His laughter followed her out into the hall.
Darcy bundled himself into his coat and walked out of doors before the odious toad-eater whom Lady Catherine had awarded a living realised he had lost his audience. Thirty minutes of obsequious apologies with no sign of stopping was more than enough. He had awaited Miss Elizabeth’s return, but either Mr. Bennet had detained her, or she had left him to his fate.
Darcy’s thoughts were in disarray, and he required peace and solitude to sort them out. The park in which Longbourn sat was nothing to Pemberley, but it was quiet and well tended, in all a pretty sort of property. He could easily see Miss Elizabeth in his mind’s eye as a young girl, dark curls bouncing wildly as she scampered about the grounds, clambering up trees and plucking exactly the flowers her mother wished to preserve.
The walk had been an excellent idea. He could understand why Miss Elizabeth enjoyed them.
As he reached the junction where Longbourn’s road met the one to Meryton, he heard a faint scream.
Darcy picked up his pace until he heard another woman scream, louder this time.
He ran. Sliding to a stop in the middle of the deserted Meryton road, he looked about him. It was all forest and trees on one side and hedgerow on the other here, so he could not immediately locate the source of the cries.
Snow had begun to accumulate on the ground, and though at the moment it amounted to only an inch or so, more flakes were drifting lazily down to the ground. His breath formed frozen clouds as he stood still, waiting.
Just as he was about to call out, a cacophony of voices exploded into screams and shouts, like a flock of birds. Outraged birds.
Women, the lot of them.
Then, to his surprise, the hedgerows parted in a way they ought not, and a man in a bedraggled militia uniform slithered through, landing hard on the wet, muddy ground. He stood, brushing himself off before he straightened.
“Wickham,” Darcy said. Of course. Who else could drive so many women to wrath all at once?
“Darcy!” Wickham hailed him as though he had not just been witnessed diving through the shrubbery. “Well met!”
Darcy could only shake his head at the man’s gall. “Neverwellmet, Wickham.”
“I beg you, Darcy,” Wickham said in a low voice as he drew near, “help me back to camp.”
“What have you done?”
“Nothing that they did not want to happen, Darcy, you know me. Charm is all I require.”
A great hue and cry came from the other side of the hedgerow before one section of it violently collapsed and a crowd of nearly ten women trampled it into the ground in their haste. Young women all, but from a variety of classes.
“Hmm,” Darcy replied, masking his delight. “Less charm and quicker feet, I think.” He beckoned to a girl who was standing on the edge of the group and gave her a few instructions.
“Thank you,” Wickham said to Darcy as the girl ran off, and then attempted to hide behind him. Darcy was having none of that. He stepped clear.
“You said I was yer one an’ only, Georgie,” a comely young woman sneered, pushing through the others. “Got a kiss with the mistletoe and me wages besides, din’t ya? I shall ’ave the money back agin!” She held out her hand.
“Now, Kate,” Wickham said as he backed away, “you said that was a gift.”
The women surged around him, putting him in the centre of a squawking mob.
“He kissed me as well!” a young girl shouted. Her dress proclaimed her a gentlewoman, or perhaps the daughter of wealthy tradesman. “I did not wish to, but he said we were engaged and that it would be all right because it was under the mistletoe!”
“And it will be, Mary,” Wickham pleaded.
“That is Miss King to you,” she said icily. “Or better yet, do not address me again at all. I will tell my uncle that you are naught but a fortune hunter.”
Darcy nodded. Wise girl.
“That’s right, dearie! He used that ol’ mistletoe on me as well!” another woman said, leaning back and crossing her arms over her ample chest as the other women advanced, surrounding an increasingly panicked officer. “He had three shillings from me. I felt terrible for ’im, being so badly crossed by the tight-fisted swell cove he grew up with, but per’aps his pretty face hides all his pretty lies.”
A girl no older than Miss Lydia but half her size ran at Wickham and gave him a mighty shove. Another stuck her leg out behind him so he could not regain his balance. He fell onto the road.
“Tight-fisted?” Darcy asked, greatly amused. “Is that how you speak about your own godfather’s son, George?”