Darcy stalked through the corridors of Stratsbury Hall, guilt and sorrow weighing down the usual confidence of his steps. With Aunt Matlock still entertaining her collection of unpalatable guests, a letter would have to suffice as a means of taking his leave. The writing desk at the library was the closest one he could think of between the terrace he had just left and the room he currently occupied, and he maneuvered his way towards the familiar room through the fastest route he could remember, even if it took him through a stretch of the servants' passageways. To leave Elizabeth behind was a gut-wrenching decision, and he had no desire to prolong his agony by watching her remain Richard's neglected betrothed for the rest of this interminable house party.

The murmurs reached his ears as unintelligible sounds as he entered the narrow passage, growing clearer only when he'd almost reached the other end of the narrow hallway.

"You must know that I mean it, with all my heart," Richard's voice avowed, stopping Darcy in his tracks. He noticed the half-open door beside him, an entrance to one or another of the myriad storage rooms on the estate, and leaned slightly askance to catch a glimpse of his cousin through the crack. The woman Richard spoke to was shorter than he was and attired in a maid's uniform, with blond locks tucked beneath her cap. Richard pulled her closer, presumably by the hands, before saying, "I have never met a woman who has captured me, heart and soul, more than you - and I promise that I shall make good of all these professions."

Anger burned hot in Darcy's veins. Every inch of his being wanted to barge into the room and challenge his cousin's honor. There had to be somewhere on Stratsbury's grounds where they could duel by dawn.

"Richard," the insolent maid whimpered, "you can't really promise - "

"I can, and I will." He tugged her even closer, her cap now obscuring most of the colonel's face. Darcy wanted to vomit as much as he wanted to run a sword through his cousin's chest. Richard went on, "I love you, as I have never loved another, and I will court you and marry you and do everything right by you as soon as all of this is done."

"Will it ever truly be done?" The woman asked. "Your life will take you places where I may never get to go. The disparity of our roles cannot possibly bode well for any sort of shared future."

She had better sense than Richard, it seemed, though it did little to recommend her given her current position.

"Would you not go with me - wherever the wind and the work takes us - working hand in hand as one?"

"You paint a pretty picture."

"Only because you are in it."

Richard, the blackguard, pulled the maid into a full embrace. "Please, promise me you will at least consider."

Darcy's fists clenched against his side. The desire to confront Richard immediately warred with his preference to avoid any gossip from reaching the staff downstairs. Even if his cousin was enough of a miscreant to dally with a maid in an unguarded room, while his fiancée entertained his mother's atrocious guests on the family's behalf, there was no reason to propagate the knowledge even more widely. The pain his actions would cause Elizabeth was enough without public humiliation attached to it.

"Very well," the maid whispered in response to Richard's entreaties. Then she tucked her head low as she fled the room, briefly brushing by Darcy with muttered apologies. It looked as if the woman was crying, though Darcy hardly harbored much sympathy for her.

He heard a throat clearing inside the storage room. With a groan of his own, Darcy righted himself and marched into the room.

The sight of Richard adjusting his collar and tugging at his sleeves, as if he had been discomfited by his recent conversation, might have brought Darcy some degree of amusement at another time. It was a rare sight, after all, to see the confident army colonel be so affected by a mere encounter with a maid. Given how incensed Darcy currently felt on Elizabeth's behalf, however, he hardly had any room left within him for good humor.

"You are a disgrace," Darcy growled before he clicked the door close behind them.

Richard straightened and stiffened before turning to face him. The philanderer's face, so open and pleading with his maiden a moment ago, looked cold and impassive now. Darcy crossed his arms.

"You have no right to judge me," said Richard, his voice level, as he braced his arms behind him.

"I know gentlemanly behavior when I see it, and I know ungentlemanly behavior when I see it as well. Do not think, for a moment, that my position as your cousin would in any way cloud my judgment."

"You do not know what you are speaking of."

"I know exactly what I speak of." Darcy took an angry step forward. "You may have your secrets in service to the Crown, and I respect your allegiance. But I cannot watch you dishonor a woman as virtuous as Miss Merivale and pretend that there is no offense committed."

"Miss Merivale." Richard scoffed. He smirked at Darcy, angering the young master of Pemberley even further. "You never even knew her before this country party, and yet you now think yourself her champion?"

"A gentleman does not need to know a lady for a prolonged period of time in order to come to her aid. Honor dictates that I put myself at her service by her mere position and mine."

"Honor, honor, honor - do you even hear yourself, cousin?"

Darcy drew himself to his full height, putting him a full two inches above Richard. "I am not the one dallying with a kitchen maid while I neglect my betrothed."

"Jane is not a kitchen maid," said Richard quietly.

Darcy almost popped a vein. "Do you believe that is the crux of the matter right now? You have as much as confessed to conducting a dishonorable affair while pretending to be affianced to the most deserving woman this family has ever encountered."

Richard had the gall to scoff once more. "Again, I must insist, that you do not know of what you are speaking."

"Do you dare deny that you are enamored with this - this Jane."

"Do you dare deny that you are enamored with the woman you know as Miss Elizabeth Merivale - a woman whom everyone in Stratsbury Hall knows to be engaged to me?"

The insult pierced Darcy's chest like a sharpened dagger. He swallowed. "I did not initiate this conversation to share conjectures about the state of my feelings."

"No, you did not." It was Richard's turn to press forward like the soldier that he was. "You began this conversation because you, in your obsession with Elizabeth, observe my actions and condemn me for a situation that you do not understand."

"How hard is it to understand why a man of your station would proposition a kitchen - a servant?"

"I am not propositioning Jane!"

"Then you are lying to one woman, or to another. An engaged man has no right to promise himself in marriage to another."

"No, he does not."

Richard's immediate and wholehearted agreement stopped Darcy short.

He reined in his temper somewhat. "So you agree then?"

"I do not think you and I have agreed about anything tonight."

"I have known you all my life, Richard, and I have never seen you act as strangely as you have during this house party."

This time, Richard's scoff sounded more amused than arrogant. "May I confess, dear cousin, that the same could be said for you?"

For a moment, the silence lingered.

Then Richard sighed. "There are things that I do - reasons that I do them - that I can never expect my family to ever understand. Your concern for my honor is noble, if misguided. And before you argue, I can promise you this: I promise, Darcy, that things are not what they may appear to be and that I would never hurt Elizabeth."

Darcy glowered.

"I do not feel any shame in whatever it is I am currently doing," Richard continued, "because I know in my heart that I have not dishonored Elizabeth. Whatever the arrangement is between me and her is clear to the both of us, and that is all you need to know."

"But a gentlewoman cannot possibly be amenable to her husband going around propositioning - "

"Again, I must dissent. I am not propositioning Jane in any sort of way."

"Then what are you - "

"I was, shall we say, clarifying certain things." Richard smiled to himself, looking more lovesick for a brief moment than Darcy had ever seen him. "That was all."

"And you will have me believe that Elizabeth would agree with whatever it is you are clarifying to your mistress?"

"Jane is not my mistress." Richard lifted his chin, a gesture Darcy had seen him make whenever he no longer wished to argue with his brother or his cousin. "Please do remember that much, at least. Her sense of honor is much higher than that."

"Then what - "

"You do not need to know what she is to me. You do not need to know how Elizabeth and I have come to arrive at our peculiar arrangement. But you can rest assured that I am dishonoring no one with my current actions. Now, if you would excuse me, I believe I have a fiancée to attend to."

Richard brushed against Darcy and quit the tiny storeroom. Darcy, horribly indignant and rather slightly confused, could do nothing except to conclude that he could simply not leave Elizabeth alone now.

A/N: Misunderstandings. Pain. Angst, angst, angst. Sorry if it's a bit much!