local society a trifle limited.”

  “I do not believe Caro is happy anywhere but London,” Charles admitted. “Which makes it jolly nice of her to keep house for me. I must have a hostess if I am to socialize with my neighbors.”

  Darcy shifted in his saddle and gazed keenly at his friend and recalled how they met. It had been at a mill. Darcy had drawn his curricle in beside Bingley’s and they had struck up a conversation over the merits of the two rivals circling each other within the ring of surrounding men. That had been three years before. Recently, Charles had only just reached his twenty-third birthday while Darcy was quickly approaching his twenty-eighth. With nearly five years between them, he supposed Charles, who was good-natured to a fault, would naturally look to his older friend for approval and advice.

  “You know, Charles, perhaps you should look about you for a wife.”

  Bingley blinked at him and then laughed. “A w-wife? You are jesting with me. I am merely three-and-twenty. Darcy—” He stilled and focused an intent look upon his friend’s countenance. “Have you seen something? Are you suggesting this because you…” he trailed away as though unsure of how to phrase his question, as though unsure as to whether he wanted an answer.

  Darcy shook his head ruefully. “No, Charles. I have not seen that you are to be married. I merely cannot conceive of you being happy for long with Miss Bingley as your hostess. I am sorry, but she does not aim to please.”

  “Ah, I see,” Bingley said, his expression clearing. Then a twinkle came to his eyes. “I expect we should be looking about for a husband for my sister, instead.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you mean to let her catch you at last?”

  Darcy gave a shout of laughter. “There is someone for her, I do not doubt, but it will not be me. I mean no offence, my friend, but your sister is too ambitious for me. She needs a man who is interested in a political life, I think, and then her machinations will prove invaluable to him. She does not truly wish to spend most of the year in Derbyshire and I refuse to spend most of mine in London.”

  “There is much in what you say,” Bingley replied with a chuckle. “I fear, however, that until you marry, Caro will not look at another prospect—even if I knew any men with political ambitions. Do you know any?”

  “I do—my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, for instance.”

  Bingley’s smile widened. “Then we must invite him for a visit while you are here.”

  “An excellent idea. Perhaps Miss Bingley may know of a lady or two, and their mothers, of course, who would like to visit her at your new home? An old school chum from that academy she attended in York?”

  They prodded their horses forward again.

  “She never talks to those ladies any more. She has become high in the instep,” Bingley accused, grimacing. “I believe Caro would like to invite your sister Georgiana. I am certain my sister would marry me off to your sister if she could,” Bingley said with a wry, apologetic wince.

  Darcy’s expression tightened. “Georgiana is too young to marry.” And she is too easily led, he thought to himself. “She is only sixteen and has not yet been presented. I have never observed that you have a tendre for her, but if you have an interest there, Charles, I must warn you that I would not consent to the marriage until she is nineteen.”

  Bingley’s eyes widened. “Darcy, these imaginings belong only to Caro. And Louisa, I expect,” he added upon reflection. “Georgiana seems very young to me still.”

  Darcy rubbed the side of his jaw with his thumb. He bestowed a rueful gaze upon his friend. “I apologize, Charles. I spoke too harshly.” He could have said that he had no objection to Charles as a brother-in-law, but his young friend was also too easily led and might turn his eye and heart toward Georgiana merely because Darcy had suggested the alliance would be acceptable. “Come, I am hungry. Be a good host and lead me to some ham and eggs. And coffee. I long for coffee.”

  “There will be coffee,” Bingley promised. “And then possibly more neighbors to meet.”

  “Oh, no. No more neighbors. Charles, I refuse.”

  “Then take your curricle out and tool yourself around the neighborhood,” Bingley suggested. “I—Darcy? What is it? You have gone white as a sheet. Dash it all! Darcy? You are swaying in the saddle. Let me have your reins. Can you hear me?”

  Chapter Two

  Darcy clutched both of his hands to his pommel to keep from falling off the horse. Images flashed through his mind. Each vision peppering his senses caused darts of agony to stab his temples. He dimly realized he was swaying in his saddle and he tightened his knees.

  “Darcy!”

  Cobwebs.

  Cobwebs—in the dark.

  Glowing, somehow.

  No! I have had enough of these visions!

  Darcy clenched his jaw and ground his teeth in an effort to keep the vision at bay. As usual, whatever force sent him these accursed images ignored his determination.

  Cobwebs stretched from one side of his awareness to the other, obscuring whatever lay beyond. The web trembled and at any moment he expected a spider to appear—a spider the size of his fist, without a doubt.

  I am not afraid of spiders. I am not afraid of spiders.

  Yet a spider did not appear, and, Darcy discovered at the tail end of another grinding, stabbing pain to his temple, that he could not be sorry for its absence.

  His vision-self attempted to push through the clinging webs. In moments, the sticky wisps surrounded him as if they deliberately worked at entombing him in a cocoon. The enormous, absent spider, seeking a late-night meal, might find him bound there.

  Suffocating.

  I cannot breathe!

  He scrabbled at the bindings around his neck with one hand while he managed to order his left to maintain its grip on his pommel. He knew the only thing around his neck was his excellently tied cravat. He knew it. But the knowing did not fit the belief that death lay only moments away.

  Finally, Darcy heaved in a breath and then groaned as the last image of the webs faded. He blinked hard and fast. The sunlight made his eyes water.

  “Darcy! I am taking your reins,” Bingley was saying.

  Darcy turned his head slowly, achingly, and gazed bleary-eyed at his friend. Bingley stared at him wide-eyed and tight-lipped.

  “I am…” Darcy
shook his head and straightened in the saddle. He released the pommel and took up his reins once more. “Unnecessary. Agamantha knows my ways. He will not let me fall, or, if I do, he will not abandon me.”

  “Good L-Lord, Darcy!” Bingley cried with a soft sputter of sound. “I thought you only had these spells when you were in your bed. Do not, I beg of you, ride alone or drive your carriages without a groom up beside you. What if we had been galloping? Or…or…”

  Darcy bit back a hasty retort. Instead, he drew in several deep breaths before responding. “Have no fear. Hawkins usually accompanies me. And I have your excellent company today.”

  “I am much relieved that you have the good sense to have your groom with you,” his friend replied, his words tumbling out of him, ignoring the final sentiment. He stared owlishly. “How are you? Is your head pounding?”

  Darcy gave a curt nod. “I need some coffee.”

  “And food, I expect,” Bingley said with false heartiness, as though acting cheerful would make the entire incident disappear.

  His stomach heaving with the thought, Darcy locked his jaw shut and nodded once. Perhaps he could choke down a few bites of dry toast with his coffee.

  Darcy did not tool himself around the neighborhood in his curricle. Instead, he excused himself from the breakfast room, after three cups of coffee and two slices of dry toast, to retire to his bed chamber. Though he would have preferred to find the drapes shut to give him some relief from his thrashing headache, Darcy left them open and sat down at the desk located perpendicular to the windows overlooking the park. He opened his vision notebook and turned to a fresh page, skipping past the charcoal sketches huddled on the filled sheets. Instead, he picked up his slender ivory-and-silver porte-crayon, checked that it held a sliver of charcoal in its grasp and allowed his hand to hover over the page—then he began to sketch.

  Curved lines and straight lines.

  Spider webs.

  Cobwebs that started at one edge of his sheet and ended at the other. After only a few minutes of quick movements, Darcy had captured the essence of his latest vision. He set down the porte-crayon, picked up a folded rag kept on the desk for the purpose, and carefully patted the drawing, catching the excess dark dust on the surface.