Excentryke's Musings

Title: Knocking on Windowpanes
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Pairing(s): Bella/Septi, (one sided) Bella/Darcy, (past) Darcy/Elizabeth
Fandoms: Twilight Saga/Pride&Prejudice/Wimsey Mysteries
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2k
Warnings: arranged marriages, talk of infidelity, time travel, time appropriate standards
Summary: Bella had agreed to marry Darcy, but her heart belonged to someone else entirely…
Author’s Note: Just a little something I whipped up for you all.

Knocking on Windowpanes

There was a knock at the door, well past nine in the evening, and Bella sat up from where she was reclining on a sofa.  A book of poetry was clasped between her fingers.  She had been trying to read it, but her thoughts had been too distracted to pick up the words on the page. 

She wondered if Darcy had come back.

Sighing, she set down the book and sat up.  She had already had Charlotte take down her hair, and it had been brushed out and braided for when she had eventually decided to go to bed.  Her stockings had been discarded in favor of bare feet, and she was no longer wearing a black blusher.

Not bothering to glance out the window to see Darcy’s carriage, she looked about at all the bouquets of white roses Darcy had sent over the past several days.  Bella had even gone so far as to find a book on floriography in a small bookstore in Bloomsbury.  White roses meant, in this instance, she believed, a clean slate.

Darcy wanted a clean state with her.

His name had been dragged into scandal by none other than Lady Whistledown just three weeks prior, when he had unfortunately allowed his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, to take him out drinking to forget a woman—a woman Bella only knew as “the lady with the fine eyes.”  Rumor had it that he had proposed marriage to this unsuitable woman in Kent and had been thoroughly rejected, despite his elevated status and ownership of Pemberley.  Someone among the drinking party had let it slip, and now Whistledown knew—now all of London knew.

Darcy, determined to rise above the gossip, had asked Bella to marry him to stem the rumors. 

Bella only agreed to the plan because she was three and twenty and had been living off her wits for nearly four years, going from one card game to the next, from one hotel to another, from country to country, ending up in London.  Her luck would soon run out.  It was already beginning to.  She owed more money than she had stashed away in her sock drawer.  She was getting desperate. 

Darcy had offered to raise her up and pay her debts, in exchange to her bringing the Swan name to that of Darcy and gracing his table.  And provide him appropriate heirs, she thought grimly to herself.

Darcy was certainly a handsome man—tall, with curling brown hair, verdant eyes, and a strong jawline.  He looked like a Byron hero, or what Bella imagined a Byron hero to look like.  Byron, coincidentally, was someone she gambled with once in a small tavern outside of Paris.  She hadn’t known it was him until someone let slip that his latest volume of poetry had sold out already in London.

Byron was certainly handsome as well, but she thought of neither man in a romantic way.  Her heart belonged to none other than—

“Lord Septimus Wimsey,” Charlotte announced as she came through the door, the gentleman following behind her.

Bella immediately looked up, her violet eyes desperately going to his.  “Septi—” she whispered.  “You got my note then.”

He came in and immediately swept Bella into a kiss, light yet lingering, and she pulled away, trying not to cry.  “We can’t, Septi,” she whispered.  “I’m to be another man’s wife.”

“Only because Pater will not let me marry you,” he replied grimly, his shining blue eyes dark in displeasure.  “I will not accept this.”

“You have to accept this,” she whispered back.  “I cannot afford to wait any longer before securing my future.”  She couldn’t bear to look at Septi.  He was so boyishly handsome, with a long blond bang that swept over his forehead, the rest of his hair cut short.  He was tall, though not as tall as Darcy, and she always lost herself when he held her in his arms.  They were so warm and comforting, unlike Edward’s cold kisses and false words.  She had run all the way to Italy to save Edward, but she knew, now, she would go to hell and back for Septi.

She was uncertain what she would do for Darcy.  It was not as if she loved him.

“I can assure your future,” Septi promised, reaching for her, but she stepped away from him.

“How?” she asked.  “You just said it yourself, the Duke—”

“Hang my father!” he declared.  “I can very well marry—”

“Not until you are one and twenty,” Bella corrected, and she hated for pointing it out.  “That’s in two years—”

“One year, eleven months,” he argued back a little sheepishly.

“It will be too late by then,” she told him flatly.  “My debts—”

“I can pay your debts,” he assured her.  “I have enough capital.”

Bella sighed.  “I will not become a kept woman,” she insisted.  They had had this argument before.  “I will not allow you to support me, I certainly won’t live with you—”

“But we could be so happy,” he whispered desperately.

And couldn’t they just?  If this had been twenty-first century America, she would not have hesitated.  However, this was Regency England.  There were different rules.  There were different standards.  Bella would ruin herself and Septi wouldn’t be able to marry her because she had been his mistress.  She would like to think that they would be together forever, but she couldn’t count on Septi’s love.  He was, after all, a flighty teenager—just as she had been when she ran after Edward.  Look how that had turned out.

“Septi—”

“Isabella,” he countered, reaching for her again, but she walked out of his arms.

“No, Septi,” she breathed.  “My decision is made.  My word is final.”

Silence seeped into the room, hardened and loud. 

“When is the wedding?” he inquired quietly.  His voice was further off and when she turned, she saw he was staring out the window at her dusty little street.

“Day after tomorrow,” she informed him carefully, coming over and sitting on the couch she had given up.  “Darcy wishes to marry quickly.”

“He cannot love you,” Septi breathed, turning back into the room.  “He’s in love with some woman in Kent.  Everyone knows it.—You’ve never been to Kent.”

Bella laughed a little. No, she had never been to Kent. She supposed she might be going now, to visit Lady Catherine De Bourg, next Easter if not before.

“We both know that this is not a marriage of affection.”

“No,” Septi breathed.  “I do not want that for you.”

She shrugged.  She didn’t particularly want it for herself, but she had been backed into a corner.  “I will think of you, when the Derbyshire days are grey,” she all but whispered.

“And I shall think of you when the days are fine,” he promised, his bright blue eyes searching out her gaze.  However, she refused to look back at him.  “Damn it all to hell!”

“There is nothing you can do, Septi,” she chided him.  “There is nothing either of us can do.”

“I can compromise you,” he suggested wryly.

“And admit to it?” she wondered, knowing how well Septi liked his reputation.  “I would certainly never tell.”

“Even if you were carrying a Wimsey babe in your belly?” he wondered now.

“You would not do that to me,” she reminded him, looking over at him fondly.  “You think too well of me.”

“I want you to be the mother of my heirs,” he now sighed.  Yes, Septi wanted that.  She knew he did.  But the Duke had made it all but impossible.

“Why don’t you go stay with Jerry?” she suggested, wanting to get him out of London so he could not object at the wedding.  “I think you should like that.”  Jerry—or the Viscount St. George—was Septi’s eldest brother and heir apparent to the Dukedom of Denver.  He was a little too scholarly for Septi’s tastes, but undoubtedly there would be card games and pretty women in Oxfordshire. 

“Jerry is giving a lecture series,” he muttered darkly.

“That doesn’t mean you need be in attendance,” she promised him.  “Surely you know several young men currently reading at Oxford.”

“One or two,” he admitted, finally coming away from the window to sit beside her.  Septi took her hand and looked down to where she was wearing the Darcy engagement ring.  “I would have got you one much finer.”

“I know,” she whispered.  “This belonged to Darcy’s grandmother, however.”

He scoffed.  “Grandmother indeed.”

She smiled a little to herself.  “You were very fond of your grandmother, if I recall.”

“She would have liked you,” he agreed, still looking down at her ring.  “It truly is an ugly thing.”

Bella laughed at this.  It was a large pink diamond that had come from India.  Most men would compliment it on its origins alone, let alone the cut and the color.

“Septi,” she whispered.

His bright blue eyes looked up into hers, and she saw only determination there.  “What if I can find this woman from Kent?”

“In two days?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Darcy surely shan’t want to wed you then if I can find the elusive ‘lady with the fine eyes.’”  He now seemed pleased at the notion.

“Septi,” she reminded him.  “That would ruin me.”

He deflated at that.  “Then I shall make Pater come around before the wedding.”

“And ruin both my reputation and Darcy’s?”  Septi was clearly grasping at straws now.  He wasn’t thinking clearly.  “Go home, Septi.  There is nothing for you here.”

He sighed at that and released her hand as if burnt.  “You cannot love him.”

“This is not about love,” she reminded him.

“No, it is about fortunes and power.”  He looked clearly upset now.  “Darcy has the fortune and the power and can command us about because of it.”

“No one is commanding you about,” she promised him.

“Are you not commanding me to leave your presence?”  This was said petulantly, like a child, showing how young Septimus really was.

Bella reached out carefully, and touched his wrist.  “I am not doing this to hurt you.”

“No,” he agreed, “but you wound me just the same.”

Silence fell around them again, and neither could look at one another.  “Go to Oxford,” Bella pushed again.  “Don’t read the papers.”

He grimaced.

“Don’t read Whistledown.”

“How else am I to hear about your wedding?” he griped.  “You certainly shall not write to me on the subject.”

No, no she wouldn’t.  She wouldn’t do that to Septi, and she wouldn’t do that out of respect for Darcy.  Darcy deserved her loyalty, now that she had agreed to marry him.  She expected him never to seek out the woman in Kent, and he expected her to prove a decent substitution.

“I shall continue to write you sonnets,” he swore now, the lone candle on the mantlepiece sending shadows throughout the room.

“I cannot stop you,” she agreed quietly.

At first she didn’t notice he had got up, but he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.  Her eyes closed in wonderment, and she held back her tears.  This would be the last time she was alone with Septi, the last time he would declare his love for her.

“Goodnight, dearest,” he whispered, and then he left out the door.

Bella sat alone, in the quiet, feeling her heart breaking.  However, she had already made her decision, or it had been made for her.  She must go on as if none of this had ever happened.  A tear slipped from her left eye and she hastily wiped it away.  Still, another tear came and then a third, and she ended up crying herself to sleep.

The End.