Gwen removed a handkerchief from Remy's breast pocket to wipe the blood away from her lips and forearms. As drunk as most of the guests were, they would notice the blood and then hell would be raised. As much as she wanted to get her revenge on Darcy, the desire to never thinking about him again was even stronger. Humiliation would only cause his father to step in and take action. That being said, Gwen would probably be banned from visiting Rosings and she could not let that happen.

Gwen pulled Remy off of the ground. She placed one of his arms around her neck and one of her around his torso. She groaned as he was far heavier than he looked, but she couldn't in good conscience to leave him in the garden so she pressed on.

No one noticed Gwen as she carried Remy back into the house and set him down on one of the couches. There were hardly any people around, as they were all still gathered around the punch bowl. They also did not notice Gwen move through the crowd to her father and whisper something into his ear.

"Please! May we go home?" she begged.

Her father looked at her with a raised brow. "Dear Lord, Gwendolyn! What happened to you? You're bleeding," he observed. He lifted one of her arms and examined the small cuts that covered it.

Gwen hadn't noticed that her right arm had started bleeding again. She pressed the handkerchief to her wounds to stop the blood from following.

"I fell into a rosebush," she lied.

Her father stared at her. "That's unlike you. You were always very graceful," he stated.

Gwen quickly changed the subject before she gave away any real information. "May we leave. I don not want to stay here any longer."

"After your performance earlier in the evening, I can see why," her father responded. "If you can pull your mother away from Lucinda, then we will leave."

"But that's nearly impossible!" she muttered.

Her father gave her a sympathetic smile. "You embarrassed your mother, my dear child. This is your punishment," he explained.

Gwen groaned. Trying to pry her mother from Lucinda Spencer was like trying to pry a piece of steak away from a hungry dog. It was not impossible, but very dangerous and difficult. She spotted the duo watching the dancers. Gwen walked over to the duo, which were cackling about something that she did not overly care about.

Mrs. Spencer caught sight of Gwen first. "Ah, the naughty girl has returned. We were just talking about you," she said rather bluntly.

Josephine looked drunkenly at her daughter. "You embarrassed me in front of everyone!" she exclaimed. "So I'm sending you to the Spencers for the rest of the summer while the rest of the family goes to visit your brother Olivier."

Gwen's eyes grew wide. "But that isn't fair!" she exclaimed.

"Yes it is! Marion and Priscilla do as they are told! You will learn to behave from them!" he mother stated.

"But mama, I've been wanting to visit Olivier for months! It's not fair to send me away when all I did was walk away from what could have turned into a heated argument in the middle of a ballroom filled with listening ears and gossiping mouths," Gwen exclaimed as she glanced at Lucinda, the queen of gossip herself. She has spread more rumours in her lifetime than anyone else in all of the empire.

"Yes I'm sure that such a coolheaded young lady such as yourself would start an argument with the refined Mr. Darcy," Lucinda responded.

Gwen knew that she was attacking her, but she also knew that she could not retaliate, especially with her mother right beside her. Lucinda was using Josephine as a human shield.

So Gwen smiled at her. "Mother, father would like to leave. He is tired and asks that I fetch you," she lied.

Her mother grumbled about having too much fun. She was far beyond the point of drunk, but that was exactly what Lucinda wanted. Josephine was far more compliant when her senses were numbed. That was how she convinced Gwen's mother to force Gwen into stay with the Spencers while the rest of the family goes abroad, something she knew that Gwen enjoyed. In Gwen's melancholy state, she would turn to the only Spencer she disliked the least, Cole (it would be Marion if she was not attached to Priscilla). That would give him the opportunity to propose and they would be married. It was a clever plan on Lucinda's part, but Gwen was a little quicker than Lucinda believed.

Gwen grabbed her mother by her arm. "Come along, mother," she said aggressively. She gave a quick nod to Mrs. Spencer before dragging her mother away from the conniving woman. Gwen clenched her jaw. That woman was going to drive Gwen to an early grave if Lucinda continued her scheming. If Lucinda kept influencing Mrs. Crawford, Gwen's fate was sealed and she would be Mrs. Cole Spencer in a year's time.

The very thought made her cringe.

"But I…" her mother began.

"Mama, I feel ill. Father wants to leave," Gwen hissed. "Please just come with me."

If Josephine had not been drunk, she would not have been detached from Lucinda so easily, even though she was a bad influence on Gwen's mother. It was irritating to watch her mother being taken advantage of in such a way, especially when in directly affected Gwen.

Gwen left her mother with her husband and set off to find her sister, who was no doubt flirting with some young man. She walked from room to room searching for Evelyn. Gwen only narrowly missed another encounter with James Darcy, who looked positively miserable in the parlour where he had been cornered by Priscilla and Marion. Gwen quickly moved through the room once she realized that her sister was not among its occupants.

Darcy looked up from the beautiful, but money hungry faces of the Spencer daughters, to see the stubborn Gwen Crawford enter the parlour. He noticed the cuts on her arms from when he had attacked her. They were no longer bleeding. She scanned the room quickly. Darcy quickly looked away from her and tried to pay attention to the mindless dribble that passing from the lips of the Spencer daughters. He glanced up again to see that she had disappeared.

Remorse was not something he was used to feeling. She had provoked him and he had acted. It seemed so just at the time, but once he calmed down, he realized how unjustified his actions really were. God how could he be so stupid. If she told his father, James would never see the light of day again. Though, he rather doubted that she would breath a word of their encounter to anyone other than Remy Hunt, who would not be able to tell anyone else after tomorrow evening.

The Hunt family, though they were supposed to entertain Mr. Darcy and his son, were called away due to a death in the family. Because Mr. Darcy had no intention of having his son return to Pemberley with him, he asked the Mr. Spencer to care for him until school resumed. Mr. Spencer happily agreed to host his son, which explained why Marion and Priscilla decided to attach themselves to him. Other than the bizarre, obsessive children and the conniving wife, the Spencer house was a pleasant place. It was far larger than the Hunt estate and was far more elegant. However, the Hunts were better company.

Darcy did not want to apologize. He didn't really need to apologize because the day after tomorrow Gwen and her entire family were going to visit her brother and his wife. They would not be back for at least a month. He was sure that their little tiff would be forgotten by then, and it was doubtful that they would ever meet again.

Evelyn was dancing with some fellow that Gwen did not recognize. Gwen moved into her sister's line of sight and waved her over. Evelyn nodded and excused herself from the dance. She hurried over to her sister.

"Gwen! Where have you been?" she demanded. "Mama has been looking for you!"

"We're leaving. Come with me," Gwen ignored her sister's attempts to protest by grabbing onto her wrist and pulling her through the crowd.

She found her father standing by the carriage, which had been brought to the front of the manor. Her mother was already half asleep in the seat. Gwen handed Evelyn over to her father before turning and walking back towards the house.

"Where are you going?" her father asked.

"I have to say goodbye to Remy," Gwen stated before disappearing into the house.

Remy was exactly where she had left him. He was still drunk and half asleep. Gwen shook his arm sternly. "I will see you tomorrow afternoon, Remy," she said very softly. She was about to leave when Remy took a hold of her arm and pulled her close to him.

"Won't be...tomorrow," he said drunkenly. "My grandmother sick...dying... going to see her. Probably...funeral."

Gwen stared at him. "But how am i going to survive the summer if you are away?" she demanded. "I am being forced to stay with the Spencers!"

Remy frowned. "He's...there too," he muttered.

"Who is?" she asked.

"Darcy going home," Remy said, "but Mr. Spencer offered...Darcy didn't mind..."

"What did Mr. Spencer offer?"Gwen could feel a sense of fear overtaking her.

"Darcy junior lodging with Spencer."

Her eyes had never grown so wide in her life. Her face had never grown so pale. She had never been so surprised and enraged in her life. It was bad enough that she had to spend her summer with the Spencer family, which meant missing an opportunity to visit her brother, but now she and her newly formed enemy was to share the same house. Catastrophe seems like too much of an understatement to describe what Gwen assumed would happen.