AUTHOR'S NOTE

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Mr. Darcy followed his cousin to Col. Fitzwilliam's bedchamber where there was a beautiful full bottle of French brandy. Mr. Darcy was quite ready to imbibe even though he avoided spirits as a rule. But with the day he had, Fitzwilliam decided that he could well and truly use a drink.

Col. Fitzwilliam opened the bottle while he watched his cousin prowl about the room. He poured a healthy glass for Mr. Darcy and just half a glass for himself. Mr. Darcy took the glass and downed half the contents immediately. Col. Fitzwilliam's eyebrows raised as he had never seen his cousin in such a mood. This would be interesting.

"So, that is why you left earlier? To ask Miss Elizabeth to marry you?"

Mr. Darcy drained the rest of his brandy and held the glass out. Col. Fitzwilliam eyed it, then took the glass and refilled it. He hoped his cousin would slow down. But he could understand the need to wipe out the events of the day as quickly as possible.

"Yes." Mr. Darcy took his glass only drinking a swallow this time.

Col. Fitzwilliam's shoulders relaxed as had not wanted to deal with a drunk, sick Mr. Darcy. "So what happened? You said she turned you down?"

He swore his cousin growled. "I did her the honor of bestowing a marriage proposal. I told her I had admired her. That I wanted her even though she had inferior connections, a lack of decorum in her younger sisters and mother. That I admired her so much I still wanted to marry her. Yet she said I had insulted her!" Mr. Darcy turned to his cousin with wide eyes.

"She told me that I could not have offered my hand in any manner that she would have accepted! That she did not even feel remorse for turning me down as I had not behaved in a gentleman-like manner." Mr. Darcy took a healthy drink of his brandy. "A more gentlemen-like manner? I, who strive to be a gentleman, always in control of my emotions, behavior and speech."

Col. Fitzwilliam fell backwards into his chair. "You truly told her about her low connections? The behavior of her family?"

"Of course I did! She had to know how much she meant to me. That I could not get her out of my mind. It was a romantic marriage proposal and she not only turned me down but insulted me in the process." Mr. Darcy drank his brandy.

Col. Fitzwilliam also took a healthy drink of his brandy. Good God, his cousin was the most intelligent man he knew, but he was a complete dolt. "Darcy, do you perhaps think that maybe she was not flattered by that proposal? That by telling her of her inferior family connections, her family's lack of decorum, it caused her to be angry?"

Mr. Darcy turned around with a glare. "It was the truth. Should I have lied to her? Should I have told her that I was happy to be married to her, to be related to her sisters that showed no propriety at all? To have as a mother-in-law a woman with little brain and less tact?"

Col. Fitzwilliam took a deep breath. He could not imagine anyone messing up a marriage proposal worse than Darcy had. "So, what happened then?"

"She proceeded to tell me of everything she disliked about me. She even told me that I had ruined the future happiness of George Wickham! You know as well as I do that is nothing but lies. Lies that George Wickham has spread and that Miss Elizabeth believed."

Col. Fitzwilliam flattened his lips as he remembered what had almost happened to his cousin Georgiana Darcy. There was nothing too bad that could happen to George Wickham because of that. And if he spread lies about Mr. Darcy's involvement, he surely told a very different story than what actually happened. "You will have to set her straight on that account."

"I had thoughts of telling her in person but realized that could lead to another argument. I had planned to write her a letter when she fell in front of me and this mess occurred."

To be forced to marry Elizabeth Bennet, Col. Fitzwilliam would not mind that. His cousin got all the luck. He drank the rest of his brandy and stood to pour himself some more. "So, she turned you down because of how you supposedly ruined George Wickham's life?"

"Not just that. She also claimed, and quite rightly, that I had taken Mr. Bingley away from her older sister. I had thought that Miss Bennet had shown no more favor to my friend than any other man. It turns out that I was wrong, according to Miss Elizabeth. If what she said was true, then I did make a horrible error in judgment."

Col. Fitzwilliam groaned. He remembered Darcy telling him about how he had saved his friend from a bad relationship. Oh God, Darcy. Col. Fitzwilliam drank his brandy.

"Well, what are you going to do now? You did offer for her, did you not?" Considering how angry his cousin was at Miss Elizabeth, he was not sure that Darcy had indeed done what propriety dictated.

"Of course I did!"

Col. Fitzwilliam spread his hands out in a placating gesture, then sat back in his chair. Egads. That marriage was going to be a horror. He felt bad for his cousin as he knew how much Darcy loved to stay at home. But with an angry wife, Darcy needed to find hobbies out of the house pretty quickly.

"Could you change what you did regarding your friend Bingley and Miss Elizabeth's sister? That would help Miss Elizabeth to not be so angry with you."

"I have to. I have erred and caused, according to Elizabeth, tremendous harm to Miss Bennet. I guess I will find out how much harm I caused my friend when I tell him."

Col. Fitzwilliam could not help but notice that his cousin had spit out the name Elizabeth as if he hated to say it. Hopefully Darcy would come down from his anger. Because he had to marry Miss Elizabeth and probably sooner rather than later.

"What are you going to tell our aunt?"

Mr. Darcy shook his head. "I do not know. I need to tell her soon as the gossip will be running through Hunsford. I need to come to terms with it first though."

Col. Fitzwilliam nodded. What a mess.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Thank you for reading! If you would like to read the rest, you may purchase it from Amazon and help a starving artist! Or go to bellabreen dot com and read it online there after registering for an account.