Dear God!

Elizabeth thought it at the same moment William said it.

He released her hand and shot across the room as if it had caught fire, his swift charge stopping just short of the blaze that foreseeably flared with the onset of a fierce reaction to an incomprehensible act of folly.

Powering through her state of shock, Elizabeth rushed to William's side as the inevitable assault on Thornhaugh's body commenced. The couple could only watch in helpless dismay, picturing in their minds the foreign substance coursing like lava through his intestinal tract. He waited, handkerchief at the ready, for the blood to tint his colorless lips, then covered them just in time to spare an ungodly mess for the staff to clean. He coughed with brutal, ravaging force, rattling the crystal with each hard smash of his fist upon solid oak. Through the slits of his eyes ran escaped tears mixed with sweat, trailing down cheeks flushed beet red with strain. "Oh, God," he croaked, swabbing his mouth, then folding the cloth to dab away the sheen from his tortured face, down his curiously unclad neck and across the skin and bones of his chest. He breathed in a scratchy lungful of air and let it out, slowly, repeating until the spell was over and the pain receded to a bearable degree.

At that point he turned his attention to the gawking, mute couple with a mixed appearance of exhaustion and triumph. "Can you believe that was my third one?" he boasted. "The first was for knowledge. The second was for flavor (ghastly awful!). The third was for luck. And now the fourth…"

His reach for the decanter spurred the sort of sharp and stern protest from William known to make peers relent and servants quiver out of sheer amazement at their taciturn master's break from precedent. Thornhaugh merely scoffed, claiming to admire his passion before calmly but gruffly reminding him of the stipulated terms of the contest "—which grants each player the privilege of imbibing as much as he damn well pleases."

William collected himself, but still wore a tired, deflated look as he said, "Tell me why. Why now?"

Thornhaugh shrugged. "Curiosity? Boredom? Solitude?" His flickering eyes took in the firelit ambience. "It is a room for entertaining, and there was no one about to entertain—except myself. Where were you, Darcy? seeing your brother out? Cannot a man so sharp-sighted find his own way to the door?"

"You were not alone for long. A few minutes."

"I know," said Thornhaugh. His aloofness rose to mirth as he scanned William's dour expression. "Now, now, Darcy…chin up! Upon my word! you look as if you somehow failed me."

"Did I?"

"Don't be daft. You owe me nothing. In fact, I owe you plenty. Everything. You gave me several happy weeks that would have otherwise been spent on the road or in the ground. With such low prospects, there can never be disappointment, now can there?"

Elizabeth watched her husband's expression change, the wheels in his mind turning to form a disheartening theory. With an unwavering stare, he lowered his brow and inquired gravely, "What happened with John?"

"Now that is between family, is it not?" Thornhaugh tapped the rim of his empty glass. "Maybe, just maybe, I am celebrating the reestablishment of a sacred bond shared only between siblings. Must you be so pess…pessimiss…. gloomy? Now stop that insufferable brooding, and let me greet your lovely wife." He made a clumsy but reverent bow to Elizabeth. "Good evening, madam." But her returning of the pleasantry went ignored as his eyes caught a flash of lightning through the window. He counted, "One…two…three…" then came a drum-roll of thunder. "Three miles away or so. Do storms not frighten you, Mrs. Darcy?"

She gave it a passing glance and answered, "Not for years, my Lord," deliberately honoring his title and noting his grateful response to it. "After my first was born, you might say I was obliged to give up that luxury."

"The luxury of fear?"

"Not fear in general, of course, but that which is beyond the bounds of reason, or a potential intrusion upon a mother's calling to see to her children's comfort and reassurance, which must supersede her own lack thereof. Parents ought never to appear weaker than their young, else they may never find strength or courage as they grow older."

"Oh, I doubt that was ever a likelihood for you, Mrs. Darcy, despite having grown up with a nervous mother."

"How did you know—"

"Because you own a uniquely defiant nature akin somewhat to me and, well, at least one of your sisters. The youngest, I believe. Mrs. Wickham." He looked away sadly. "Lydia."

Elizabeth hid her disturbance at being compared for the first time to Lydia as she had always wished she were more like Jane. But with no argument to make she replied simply, "Though my sisters and I rose to some degree above our mother's nature, I should feel embarrassed to see my children set on rising above mine."

Thornhaugh swayed and blinked, struggling mightily with the effects of intemperance throughout their exchange. "How nice it would be, madam, if more mothers felt as you did. But this…this has not been my experience, and I have had many…as you know." Though he was smiling, there was no evidence of cheer in his voice as he remained slumped against the sideboard, staring vacantly at the floor. A few seconds passed and then suddenly, he looked at her, a small light twinkling in his dark eyes. "I am afraid you are the exception to the rule…but then I have always thought—thought so. You stand miles apart from any woman of my acquaintance. Darcy's too, I'd wager."

"I'd wager," said William, frowning, "that your tongue is feeling laxer than usual."

"It is an interesting feeling, a cozy feeling." Thornhaugh's smile extended. "A happy feeling, despite that galling look of pity in your eyes, Mrs. Darcy."

"Would you prefer disapproval, sir? If so, I can accommodate you."

Though she had meant the response in jest, Thornhaugh answered seriously, "Please do, madam, for that… that is a look I am used to and shall warmly embrace—but pity? I bear pity no better than you should bear disrespect." He flashed a gold band, William's band. "Yet your husband tells me you have forgiven him."

"Do you require confirmation?"

"You just supplied it." He pocketed the ring. "But how can that be, I wonder?"

"How can you wonder, I wonder," said she. "How was Anne so forgiving?"

Thornhaugh screwed his eyes shut and wagged his head as if to clear his mind of unwelcome thoughts. "Anne was…foolish."

"Foolish for loving you?"

He nodded. "You are not a fool, Mrs. Darcy. You know your worth."

She turned her head to see William regarding her with that steadfast, ardent gaze she had once mistaken for censure. "I am not sure that any woman knows her worth." She smiled archly at both men. "But I can at least promise that mine shan't be diminished by the likes of you two!"

"I speak of more than a silly wager over a hunk of metal, madam," said Thornhaugh, having none of her levity. "Surely…surely you have caught the scent of perfume in the air?"

"Ah!" she chuckled, "so that is what has been burning my nostrils and making me dizzy."

"You laugh!" He looked confoundedly at William. "She laughs."

"Yes she does." William's eyes never left her face. "Often."

Elizabeth teased, "Though not quite so often or so loudly as your dear old friends, my Lord." On Thornhaugh's silent urging, she became more earnest. "I am well informed of the situation and its context, sir."

"I see. Courtesy of your devoted staff."

She caught his pointed emphasis on the descriptor. "I think the bulk of them are devoted and shall remain so. A few may be appalled. Others may be indifferent. Some will talk. Some will not. In any case, those we value know the master's character, sir, as I know my husband's."

"Does that sentiment apply to your friends and neighbors, as well?"

"It does."

"Oh, but of your children, Mrs. Darcy? Imagine the scandal that is sure to befall as a result of this, make of them outcasts—"

"Not that it is any of your affair," she interrupted, "but my endeavors at avoiding scrutiny have ever been an exercise in futility. Our children are headstrong, resilient, and because they know they are safe and loved right here at home, are not expected to rely on vacuous approval of the world outside their own. And speaking of futility, let me warn you that this line of questioning is sure to reach a dead end. I have spent many years building an immunity to incitement; but do continue, sir, if you enjoy wasting your breath. And I shall add this, as well: an unfortunate woman is no less deserving of shelter from a storm than the king himself. That is what my sister Jane would say to you, as would my eight-year-old son. Perhaps because they are foolish, or because they are dear and kind and generous of heart…just as Anne was, an angel. Given our own respective shortcomings, even the smallest effort to live by their model is as close to heaven as we may ever reach, don't you think?"

"Why I can hear the harp music now." Though the reply was caustic, his expression was warm as he further stated, "Not that you inquired, Mrs. Darcy, but I can attest to your staff's devotion. Thank you for that speech; it was lovely. Mr. Darcy, have you anything profound to add?"

"Take some bread," uttered William as he made for the food tray, "and drink some water. It may dilute some of the liqueur."

"You have forgotten your neutral role, Darcy."

"No, I have not."

While Darcy busied himself with the bread knife, Elizabeth moved to inspect the decanter. Removing the top she took an eye-stinging whiff of the distilled concoction, then noted with distress, "It is a proof spirit."

"And he has barely eaten," said William.

"Well, bugger," muttered Thornhaugh. "This is sure to affect my game, but I was not wrong. The third did indeed bring me luck. Bad luck!" His eyes shifted again to the decanter. "Does that mean the fourth shall bring me—"

"An assured loss, my Lord," said Elizabeth in her gentlest voice, knowingly flashing her fine eyes up at him. He drank in their soulful shimmer, taking no notice as she gingerly slid the crystal vessel well out of reach. "You do not wish to spoil your lead, now do you?"

She gave his arm a soft, motherly pat before inclining her head towards William, her subtle wink urging him to play along. In his mien she saw the willingness to oblige, just before it went cold and he said flatly, "Too late, my dear. It is all over. Fred will destroy him."

"What!" Thornhaugh scowled. "The devil he will!"

"Not that the odds were in your favor to begin with," William nudged further. "The name Blackwell is on the Wall of Champions in White's billiard room, and I just overheard him saying he could best you with his eyes closed."

"I bested Prin—Prinny with my eyes closed."

A doubtful pause. "Did you?"

"Well, no. But I could have. He was not very good." He motioned toward the tray. "The bread, Mr. Darcy, if you please." William served him, and he forced down three or four bites, chasing them down with the tall glass of water that Elizabeth had just poured. "Tell me, is my nose red? In my prime, I could often assess my odds of winning by the mere shade of a man's nose."

"That slur alone," said William, "shall give Blackwell all the assessment he needs."

"Perhaps that is my design, Darcy. You never know. I might have had just the one glass. Perhaps I am acting." He pulled a straight face, but could not hold it for more than a few seconds before his eyes crinkled and smile broke. "Perhaps not." Delight rose to enchantment as he gazed upon the couple with one hand clutched against his heart. "My, what a pair you are! To look upon you is like—like taking in a work of the ffffinest art! Mrs. Darcy, you will join the party and cheer—cheer me to victory, will you not?"

William was quick to quash that notion. "In a room with those women, your mouth, and Fred's temper? Out of the question."

"Add insobriety to the mix," said Elizabeth in concurrence, "and it would be most unwise."

"Oh. Well. Then I suppose this is farewell, Mrs. Darcy. Or goodbye, I should say. Are you relieved? You ought to be." He was staring deeply into her eyes, undoubtedly mindful of the tears that threatened to fall.

She sniffed them back and replied, "No, sir. And I do not believe I am ready to see you off just now. I think I shall go back up to the nursery and nap for a while." She said to William, "Dearest, do send for me when the carriage is set to depart," then to Thornhaugh, "Good luck, sir."

"Oh, but I have plenty of that already, Mrs. Darcy. Look!" Thornhaugh removed a pristine handkerchief, then unfolded it to show her Janie's four-leaf clover, Malcolm's rock, and Anne's prayer beads. "I cannot lose."

Sir Frederick Vincent Combermere Blackwell, resolved to have learned his lesson from that disastrous stint of cards, took the long respite in Pemberley's billiard room to sharpen his skills and his wits. For almost half an hour he played game after game with a half-sprung (but still proficient) Matlock, whose favor since his argument with Thornhaugh had shifted over to Fred's side. Though the firstborn Blackwell had never got on with the second born Fitzwilliam, the two men tacitly forgave all existing grudges for the formation of a truce and Fred's glad gaining of an ally. They practiced vigilantly, all the while exchanging tales about the lurid exploits of Bedford's black sheep as three vulgar, satin-clad harlots sang his praises in their own corner of the room. Fred ignored their every look and utterance, refusing to make it plain that having to endure their company had been as much a thorn in his side as the Thorn over whom they had been fawning all evening. Thank God his wife accepted his explanation that these Paphians were being employed quite deliberately to discomfit him as a means to give their favorite trick the slightest edge. Priscilla had bristled with contempt for Thornhaugh but said she was not at all surprised; and then she smiled, kissed him, and cited Mrs. Darcy's words about a wife trusting in the consistency of her husband's character. "And you are not the sort to be tempted by such women," said she.

True to that point, Fred would continue treating them as if they were invisible, his thoughts of any woman confined to the one who carried his heart and his child, though their pungent perfume did make him sneeze once or twice. His first wife Sophie would have fainted at the mere notion of him sharing the same air with them for an instant, let alone the same room for several hours. She would never have allowed an evening as this to transpire without a tantrum and a promise—per the usual threat—to have his father shame him severely.

Priscilla would not think to use his father against him, just one more quality among a thousand others that endeared her to him to an all too frightening, almost helpless degree. Such thoughts of her reminded him of how grievously he had erred with Thornhaugh, of how he had so inadequately become ensnared by the cerebral traps of a master manipulator, essentially behaved against everything he was taught, everything instilled in him from birth. He was humbled, humiliated, even guilt-ridden; for how could he—a worldly man—have faulted his unworldly wife for falling prey as she did to the same sort of swine, whose similar tactics now had him rolling about in mud, frequently losing his composure, his discipline, his dignity?

Not that he was a stranger to mud. There was a time in fact when he could fling it better than almost anyone, when he took actual pride in his talent for leaving a political rival broken and his stellar reputation in tatters. But not since his volatile youth had he felt such a strong inclination towards violence against another, and never had he considered applying his shadier campaign techniques to a sport in which the gentleman's code was rigidly followed. Nor, Fred realized, could he behave as a polished candidate, one who is acutely aware of such things as environment, social standing, birth, rank, family, fortune, manners, and propriety. No, he must think more like a man in training to engage in a bloody battle against another, each warrior equipped with a set of skills learned over a long stretch of time, experience, and education, his own at University and Thornhaugh's in the streets.

Fred was almost impressed by how effectively ol' Thorny had flustered even Matlock, a man who could boast a higher threshold of tolerance given his military career, not to mention his marriage to a liberal-minded painter and poet, a woman of greater ideals than sense, the sort who welcomed and encouraged the coarse and the refined to commingle in, as she called it, the spirit of fellowship. Despite how unsuitable the widowed Marina Morton seemed for the likes of a Fitzwilliam, and despite Richard's far more conventional principles, their marriage, when measured against the Darcys' (a secret but common practice in their circles), was considered strong, while the Blackwell union suffered constant scrutiny and doubt.

He now eagerly awaited the inevitable moment when Thornhaugh would try and exploit the insecurities that still lingered in the same manner he had exploited what he knew of his father's condition. Only now Fred would attend the blackguard sober, more determined, and fully prepared to dish out as many barbs that were flung at him. At the first opportunity he would throw Thornhaugh's fleeting farce of a marriage back in his face. He would, without contrition, decry Darcy's cousin as just one more desperate, homely heiress who had settled for a rake to not die an old maid. It had not gone unnoticed at the shooting competition, that flash of murderous intent in Thornhaugh's eyes at Fred's mere mention of her. Perhaps the rumors were true and sorely felt even this many years later. Could such a cad possibly feel shame or even guilt over his abandonment of her, the neglect which had worsened her health and expedited her death? Could he be repentant over his own callous reaction to it, from the immediate ransacking of Rosings Park to the pilfering of every material object in her final resting place, every penny and every item that could be called hers, that greedy, gluttonous reprobate! Fred knew not his level of shame or if he had one, only that there was indeed a fragility, most definitely, with regards to that woman. And if he was not mistaken, then there just might be a weakness with regards to Bedford. Should there be a semblance of humanity left in him, Fred would sniff it out. Everything he knew, every trick in his bag would be used in this bout of billiards. And by the time Thornhaugh shuffled into the room on Darcy's buttressing arm, warbling a sea chanty as if he were Blackbeard himself, Fred was convinced that he could not lose, enough to put up as part of the exorbitant wager a miniature of his wife "—which you must trust is as dear to me than almost anything I own." With a look at Darcy he added, "It would seem you have inspired me, ol' boy."

"Inspired you to gamble your wife's affection?" said Thornhaugh, who could barely stand without a wall or table to hold him upright. But there was more to his infirmity, Fred observed, than a shortage of breath, a distinct change in his countenance, most certainly his speech. "Can you…can you rely on the lady's forgiveness with the same degree of faith, Sssssir Frederick?"

There was simply no hiding the slur in his voice, nor did he seem to have any interest in doing so. Fred expressed a moment of shock, and then could not help but smile. "Well now. What an interesting development is this."

"You alright, Thorny?" asked the blonde-haired strumpet who had quickly taken over Darcy's nursing duties to the feeble wretch. The reception from all three women had been lively and jubilant. As soon as he appeared in the doorway they ran to him, the two younger ones linking their arms and kissing his gaunt cheeks, expressing their love and adulation as easily as any lie ever told to one of their regulars.

And in the first of many surprising moments, he had torn himself away from their grasping limbs and shouted, "I want Baxter!" like a spoilt and fitful child. "You three take yourselves off and go elsewhere."

"Where, Thorny?" they asked in harmony.

"Away from me! I don't want to look at you or hear you. Say nothing more and get out."

"But Thorny love," cried that Madame la Croix in shock before she was firmly shushed and the three of them once again ordered out of the room with yet another demand that they bring him the governess, who was at his side not half a minute later.

"Sir?"

"Baxter," said he, laying a palm upon the plain woman's shoulder, "this is very important now. Are you listening?"

"Er…yes, sir?" said the puzzled Baxter.

"You know your way around a billiard table. Your father, remember? the barrister?"

"Of course, sir. But…"

"You watched him play…often?"

"Quite often, sir."

"Ever fetch him his cue before a game?"

"On…on occasion, sir."

"Did you love your father, Baxter?"

"Very much, sir."

"This is an important game for me. I need you to go and select my cue. I shall observe from here."

"Observe? Sir, I—"

"Shh-shhh…my weary legs, woman. I am here, and the cues, as you see, are aaaalll the way over there. It is a simple task. Go and choose for me. For me, understand? Go along." He lightly nudged her over to the rack, and she took a good while indeed in making the selection. When she finally returned to him with her stick of choice, his eyes were gleaming. "Thank you. Darcy; I wish for Miss Baxter to stay. Will you allow it if I promise to behave?"

"Like a gentleman?" said Darcy.

"Of the first water," Thornhaugh promised.

Matlock had already escorted the three dumbfounded harlots away. Darcy yielded to Thornhaugh's request; and just like that, a harem became a schoolroom.