12 • Realm of Men

James reread Jane’s letter as he sat down in Charlotte’s parlour to reply, mentally marking the items he wished to respond to alongside his own retellings of the events since his last letter—

The bell of the house chimed, and being a guest as he was, it took him an extra moment to realize he was the only one in the house to answer it. Charlotte and company had gone into the nearby town for various errands, leaving James to his breakfast and letters. As he had heard no carriage, he thought it unlikely to be Lady Catherine, but nevertheless he pulled a blank sheet of paper over the beginnings of his letter and was folding Jane’s as he went to the door.

Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy alone stood there.

James frowned, his mind rushing to find a reason for his visit, perhaps his having left something when he and the Colonel were here…

“Uh,” he summarized eloquently.

Darcy seemed equally astonished at finding himself there and at finding James alone. “I…I had believed the family would be here.”

“They’re in town,” James informed, and bluntly rotated to lead the way back to Charlotte’s parlour. It was where he and the Colonel were first hosted so it was not an abnormal destination, but James returned to it with fresh eyes: all of the unused and waiting pieces of foliage, wire, twine, and a cutting board and knife scattered in various states around the room.

“I apologize for the intrusion,” Darcy said as he eyed the room and James hastily piling things on the cutting board to seamlessly make a place for him at the table. “Are these what you were doing when you left the service?”

“You noticed?” James said as he dusted off a seat and then looked up at Darcy. “Well. You would, wouldn’t you?”

“I do not understand what you are implying,” Darcy admitted as he sat down.

James waved his hand in the air as if to physically remove the topic but then his fingers leveled with the top of Darcy’s head. “You’re. Well. There must be a tree in your genetic line.”

He turned around to avoid seeing whatever reaction that caused and continued tidying the room until, with abrupt clarity, he was behaving like his mother and decidedly landed on the couch against the wall.

Meanwhile Darcy uttered. “Oh. I see. Hmm…” The sound was warm and almost like mirth, enticing James to meet his eyes again. “I trust you know that extends past the capabilities of reproduction.”

James rolled his eyes to glare at the wall. “Of course I know. It’s a metaphor. Didn’t you stress poetry or something once?”

“Once,” Darcy confirmed, “but you seemed to disagree with its effects, if I remember.”

James had no idea where this was going. “I didn’t read poetry.”

“I could guess,” Darcy nodded. He did not outwardly smile but his eyes were kind. “What did you read?”

“Whatever we had,” James remarked. Darcy’s lips parted as if to speak but James beat him to it. “Is all well at Rosings?”

Darcy blinked, his mind processing the change in subject. “As well as can be, I suppose… There is some ordeal on the grounds but it is hardly worth mentioning.”

“Well that’s what conversation is,” James declared. “Elaborating upon unmentionable things.”

“I’m…not sure that’s quite it,” Darcy replied. “Have I caught you at a bad time?”

James could practically hear his mother scolding him and reminding him of whom his guest was. He swallowed. “No, my lord. I…sometimes react poorly to surprises, is all. What is happening on the grounds? Is Lady Catherine’s garden in turmoil?”

Darcy’s lashes moved over his eyes in that contemplative way he had before he said, “Not at all. The grounds keeper sighted creatures at dawn. They have not yet been identified as foxes or large rats.”

James did not have much to say to that apart from, “There…is quite a difference between a fox and a rat,” but the discussion fell silent. With nothing else to procure, James left the trouble of finding a subject to him, and Darcy took the hint, his eyes brightening with understanding that it was his turn.

“This seems a comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first came to Hunsford.”

“I have heard she did,” James confirmed. “I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object.”

Darcy nodded, his eyes moving as if searching for something else to say. “Mr. Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife.”

James snorted in the back of his throat. “His friends may rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who could have accepted him.”

Darcy seemed mildly surprised. “You reiterate it in a cruel fashion.”

James’ brows lifted. “No one has ever accused me of being fashionable. My friend has an excellent understanding; whether I consider her marrying Mr. Collins the wisest thing she’s done…does not matter. She seems happy. In a prudential light, it is certainly a good match.”

“It must be agreeable to her to be settled within so easy a distance of her family and friends,” he considered.

James eyed him. “I would not have considered the distance an advantage of the match.”

“Nevertheless, little more than half a day’s journey, and on good road; an easy distance, I’d say.”

“We have contrary opinions. Easy it may be, but ideal it is less so.”

“This is proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Anything beyond the very neighborhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far.”

Darcy held James’ gaze, and once again James felt a sort of challenge in the man’s dialogue. Or not so much a challenge…but the feeling of a secret or jape held only between the two of them.

His features relaxed as he said pleasantly, “The far and the near must be relative, and depend on varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expense of traveling unimportant, distance is no evil.”

“I am not unfamiliar with the evil of distance,” Darcy returned softly, quickly. His head turned so his eyes could once more look over James’ tools and the various bundles and scraps of plants. A full sprig of dried lavender and grey sallow rested next to an unfinished wreath, which Darcy’s fingers brought under his nose. The gesture was small, but he rubbed the soft grey pillows against his skin. “However…despite your local attachment and your…more rural rituals, you cannot have always been at Longbourn. You spoke of travel with Anne.”

James scrutinized him, trying to decipher wherein lay his question. “Are you calling me pagan?” he blurted.

Far from angry, Darcy seemed merely puzzled. “No? Although the enquiry may arise at some point, after leaving an Easter service to make such old fashioned wreaths.”

Then James laughed, startling Darcy further even though his eyes softened. “Old they may be but they are hardly out of convention. I am only out of place in its not being Yuletide. Surely you know how Christianity overwrote pagan holidays with their own celebrations. Names change and traditions adjust but we are creatures of habit.”

He had stood without thinking, plucking a small brass cross from the wall above the couch as he strolled to the table. As he spoke he nestled the cross in the center of the wreath and let the various reeds and lavender haphazardly complete the circle, illustrating how the simple adjustment changed the religion attached to the decoration.

He realized now how close he now stood by Darcy, whose eyes were down as he analyzed the wreath. James ventured, “You’re not one of those sensitive God-fearing men, are you?”

Darcy’s features gave nothing away. “I was raised to be God-fearing,” he admitted, “but I quickly found that the realm of men gives me more trouble.”

James stared at him, and then withdrew the cross to return it to the wall. “I am continuously finding you difficult to disagree with, my lord,” he said with some annoyance. The chair skidded behind him and James rotated to see Darcy preparing to leave.

“Forgive my intrusion,” he rushed, not meeting James’ eyes.

“I already did?” James wondered as the man left the house and he heard the front door open the same moment a shriek similar to Marie’s reached his ears.

“Oh! My lord—how do you do—” Charlotte exclaimed, but James made it to the hallway just in time to see both women move out of Darcy’s way, as he seemed more than intent on leaving. Mr. Collins was not with them but Charlotte gaped like a fish until she rounded on James. “Did you set fire to his heels?”

James frowned. “Why is it my fault? He left as quickly as he arrived!”

Charlotte hung her cloak and hat on the hooks before she ushered Marie off to do some distracting task. Afterward she caught up to James binding the last of his wreath together. He peeked up and then stared at the giddy expression on her face. “What is the matter with you?” he feared.

“My dear, Lizzy,” she announced, “he must be in love with you, or he would never have called on us in this familiar way.”

It was James’ turn to let his jaw hang. “I understand you’ve grown accustomed to overzealous displays of fondness for the Lady in residence but it shouldn’t come as a surprise if other people seek any means of escape from her household.”

“Ah huh,” she charmed, not dissuaded in the least, “so I’m late in understanding his eagerness to spend such escapades here? With you. Alone in the house.”

He stood moved away from her under the excuse of disposing twigs and unusable twine in the bin. “He expected the rest of you to be here—stop grinning.”

“I’m perfectly entitled to smile, as he is to seek your company.”

“The only reason he should have for seeking it is the same interest one returns to an unbeatable puzzle. There is otherwise nothing to do: all the field sports are over, within doors there is Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard table, but these can only be interesting for so long. ”

“You are saying you’re interesting,” Charlotte cornered.

“Hardly,” he growled. “Darcy would have remained silent as he always does if I hadn’t pushed him to converse.”

Charlotte seemed content to leave him alone about it, and he was thankfully saved by Colonel Fitzwilliam’s arrival and inviting himself to dinner. Not that they minded, of course; his charm quite reminded James of Wickham’s manner of joviality and discussion.

The topic silently returned the following day and the day afterward, however, as Mr. Darcy now frequented the parsonage as often as his cousin. Initially Charlotte had given James a keen look before Darcy proved his ability to sit comfortably in silence for longer than ten minutes. His lips would not open until necessity pried them apart—a sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure to himself. James caught himself scrutinizing him, wondering how an animated feeling would appear if it ever emerged from the man.

Charlotte eventually admitted to not knowing what to make of him when Colonel Fitzwilliam came by the cottage alone. He laughed and shrugged, “Darcy is different, to be sure. His own breed of stupid. We all have one, I reckon, and that’s his.”

Nevertheless, she watched him whenever they were at Rosings, which had unfortunately picked up in occurrence, as well as when he came to Hunsford. Her examinations only yielded that he certainly looked at James a great deal, but the expression of that stare was disputable.

“It’s a rather earnest, steadfast gaze, isn’t it?” she mused one evening upon their return.

James silently wondered if he ought to have had another glass of wine for this.

“It is hard to tell whether there is admiration in it,” she continued.

“Wonderful. He either loves me or hates me. Frankly I think he’s used to drowning the noise of the room out of his mind and his eyes have the unfortunate habit of landing on me.”

“Then it is fortunate that you are attractive, then,” she teased, “or else he would certainly despise you.” He demanded she fetch a bottle or else leave him to slumber.

As the developing season made midday comfortably warm, invitations to Rosings often switched to luncheon, followed by walks through the property. The park was always open to anyone wishing for a stroll, which James came to utilize. It was during one of these that he caught a sighting of the suspicious fox or rat: a dirty ginger cat. It stopped only briefly to eye him and then trot quickly past a flowerbed to its den under the bushes.

The next day, James found himself once more in the park with Lady Catherine, Lord Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Charlotte, Maria, and Mr. Collins. Gardening, being Mr. Collins’ preferred pastime, made her attentions devoted to him until a gruff yet composed man approached them with a bow. “My lady, might I have a word?”

“Go on,” she confirmed.

“The matter of the vermin seen in the gardens. It is a feral cat. She has made her den somewhere, however she seemed to be carrying food. We suspect there are kittens as well.”

“No no no, that will not do,” her ladyship ordered. “Remove them at once. I will not have anything carrying disease near Anne.”

“Yes, mum. We’ve already captured the cat. Her den will be found immediately.”

He bowed again and left. The group continued on until Lady Catherine turned around. “Darcy? Whatever are you doing? Come here—where is Mr. Bennet?”

But Lord Darcy’s gaze was fastened to James, who had since left them and was now sprinting behind them with something in his hands; like a tablecloth or a large jumper. Her ladyship chortled. “What on earth is the fool doing?”

Darcy watched him slow and step over one of the longer flowerbeds to lower onto all fours, derriere high as he looked for something among the roots…

“That young man is fond of inappropriate behaviour,” her ladyship commented dryly, but James’ arm shot underneath the shrubs, placed something in the cloth, and then moved in long strides with the bundle in his arms. He paid them not the slightest attention as he left the park.

“Uh—I must apologize,” Charlotte exclaimed. “I’ll go with him and make sure everything is all right.”

Marie’s eyes widened like she was being abandoned but Charlotte held her hat while she went to catch up with James. He was already back in their cottage, pouring the tepid water from their morning tea into a basin. From the bundle in his arms came an array of angry, high pitched yowls.

“You actually found them,” she laughed, removing her hat and gloves to help him.

“One,” he corrected. “Hand me that brush.”

She did so, the short and packed bristles scraping over a bar of soap before he wiggled it in the water and moved gentle circles over the spiked and matted fur. Dark brown gave way to fiery orange and white paws, the creature particularly indignant to having its white underbelly cleaned.

“Some broth with the ground meat,” James considered as he lifted the tail. “He should be weaned by now if its mother was bringing it food…but only just. He needs to eat now if the imbeciles killed its mother before he could eat.”

“They’re not imbeciles just because they were doing their jobs,” Charlotte scolded as she stood to do as he bid—

“Lord Darcy!”

She had left the front door open and now the man stood in the entrance of her parlour. James looked up but could not grant him his time as he bounced the bundle on his arm and two ears sprang free with another annoyed yowl.

“How did you find it so quickly?” Darcy exclaimed in wonder.

“I witnessed its mother returning to its den during my walk yesterday,” James replied briskly. He reached forward, gesturing Charlotte to slide past the man to hand him the dish of food. “Your softest blanket in a box,” he said, and she left once more.

“It has a mustachio,” Darcy commented.

James frowned up at him, visibly questioning why he was still there, but then he peered down at the cat. There was a curved black patch on the side of its nose.

“Why are you holding it like that?”

James refrained from sighing and continued stroking a soaked cloth over the creature’s face. The bouncing calmed the creature to silence despite the angry orange eyes glaring up at him. “Kittens catch their death faster than we do if they get wet.”

“I was referring to the rocking,” Darcy reiterated.

James’s impatience won out. It was simply too much to explain how one picks up these habits after raising two younger siblings and helping his father with their calves and chickens. “It works, doesn’t it?” he snapped.

It was to Darcy’s credit that he deduced smoothly, “You’ve done this before.”

James blinked, something in him relaxing. “I have a cat at home.”

Darcy remained silent as he watched James pick off flea after flea from its face and ears before he deemed the creature clean and placed it in the box Charlotte procured. James returned to the fire to gather a small number of coals for an empty tin used to hold Charlotte’s sewing needles. He made sure the tin was wrapped well before inserting it into the hissing box.

“Last step,” James murmured, holding up a chunk of meat.

“Is this not dangerous?” Charlotte worried.

“He needs to associate me with good things,” James refused. “Give him a moment to realize he’s comforta—”

James underestimated the creature’s hunger as the meat was snatched from his fingers and the creature landed upon the dish. Charlotte giggled as he recovered, “Fine, then.”

“He’s going to be beautiful,” Charlotte mused. “A right fluffy ginger. What shall we call him?”

“Assam, perhaps,” James smirked.

Charlotte pouted, “Oh that won’t due. Your other cat has such a beautiful name.”

“What name?”

They both looked up as if realizing Darcy was still there. “Alys…short for alyssum,” James murmured.

“You do so employ yourself in the knowledge of flowers,” Darcy observed.

“Is that wrong?” James responded.

Darcy’s gaze was soft. “No. Not at all.” After another moment he took his weight off the doorjamb. “I’ll take my leave.”

Charlotte bobbed up show him out, whereas James remained where he was, watching the kitten finish its meal.

* * * * * * *

It was not until Jane’s next letter arrived and James was going for a walk down the lane that he came upon one of the neighboring party. Colonel Fitzwilliam was waving and smiling, “I did not know that you ever walked this way.”

“You’ve found me out, sir,” James smiled.

“Are going much further?”

“No, I should have turned in a moment, before my charge awakes and desires freedom.”

James leaned to reveal the slumbering kitten in his shirt, held up by his waistcoat. “Then I shall impose and join you,” he chuckled.

“I would be disappointed if you didn’t,” James said as he put away his letter. “I heard from Charlotte—well, from Mr. Collins—this morning that you are to leave on Saturday?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “if Darcy does not put it off again. It’s been rather strange, his putting off our departure so much this year. To be rather blunt about it, he is not exactly eager to remain with his aunt, but I am at his disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases.”

“He has great pleasure in the power of choice, does he?” James remarked.

“He likes to have his own way very well,” the Colonel obliged, “but so we all do.”

“A particularly strong family trait,” James said upon looking up at the mansion within the park. “If my own siblings are any indication, I wonder how Darcy fares as guardian of his sister.”

“Oh, that is a task which he must divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy.”

“Are you?” James’ interest piqued. “And what sort of guardians do you make, looking after such trouble? If she has the true Darcy spirit, surely she too likes to have her own way.”

He laughed, however the sentiment was not shared between them. The Colonel looked upon him with something of confusion. “Why do you suppose she is likely to give any uneasiness?”

Gravity was so far from the Colonel’s character that James momentarily felt himself lost for words. “I…must apologize. I did not mean offense. I confess to have never met the lady, and indeed, have not heard any harm of her. She is a great favourite with some ladies you may be acquainted with: Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley.”

“I know them a little,” the Colonel granted. “Their brother is a pleasant gentlemanlike sort—a great friend of Darcy’s.”

“Yes,” James agreed somewhat dryly. “His lordship is uniquely kind to Mr. Bingley, and takes prodigious care of him.”

“Yes, I believe he does take care of him in those points he most wants care,” the Colonel said on a lighter note. “From something he told me in our journey hither, I believe Bingley to be very much indebted to him—but I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose it was Bingley at all, for he did not name him specifically.”

“Then speak anonymously,” James frowned. “To what debt do you mean?”

“It is a circumstance which Darcy of course would not wish to be known, because if it were to get round to the lady’s family, it would be an unpleasant thing.”

James steeled his features to reveal nothing. “A scandal of the romantic kind. The public does so enjoy those. You may depend upon my not mentioning it.”

“Well do remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley at all apart from his having been with the man up until recently. What he told me is merely this: that he had saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage.”

“Imprudent,” James repeated. “How so?”

“I understood there were strong objections against the lady.”

James processed this and found it wanting. “Did Mr. Darcy give any other reasons for his interference?”

“I cannot say he did,” the Colonel admitted.

Their walk fell into silence, as James made no answer. He walked on, his heart swelling and deflating the more he pondered and reasoned, pondered and reasoned…

“And now we are thoughtful,” the Colonel commented quietly. “I had not suspected you would take gossip so seriously.”

“I am only thinking of what you have been telling me in regards to how your cousin’s conduct does not suit my own judgment. Why was he to be the judge and further, the executioner?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam’s eyebrows lifted. “You are of a mind to call his interference officious?”

“I do not see what right Mr. Darcy has to determine and direct someone else’s happiness, friend or otherwise,” he voiced with some warmth before he recollected himself. “But as we do not know any of the particulars, it is unfair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed that there was, in fact, affection in the case.”

“That is not an unnatural surmise,” the Colonel agreed, “though it does lessen the honour of my cousin’s triumph.”

He chuckled, having meant it as a jest, but James’ inability to partake spurred him to change the topic quickly. James conversed easily with him on whatever matters he proposed, but once left to reflect, James faced a conundrum he had not anticipated. In short, he had been concerned with the depth of Darcy's involvement, but he had quite convinced himself of Charles and Jane's separation being Caroline’s design and arrangement. Her own proximity and constant prattling in Charles’ ear were too easily the center of analysis while Darcy’s quiet judgment gave away very little.

Or rather…Darcy was the prime instrument of Wickham’s unhappiness, and James had placed a different figurehead at the bow of Jane’s. The lack of Wickham’s company had resulted in Darcy’s crimes quite falling away from conscious thought…

Strong objections against the lady, the Colonel had said. To Jane herself, he was sure, there could be no objection. All loveliness and goodness, her understanding was excellent, her mind quite equal to and her manners above the Bingley sisters’. Any objections would have to be made to her family, who were admittedly lesser if bank sums were to be counted. If personality were the cause, only Jane’s mother could be a complaint, but for Darcy to weather such as Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst together, Mrs. Bennet was hardly worse.

Was Darcy’s pride so fragile to require the sound material of his friends’ connections instead of happiness or sense? Then again, if he himself was so attached to a loveless engagement, James supposed he could not rule out the man incapable of such interference…

The agitation of these thoughts created such an agonizing headache and turmoil in James that when evening arrived with an invitation to Rosings, he could hardly rouse himself enough to even tell Charlotte he was not going. Her hand was dry and warm against his forehead as he blinked heavily under her ministrations.

“You’re dreadfully pale,” she worried. “Lizzy, what’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Go. Enjoy dinner.”

Mr. Collins piped from the corridor, “Her ladyship shall be most displeased if we are late or one of us is missing! Is everything quite well?”

Charlotte steeled herself and James was momentarily quite impressed with how she handled her husband with a firm word before the house closed behind them. When they were gone, James reopened his letter from Jane and examined it for any hints or inclinations of suffering. There were none, but so were any sparks or prominent threads of joviality; the cheerfulness which had once characterized her style of writing. It became some consolation to think that, whether the prime instrument of removing such cheer or not, Lord Darcy was to be leaving the day after next. And still greater, in less than a fortnight he would be with Jane again, and perhaps all language of Darcys or Bingleys could be forgotten.

James managed to fall asleep, but the new addition to his room was quite rambunctious the moment the first light of day made its way into his room. Warming some broth to pour over its food, James felt its fragile spine arch up into his hand as it ate.

It was licking the last of the broth when James peered out of his window at the orange sunrise, as well as the dark clouds soon to eclipse the sky. “Come on, before it rains,” he said, but upon turning around, the cat was already curled against his pillow, consuming his lingering heat on the bed.

“You’ve moved right in, haven’t you?” he cooed, crouching to rub a finger between those tall ears. “What shall I call you…” he breathed as a sound reached him elsewhere in the house. Opening his door, he found Charlotte rushing between rooms.

“Lizzy!” she exclaimed upon seeing him. “Can you get the washing from outside? The sky will fall any moment!”

“Can I help you here first?” he wondered, observing the red in her cheeks.

“No! Now! They’re the bloody drapes for church and I will never hear the end of it if they haven’t dried by Sunday!”

She shoved him right out the door, where he was consumed in an unseasonal warm wind which surely was carrying the rain over his head. He ran around the house to where the trees were able to hold the lines for washing and started filling his arms with the first garments he could reach: dresses and underthings alike, which he dumped onto Charlotte’s parlour couch.

The drapery was next, the long white linen reaching toward him as he felt the first drops of rain. The largest tree had wide-reaching, thick beams which held the lines like spiders’ thread. If the tree was full, it might have saved the linen from the rain but as it was, James rushed to yank the fabric—

“God and Christ!” he exploded as a fabric pulled down to reveal Lord Darcy. James clutched the fabric to his face, both to save it from the ground and to cover his embarrassment. His body bowed slightly until he recovered.

“I am sorry,” Darcy apologized quietly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

James straightened with his hand over his eyes, his messy tresses falling over his knuckles…

Fingertips moved over his hand, inducing James to lower it and find Darcy holding his hair aside. James stared dumbly at features he had never seen so expressive. Those fingers pushed his hair behind his ear, eliciting a tingle that made James blink heavily.

Suddenly both hands cradled James’ face and Darcy was close enough to share breath. “James,” he heard from a husky whisper, before soft lips claimed him. James swayed into his kiss, stumbling slightly so Darcy’s hold tightened and James felt his shoulder blades brush against the bark of the tree. His own hands found Darcy’s wrists, discovering his cuffs unbuttoned underneath his jacket sleeves. The second kiss fell right into the first, James’ body warming, reacting…

Darcy separated them but only just. James felt his gasp across his lips as Darcy’s eyes wandered his face. “I have struggled in vain.”

James blinked, his mind slow to absorb his words until they fell upon him all at once.

“My feelings will not be repressed. I cannot deny and must tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

James could only stare silently. Doubt flickered behind Darcy’s eyes but he did not move apart from his thumb stroking over James’s cheek once. “I-I…don’t understand,” James stammered.

“I love you,” he whispered. “What else is there to understand?”

James’s eyes closed, burning from holding them open too long. “Do…you not fear ridicule and segregation?”

“What?” Darcy hushed. His hands loosened around him. “Because you’re a man?”

James’s eyes opened. “A man of your stature spending…how long? With another man of poorer standing? Perhaps you are not God-fearing, but people can be far more cruel.”

He gently removed Darcy’s hands from him. They lowered to Darcy’s sides but the man remained immobile. “Is that what you fear? The duration of my affections and the scorn of others?”

“Are you not engaged?” James curtailed.

Darcy blinked. “With Anne? In my aunt’s eyes, perhaps, but to she and I, not at all.”

“What does that mean?” James grimaced.

Darcy’s brow furrowed as he tried to read him. “It means nothing. I am engaged to no one. My affections entirely revolve around you—you’re laughing at me.”

James chin had fallen to his chest, but his breath lacked mirth entirely. “You’ve never done this part with a man. I cannot expect you to understand.”

“I understand ridicule well enough. I have found once people tire of talking they either stop or move on to other arguments. I would not waste my time worrying of what others think of us any more than I would waste your time with a distracted mind.”

It was raining fully now. The curtains lay forgotten on the earth. Darcy’s declaration struck James in a way he had not anticipated. The backs of his eyes ached, his throat even more so. The muscles in James’ jaw moved as he could no longer hold Darcy’s gaze and looked elsewhere.

“A promise of total devotion…you are…I believe you mean every word you say. Even if it were to come that you could no longer bear my company.”

“Why do you assume such an end?” Darcy uttered. “An end when we have not yet begun?”

James shook his head. “I do not understand you at all.”

Darcy frowned. “Do you or do you not? Ask me anything, I’ve already laid myself bare.”

“Perhaps you ought to take my rejection and go,” James warned impatiently.

“Rejection?” Darcy repeated. “Under what reasons?”

“Reasons,” James murmured. “Apart from ignoring how you dislike me as much as you love me so as to suffer under the strain of shoving your feelings aside? No one much likes to be told they’re unbearable even if they know it themselves. Apart from your own superiority inducing you to think it somehow obvious I should accept? I have never desired your good opinion and you have certainly bestowed it unwillingly. I am sorry to have caused pain to you; it was unconsciously done.”

Darcy’s eyes were fixed on his face, a mixture of resentment and surprise there. “And is this all the reply I am to have the honour of expecting? Shall I swallow my superiority and at least have the respect of being informed why I am thus rejected?”

James sniffed, loathing his tears but he bit out, “I must first voice that I do not understand how one could deny a friend and sister’s happiness but then so ruefully seek his own, which would spark more scandal than such a friend’s marriage.”

He looked up, and Darcy’s frown slowly faded. James’s eyes were a violent silver in the red of his tears. “I speak of Charles and Jane,” he elaborated.

“I know,” Darcy said quietly, and then nothing at all.

James pushed, “Do you deny it?”

“I cannot,” Darcy admitted without shame.

James’ weight shifted on his feet. “Why did you do it?”

Darcy’s features hardened. “Because the matrimony between your families would have hindered the advancements his family wishes to make.”

“That Caroline wishes to make,” James corrected.

“Is it difficult to believe Charles holds the same aspirations?” Darcy wondered.

“I believe you thought he was nothing more than a fool in an autumn romance, while my sister’s happiness remains fractured indefinitely because of him.”

“Fractured?” he said incredulously. “I never once perceived more than a liking for him on her part; only a fondness of friends with perhaps romantic inclination.”

“You yourself have admitted to being a poor judge of conversation,” James erupted. “How could you think yourself right to measure such a relationship?”

“I did not do so with unsound reason,” he defended. “Jane befriended such women as Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, and with such sisters as your youngest two, as well as a mother of loud mind and mouth. Was I so wrong to think it a sign of indifference that she did not relay such similar characteristics, that she never once voiced her opinion so strongly as the company she kept?”

James’ head shook slightly. “You’re a bloody hypocrite, my lord.” That wiped the man’s features clean. “You’re the most silent in a room and yet here you stand. It has taken you over six months to say anything of love to me. How can you expect someone as shy and at such disadvantages as my sister to do any better? And then there is Mr. Wickham.”

Mr. Darcy’s eyes brightened. “Wickham.”

“Yes, Wickham,” James spat. “Have you nothing to say of him? He unfolded long ago the story you wrote for him."

“You take an eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns,” he declared darkly.

“Being kindred spirits of misfortune can have that effect,” James retorted.

“Yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed,” Darcy all but growled. “But as I said, he has told you very little. Is this your opinion of me? It rests so entirely on a rogue’s lies. Thank you for explaining so fully. These accusations might have been overlooked had not your pride—”

“My pride?” James bristled.

“—been hurt by my honest confession. I am not ashamed of the feelings. They were natural and just. But shall I address one crime at a time? You were friends with Charles and closer than no one else to your sister. Why did you not act as a catalyst for them? Why could you not clear the air for no ill assumptions to linger and fester?”

“Because I’m done meddling in Jane’s happiness! I did so once, but not again!”

Darcy frowned. “You mean that gentleman your mother went on about at Netherfield? The great sabotage of poetry at fifteen?”

“It wasn’t about poetry, you fool! My mother doesn’t know the man was in love with me and not Jane!”

He did not mean to yell the last part. Perhaps he hadn’t. It was hard to tell with his throat in such pain, with only the noise of the rain around them. James tore his gaze away, and then explained hoarsely, “My mother’s memory is not good. I was the one who was fifteen, and he did ask Jane to marry him, but it was broken not minutes afterward, so she never really knew.

“He and I…well. We were involved long enough for him to have anything he wanted of me. My body. My heart. To the rest of the family he was a friend, like any other, so it was not abnormal for him to spend time with me or Jane or anyone else. But one day…Jane came to me with something she was not yet ready to tell our parents. I was confused. She and I were not close then as we are now. She told me she was engaged. I was entirely confused. With whom could she be engaged? She knew no one outside the family and…well there it was, wasn’t it? I was stupid and foolish, and then I was heartbroken and livid. Because his plan was never to love my sister.”

He looked up at Darcy, who listened in silent astonishment. “We look the same, don’t we? Or similar, at least. He thought he could manage it. Being with a woman…for the necessary parts. So long as she looked like me.”

James could no longer see Darcy clearly through the tears falling past his jaw. “He thought he could have the both of us…a beautiful doll of a wife, and whatever the hell he considered me. Needless to say I thoroughly ruined her engagement.”

He spared a look at the drapery. It was a lost cause at this point. “You can ridicule my sisters as much as you like, for I was not always kind to them. I thought Jane was weak, and Mary strange. When Kitty and Lydia were born they were nearly joined at the hip and equally ridiculous…but I proved myself the weakest…the most foolish…and certainly the most strange. But Jane, she stayed with me. I realized too late that I would have done anything for their honour while my own crumbled through my fingers—but she stayed with me. She is the strongest of us…and the bravest person I know. Charles is as kind as he is foolish but she deserves him. She deserves everything she wants.”

He stepped forward, not truly seeing where his feet moved. The curtains were sodden and heavy in his arms. “So you see, my lord…I haven’t any pride to make myself interested or deserving of your affections.”

James left him, or at least, he did not look back as he entered the house and deposited the drapery in a basket beside the door. He sensed Charlotte near him but he heard himself say as if from a great distance, “I’m sorry. They won’t be ready for Sunday,” and retired to his room.