Excentryke's Musings

Title: Aftermath
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Fandoms: Pride & Prejudice / Twilight Saga
Pairing(s): Bella/Owestry, (one sided) Bella/Fitzwilliam, Darcy/Elizabeth
Word Count: 6.5k
Rating: R/MA
Warnings: domestic violence, time travel, vampires (they may or may not have ever been involved), extramarital affairs, illegitimate (grown) children, Elizabeth is only discussed, break up ending
Summary: Fitzwilliam must quit Rosings when Lady Catherine sends for his brother, Owestry, leaving Bella behind for the sake of propriety…

Aftermath

“You mean to leave me here?” Bella chided, looking up from where she was sitting.  “Fitzwilliam!”

He grimaced, his handsome face twisting ever so slightly.  “It cannot be helped, Bells,” he assured her.  “Darcy is engaged—”

“—to Miss Bennet, yes,” Bella agreed acerbically.  She did not like Eliza Bennet—at all.  She was flirtatious and very well could be underhanded.  Bella knew she had tried to entice Fitzwilliam into visiting her, alone, when Mrs. Collins was said to be out.  That did not bode well for her character.

The fact that Fitzwilliam had visited Eliza upon her request—although he claimed nothing happened—just added salt to the wound.

Fitzwilliam sighed and came and sat beside her.  He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away.  No good came with intimacies.  He huffed.  “You know she is unsuitable for Pemberley,” he reminded her.

“Yes,” Bella agreed slowly, “that does not mean you should leave me here—with Darcy,” she added darkly.  Darcy was just as handsome as Fitzwilliam, the two were cousins after all, with a tall frame, broad shoulders, a wide forehead, and curling brown hair.  The only difference between the two was that Darcy had dark green eyes and Fitzwilliam’s gaze—well, it could almost be called ‘smoke’ the color was so singular.  However, Bella found Darcy dull.  Darcy’s dullness was the entire reason for her coming to Kent, in fact.  Fitzwilliam was honor bound to visit his aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourg, and could not bear to be in Darcy’s company without the amusement of cards for more than a fortnight!  As the trip was to last a month, he convinced Bella to come with him, as a particular friend of Lady Julia’s. 

The fact that Bella had never met Lady Julia Fitzwilliam, and was unlikely to, was never in discussion.

Fitzwilliam had reminded Bella that the Little Season was over and the Season was not set to start until May, and so had enticed her to the country. 

It was a stupid thing to do.  Bella knew Fitzwilliam was in love with her.  She rather fancied him back, but she had only agreed to come on the express orders that Lady Catherine not think there was an engagement pending.  Bella may not move about in society, but Lady Whistledown had ears everywhere, and Bella wanted to stay under the radar as much as possible. 

She had managed it so far, for the three years she had been in London and the two years that Lady Whistledown had had her gossip column.

She wasn’t going to let Lady Catherine ruin her life—and privacy—now.

“We are not engaged,” Fitzwilliam reminded her and she looked at him sharply.  “We cannot travel together, so I cannot take you with me, and it would look—suspicious—if we were to leave at the exact same day, especially as you are Lady Catherine’s guest and not mine.

She breathed out of her nose in annoyance.  “You haven’t explained to me,” she reminded him, “why you must go now that Darcy is engaged.  It seems most peculiar—”

“Lady Catherine has sent for Owestry,” Fitzwilliam interrupted.

Bella looked up in shock.

“She does not want this marriage anymore than I do.  She has called Owestry—”

“—your brother, yes,” Bella agreed, not seeing why this was a problem.

“—to consult, and to persuade Darcy of the unsuitability of his choice.”

“That does not mean you have to go,” Bella told him outright.

He reached for her hand again, but she slipped her fingers away from him.

“I am a second son.”  He said this so seriously, Bella almost laughed.

“Septi is a seventh son!” she reminded him.  “That does not mean he quits the county when the Viscount St. George comes to London.”

Fitzwilliam took a deep breath and angled his body so that he could more clearly look Bella in the eye.  He was rather tall, just like Darcy, and while Bella was tall for a woman, she certainly wasn’t tall enough to not have to strain her neck when looking into Fitzwilliam’s smoky eyes.

“You have noticed—”

“—noticed what?” Bella was getting testy now.

“How similarly Darcy and I look to each other.”  He paused.

Bella waited.

“—and how little I look like Lady Catherine and her daughter Anne.  They are the Matlocks.”

“So?”

“The Earl of Matlock is not my father,” Fitzwilliam rushed out, clearly embarrassed.  “My mother had an affair with George Darcy.”

Bella paused, thinking.  She knew for a fact she was Charlie Swan’s daughter.  They had the same Quileute cheekbones, the same Quileute eyes, the same black hair.  Bella did not resemble Renee, with her blonde hair and dark eyes, any more than Jessica Stanley did.

“You’re saying—”

“Yes,” Fitzwilliam agreed, interrupting her.

“And Owestry cannot forgive you for your mother’s indiscretion?”

“He cannot,” Fitzwilliam assured her.

“But it’s not your fault,” Bella reminded him.

“It is my fault, for accepting George Darcy’s appointment as Georgiana’s guardian.”  Georgiana was Darcy’s younger, impressionable sister.  “He paid for my commission.  He left me stipend and a small house abutting Pemberley for my retirement.”

“That was generous of him,” Bella noted wryly.

Fitzwilliam made to take her hand again, signaling that more revelations were coming.  She dropped his hand and placed hers firmly in her lap.  If he was leaving her, she certainly wasn’t going to encourage him when nothing could come of it.

“Owestry has no heir,” Fitzwilliam explained gently, “and will not marry.”

Bella paused, thinking.  Oh.  Oh!  Her bright eyes turned on Fitzwilliam.  “That would make you—”

“And he cannot forgive me for it,” Fitzwilliam assured her.  “Still, he will not marry.”

“Odd,” Bella thought out loud.  “So Owestry is to come, so you must go.”

“There you have it!” Fitzwilliam declared, his smoky eyes shining out of his face.  “I also need you as my spy.”

“Why don’t you just tell Darcy that Eliza Bennet made advances toward you.  The engagement will come to an abrupt end, Eliza will go home to Hertfordshire, we will return to London, and Owestry need not come at all.”

“It is not as simple as that,” Fitzwilliam assured her.  “I cannot have Darcy think I—”

“—so you did,” Bella checked, not looking at him now.

“—that I would consider,” Fitzwilliam corrected, “even for the shortest of interludes.”

An interlude, yes.  Men in Regency England had their interludes.  Bella did not much care for it but it was a fact of life.  Septi had his interludes although he was careful Bella should not know of them.  She always, somehow, found out, sometimes before even Lady Whistledown, but he at least was careful not to inform her ahead of time—unlike Fitzwilliam.

Men were so fickle.

“If I could go, knowing you—”

“No,” she reminded him, standing and going toward the window.  “You know it is quite impossible.”

“I hardly see why it seems to be impossible,” Fitzwilliam argued.  “I am a second son.  I need only marry a fortune, and the title is quite obviously my eldest son’s, if not mine.”

“I do not care about the title,” Bella told him.  And she didn’t.  She could care less about some English title.  Bella had one requirement of a man—other than that he marry her and not have a private interlude with her on the side (women could become pregnant in Regency England, and a bastard would ruin her life as well as the child’s; she must think of that now)—and that was that he not gamble.

She gambled. 

She played cards for money and it supported her lifestyle.  She would not marry a man, however, that would fritter her money away at the gambling tables, especially when she had been so determined and careful to accrue her fortune.

Fitzwilliam was a gambler.  It was how they met.  It is how she knew almost all of her male acquaintance, which made them all ineligible for her affections.  It was hard being celibate at the age of twenty-two, but Bella was firm in her resolve.  Richard Fitzwilliam was not going to change her mind.

“Then forget about the title,” he told her, coming up behind her.  She could feel his presence  and she hated that she found it comforting.  “Think about me—about us—”

“There is no us,” she reminded him, but he wasn’t listening.

He had taken her by the shoulders and turned her around, lowering his face and kissing her openly on the mouth.

At first Bella did not react.  She was lost in the kiss, but then she came to herself, and hit Fitzwilliam on the side of his head with her fan.  She only did it so he would remember where they were and who they were, but he jerked back, shocked.  An ugly look came over his face and then, without warning, he drew back his fist and punched her in the left eye.

Bella had never been hit before.

At first there was no pain, only shock, but then her head seemed to split open and she fell against the windowpane.

She sucked in a breath and reached for her face, but Fitzwilliam was already there, trying to help her not fall from the impact.

Turning away from him, she gasped for air and saw her scared reflection in the glass.

“Bella,” Fitzwilliam in shock, “I—”

“Go,” she demanded, trying to steady her voice.  “The carriage is waiting.  Just—go.”

She felt his touch upon her shoulder and she flinched.  There was a pregnant pause, all Bella could feel was the throb in her head, but then Fitzwilliam’s presence was gone, and she was all alone.

Now she was breathing heavily through her nose and she felt a sting at the corner of her eye and partway through her eyebrow.  Reaching up, she touched her eye carefully, and her fingers came back with blood on them.

She closed her eyes in resignation.

Fitzwilliam had been wearing a signet ring on his right hand.  He must have struck her eye with it.

Carefully, she continued to breathe and then, when she believed she was ready, she stood up and whispered up the back stairs to her appointed chamber.  At least during the long days at Rosings, Bella had an occasion to explore and knew the house quite well.

Charlotte didn’t come in until it was time to change for dinner, and Bella already had a rag pressed up against her face, her hair wisping around her face, her shoes thrown off somewhere near the door, and her stockings rolled down and discarded on the bed.

“Mum!” Charlotte cried as she saw Bella’s state, hastily putting down her evening dress and feathers.  “What happened?”

“Colonel Fitzwilliam happened,” Bella explained dryly, lifting the towel off her eye to inspect the blood on it.  “I think I need something other than water.”

“I shall run and fetch a steak,” Charlotte promised.  “It will help with the swelling.”

“That bad, is it?”  Bella would have laughed if the situation weren’t more serious.  “Please send my apologies to Lady Catherine.  Tell her I am indisposed.”

Charlotte nodded and then rushed out the door, obviously to get the steak and to inform a footman of Bella’s regrets.

She stayed like that, towel pressed against her eye, until Charlotte returned.

“Miss Bennet is here,” Charlotte told her after she had dressed Bella for bed and had carefully taken down her hair.  Bella’s entire head was throbbing.  “Would you like arrowroot tea, mum?  For your head?”

“I don’t think it will help,” she sighed, lying down on the good side of her face and just closing her eye.  The other one had already swollen shut.  “How long do you think I will be like this?”

“We should call for a surgeon,” Charlotte fretted.

“No,” Bella disagreed tiredly.  “No surgeon, Carrie.”

Charlotte wrung her hands.  “Mr. Darcy was asking after your health, mum.  Miss Bennet did not seem to like it.”

“I don’t care what Eliza Bennet likes or not,” Bella sighed.  “Just—bring tea tomorrow morning and we can check on it then.”

Thus began the long days of Bella lounging about her room, too afraid to look in the looking glass to see how bad it was.  Colonel Fitzwilliam was definitely gone.  He sent her an express from London, but Bella only threw it in the Spring fire.  She didn’t want to know what he would say.

She had never supposed Fitzwilliam to be a violent man, but … it seemed she was wrong.

On the morning of the fourth day, Bella was sitting at her window and watching the sun rise.  She felt terribly cooped up in her rooms, with no one but Charlotte for company.  She wanted to feel the sun on her face, the wind in her hair. 

Without thinking of the consequences of it, she quietly got dressed in her black silks, found her walking boots, and hurried down a back staircase to meet the morning.

No one saw her—not until she came upon the Grecian Temple and found a gentleman sitting among the ruins, reading a book of poetry.

She hesitated when he did not see her at first.

She was almost turning to go back the way she had come, when he looked up with watery blue eyes and pierced her with a curious stare.  Concern quickly washed over his face as he took her in, from her unkempt hair, to her blackened face, to the dark column of her figure.

“Madam,” he whispered, stunned.

“Do not mind me,” she whispered back, the wind carrying away her words.  “I’m not here.”

“You are hurt!” he cried as he stood, but she shrank back from him.  “I shall not harm you,” he assured her but she only laughed in the back of her throat. 

“Where have I heard that before?” she wondered, thinking of Fitzwilliam and his declarations of love everlasting.  Her mind briefly turned to Septi.  No, she did not think he would ever hit her, but he was not a military man who had seen action, unlike Fitzwilliam.

The man approached her carefully. 

Bella regarded him, wondering if she had ever seen him before.

The man was slight, with well made but ill fitted clothes, as if he had lost weight recently.  His thinning blond hair fell into his eyes—watery but firm eyes—and he seemed to be a good inch or two shorter than her, which was unusual for a man even of middle height.

He reached out hesitantly toward her and touched the side of her face, careful not to touch the eye.

She flinched back.

“Who hurt you?” he murmured, not a demand but a genuine question.  “Your father?”

“I am in mourning for my father,” she told him, thinking of Charlie and how he might still be wondering where she had gone, even all these years later.

“Your husband then,” he suggested.

“I have no husband.”

He paused, thinking.  “Is it someone you know, or was it some ruffian on the road?”

Bella didn’t answer.  “Who are you?” she asked instead, not recognizing the man at all.

He stepped back and bowed to her.  “Forgive me, Madam.  I am the Viscount of Owestry, the nephew of Lady Catherine De Bourg of Rosings Park.”

Bella’s one eye widened.

“It is but a short walk from here.  Perhaps I can send for a physician?  The apothecary if you prefer?  Your eye seems—” He hesitated to put it into words.

Bella knew it was bad.  Her eye had been swollen shut for days, and she was aware there was a nasty cut at the corner.  “My maid is seeing to me,” she assured him.

“Your maid, I presume, is not an apothecary.”

Bella didn’t like the turn of this conversation.  She looked around the Grecian Temple and wondered what it would look like in the rain.  She had overheard Darcy tell Fitzwilliam of it—“Darcy proposed here,” she remarked.

Owestry seemed startled.  “You are Miss Bennet,” he realized incorrectly.  “Did Darcy—?”

“No, not Darcy,” she promised, half-whispering to herself.  She didn’t understand why her voice wouldn’t come out stronger.  She was an independent woman and yet had been reduced to a whispering idiot. 

“Miss Bennet—”

“I am not Miss Bennet,” she told him quietly, walking away.

“I have not seen Miss Bennet—“ Owestry countered carefully, moving to walk beside her, a respectful distance away.

She paused, thinking. “I do not know why this would be so.  However, surely you know that Lady Catherine forbade Miss Bennet to write to her father pending your approval.  I have not a father, if you recall.”

“I had been told she had not written,” Owestry agreed carefully.  “But if you are not Miss Bennet, how do you know—?”

“I am Miss Swan,” she admitted quietly, glancing over to him with her good eye.  “He was right.  You look nothing like each other.”  She continued on.

Owestry was silent for a long moment.  “It was Fitzwilliam then.”

Now that it was said in the open, hanging between them, she did not deny it.  It was the truth after all.

“I will whip my brother for harming a woman,” Owestry promised, dark and low.

Bella paused.  “He is so much taller than you—” she mentioned in distraction.

Owestry frowned.  “That does not mean I cannot whip him if I have a mind,” he promised her.  He looked at her openly.  He was not a handsome man, not like Fitzwilliam or even Darcy, but he had a sincere face, which Bella found she liked despite herself.  “Let me call the apothecary,” he pleaded, causing her to pause and look at him.

“Is it that bad?” she murmured.

“I should surely like to call the surgeon—” he told her carefully.  “That cut looks bad.”

“He was wearing a signet ring,” she told him.

He frowned again.

They walked for a little time in the glade, but when the sun was fully coming up, Owestry escorted her back to the house.  She showed him the back way she had taken, and he promised to send for the surgeon immediately.

“I should not like Lady Catherine to—” she whispered, but her voice left her.

“No, I shall not tell her.  She already knows you are indisposed.”

“Yes,” Bella agreed quietly before going up the stairs.

Owestry watched her go.

The surgeon came just after breakfast and Charlotte was attentive as chaperone. 

After he left, Bella was bandaged up with teas to drink and salves to apply.  She was told it would scar.

She was lounging in her bedchamber, a book of poetry in her hands, which she was unsuccessfully trying to read, when there was a knock on her door.  Everyone knew not to disturb her and Charlotte would knock only once before coming in, knowing that she was always permitted to enter.

Bella paused.

The knock came several moments later, soft but firm.

“Who is it?” Bella called out, a little afraid it would be Lady Catherine.

“It is I.”

Bella breathed out in relief.  “Come in.”

The door opened carefully and then Owestry popped his head in, concern on his face.

Setting her book aside, she motioned him in.

“I know it is not exactly proper—” he apologized, though he shut the door firmly behind him.

“This is the outer room,” Bella consoled him.  “Not exactly proper but certainly not compromising.”  She stretched her neck a little and grimaced.  Her eye was throbbing.  “I never asked—what does everyone believe happened?”

“They certainly do not know the truth,” Owestry promised, coming up to her and taking a seat to her right.  “I managed to hide the surgeon.”

Bella was surprised at this. “You did?”

“As a child I played Hide and Seek at Rosings,” he told her, somewhat confidentially.  “I know my way around the property.”

“Do you?” Bella was bemused by this.  She could imagine Owestry as a scrawny child, ducking into corners.  The thought even brought a small smile to her face.  “I can kinda see it.”

Owestry seemed pleased by this. 

Silence stretched between them when Owestry just regarded her carefully.

“Does it look that bad?” she inquired after several long moments.

“I am glad that you are being treated,” he told her honestly.  “I wish you had been treated sooner.  Your maid should be reprimanded.”

“Carrie is a good girl,” Bella assured him.  “She is extremely loyal.”

He sniffed.  “Too loyal,” he decided.  “Your health should take priority to your wishes, Miss Swan.”

“If you say so.”  She wasn’t going to argue the point.  She flipped the subject.  “Tell me of Darcy and Miss Bennet.  That’s what started the—unpleasantness.”

Owestry frowned at this.  Leaning forward, he told her, “Fitzwilliam should not have hit you for any reason.”

Bella did not refute that.  She knew he shouldn’t have hit her.  He certainly shouldn’t have punched her.  That somehow seemed only worse.  She felt small and wounded, but she was determined this would not break her.  She was also toying with the idea of writing Septi and having Fitzwilliam thrown out of every respectable card game in England.  Septimus Wimsey, as the figurehead of the fast Denver set, certainly had that power.  If he whispered a word to his mother, every door in London in society would be closed to the Colonel.  Bella could see him ruined if she had a mind.

Septi would certainly be of a mind once he found out.

And he would find out.  Septi was her dearest friend.  She could never hide anything from him.  He alone knew that her father was still alive in the Americas—although he had no idea that more than a century separated them.  She had even confessed to him that she had Quileute blood, a truth that would see her shunned by even impolite society if anyone found out.  Regency England, if anything, was racist, in twenty-first century terms.  They were also classist.  And sexist.  Very misogynistic.

Still, she loved it here, when she wasn’t being punched out by illegitimate men in red coats.

“Tell me of Eliza Bennet,” she half-begged.  “It’s so dull up here.  I can barely read with only one good eye.”

“I could read to you,” Owestry suggested kindly.

“You could tell me of Eliza Bennet,” she flipped back.

Owestry sighed.  Leaning back, he almost slouched in his chair and then folded his hands over his thin midsection.  “As I said, I have not met Miss Bennet.”

“—which surprises me,” Bella admitted.  “I remember the night that Darcy brought her back from the parsonage and then introduced her to Lady Catherine as the future Mistress of Pemberley.”  She would have rolled her one good eye, but she already had a headache.  It was quite beyond her.  “He was quite determined.”

Pondering, Owestry then carefully admitted.  “It is my opinion, having only been here two days, that Darcy is unduly worried by your absence from the dinner table.”  He looked over at her with watery blue eyes.  “I had thought, before coming across you this morning, that he was regretting his engagement.  I had surmised—” he paused, looking slightly worried.

“Yes?” Bella lifted her one good eyebrow in question.  Pain laced through her head and she dropped it into her hand, closing her eye carefully.  “I should not have done that,” she moaned.

“Miss Swan—” Owestry leaned forward and reached out to touch her carefully on the shoulder.

She couldn’t help it.  She flinched at his touch.

Worry crossed his face but he duly withdrew.

Bella just breathed for a few minutes.  “Darcy—” she reminded him, opening her eye and pinning him with her dark gaze.

“Darcy,” he told her carefully, “I believe, is taken with you.”

She snorted.  “No, he’s not.”

“Forgive me, Miss Swan, but you have not known Darcy your entire life unlike myself.  He is beside himself with anxiety that you withdrew not twelve hours after his engagement to Miss Bennet.  He tries to hide it, but he cannot from me.  Lady Catherine is of the same opinion.”

“You have spoken of it then?”

“She told me in confidence when I first arrived,” he informed her.  “Lady Catherine is of the opinion that he proposed to Miss Bennet in an attempt to prove to my wayward brother that he was not in love with you.  Anne heard them arguing on the subject not two days before the misguided engagement.”

Bella considered this.  “Fitzwilliam never mentioned.”

“Why would he?” Owestry asked no one in particular.  “Both Lady Catherine and Darcy believe it is only a matter of time before you become Fitzwilliam’s wife, despite Fitzwilliam’s assurances that you are only Lady Julia’s close companion.”

“He did insist that I come,” Bella admitted.  “Said Darcy was a bore who never plays cards.”

Owestry looked startled at the pronouncement.  “No, Darcy abhors cards.”

Bella sighed.  “I noticed.”  She paused.  “Fitzwilliam must not have told me because—I’m not certain.”

“Darcy, despite being a bore, is quite an eligible match for any young lady,” Owestry affirmed.

“I don’t care for his ten thousand a year,” Bella murmured.  “What am I to do with ten thousand pounds?”

This clearly surprised Owestry.  His eyebrows raised into his slim forehead and Bella was suddenly struck by how closely he resembled his aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourg, who was slight in stature with the same weak shoulders, the same thinning hair, and the same slight forehead. 

“It is certainly preferable to a second son with little to no prospects but an army pension,” Owestry reminded her, referencing Fitzwilliam’s circumstances.

“Is it?” she wondered out loud, sighing to herself.

“How do you know Fitzwilliam if you are not Lady Julia’s especial friend?” Owestry asked astutely.

“Lord Septimus.”  It was technically true.  They were both members of the Denver set.  Septi was, in all intents and purposes, the Denver set.  They were named after his father’s title, after all.

Owestry was surprised again.  “Lady Whistledown has never named you—”

“Lady Whistledown does not know all,” Bella sighed.  “I’ve made sure of it.”

“Clearly.”

“She knows all about you,” Bella said, to make conversation.  “You’ve been attending London’s ballrooms faithfully for four years and yet have not asked a single lady to dance.  You sit in a corner with a book and a glass of lemonade, ignoring everyone.”

“I know you are not in London’s drawing rooms,” Owestry remarked.  “I would have noticed you there.”

“The black gives it away,” she agreed, referencing her mourning weeds.

“That is not it,” he replied somewhat cryptically.

Changing the subject again, she mentioned, “Darcy cannot be in love with me.  He has not sent a single note to inquire after my health.”

“He asks your maid at every possible occasion,” Owestry told her.  “I am told he even ventured into the kitchens yesterday with the express purpose of seeking her out.”

“Perhaps he’s in love with Carrie,” Bella laughed a little.  “I certainly believed he was in love with Miss Bennet.”

“He sent her a note the evening you did not come down.  Lady Catherine’s butler read it.  Darcy told her he had to go to London expressly and would be back in a few days.  No one has disabused Miss Bennet of this notion.”

“I do not know why she should want to marry him—” Bella sighed.  “He really is the most disagreeable person and a poor liar, at that.  I thought she preferred Fitzwilliam.  She certainly invited him over when she was unchaperoned.”

Owestry raised an eyebrow at this.  “And how do you know this?”

“He left the note she sent him out on the table.  I merely picked it up, read it, and realized where he had gone so quickly.”

“Do you have the note?”  Owestry was certainly interested.

Bella had slightly drifted off.  “The note?” she repeated.  She had closed her one good eye.

She heard rustling somewhere to her right and was aware that the cushion had been placed at her head and a shawl was being drawn over her.  Absently she wondered if Charlotte had come in.  A thin hand came and hovered over her hair, but then withdrew.  All the candles were blown out and then, with a sound of the door creaking, she was alone.

She awoke to candlelight in the evening.

“Is it true?” she inquired of Charlotte when she came up with her dinner.  “Darcy has been asking after me?”

Charlotte looked startled.  “Why—” she quieted and placed the spoon in Bella’s hand as her depth perception was not what it was with two good eyes.  “He has, mum.  I did not want to worry you with his—questions.”

“And Miss Bennet has not been here.”

“Not since the night you—became indisposed.”  Charlotte was now placing a napkin over her lap.  Bella had asked for water instead of wine, and was rather regretting it.  There was definitely an iron-y taste to it.  However, wine would only make her head worse.

“Hmm.”  Bella took a sip of her soup.  She barely tasted it, the pain was so bad in her head.

Owestry came up after dinner with a volume of Pope.  Bella lay on the settee, her feet propped up on a pillow, shoes off, stockings discarded.  Neither of them spoke of the impropriety of it all. 

He had a pleasant reading voice.  Bella once again drifted off to sleep.  She was aware at the continual sound of his voice, but woke up alone.  A shawl had been draped over her and all but one candle blown out.

Another express came from Fitzwilliam, but she threw it on the fire.

“Miss Bennet surely must be wondering where Darcy has got to,” Bella remarked three days later as Charlotte was changing her bandage.

“I do not think he cares.”  Owestry had withdrawn to the other side of the room when Charlotte came in, but he had not quit it.  “He has not mentioned her once since I met you.”

Bella flinched as the paste was drawn over her eyebrow.  She absently wondered how bad the scarring would be.  Cosmetics, as they existed in the twenty-first century, did not exist in the early nineteenth century.  Bella wasn’t even sure there was a skin colored paste she could use to cover it.  She might even have to draw her eyebrow back in, she thought grimly to herself, if her eyebrow also scarred.  Bella had never been vain, but she didn’t want to look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.

“What does Lady Catherine say?” she asked as Charlotte now took the linen to wrap her face.  The wrapping was such that it went over the top of Bella’s head and was secured at the base of her skull, the wrappings going diagonally over her face to cover her swollen eye. 

If Bella didn’t look like Johnny Depp, she might very well look like a mummy.

The thought did not amuse her.

“Lady Catherine does not mention it.  I think she hopes that Darcy will forget about the engagement in favor of—” he paused now.  “I am not sure what as they are still under the impression you are on the verge of an engagement with my no-good brother.” 

Bella sighed and thanked Charlotte.

She curtsied and then left the room.

No, things were decidedly not proper.

“I told Fitzwilliam specifically to quell any such rumor.”

“I do not believe he followed your instructions,” Owestry half-apologized as he came over to the settee and sat to her right in a well-appointed armchair.  It had been set at a forty-five degree angle to the settee so that he could better read to her.  “In my mind,” he continued, “he wanted the rumors to follow you to London.  I know Fitzwilliam.  I know how he thinks.  He believes every aspect of his life is a military campaign.”  This was said with a scoff. 

“Lord Septimus will call him out,” Bella suggested, wondering if he actually would.  He might very well once he saw Bella’s eye.

“Is he—?” Owestry let the question hang.  He seemed a little worried.  “I can send for him.”

“No,” Bella decided, not even really thinking about it.  “Septi will only—”  She considered.  “I’m not entirely certain how he will react.”

“He should not have let you come,” Owestry said outright, “as your betrothed.  You have no business amusing Fitzwilliam just because Darcy refuses to play a game of piquet in the evening.”

“I was bored.”  Then, Bella admitted, “and I would never marry Septi.  I would never marry any of them.”

Owestry arched an eyebrow in question.

“The Denver set,” Bella qualified, looking over at him with her good eye.  “They all gamble.”

Owestry took that in.  “No wonder Fitzwilliam never told you of Darcy’s admiration,” he now mused.  “They are the spitting image of one another and Darcy does not gamble.”

“He could play the horses,” Bella half-argued.

He leveled a look at her, fond but reproachful.  “I think we both know that Darcy does not play the horses.”

“No,” Bella agreed, sighing. “You’re probably right.  Still,” and here she inspected her fingers, “he’s the dullest man in England.”

“He is that,” Owestry agreed.  Switching the subject, he worried, “I do not know how much longer you can remain indisposed without Darcy breaking down the door.”

“He would never,” Bella breathed in horror.

“No, he would not,” Owestry agreed, reaching out to touch her wrist gently in comfort.  She held back her flinch.  “He would, however, send in a maid he could trust to give him an accurate report.”

“Where do they think you are, when you’re with me?”  Bella was genuinely curious.

He lifted up the book of poetry he had brought.

Bella was surprised at this.  “You actually read poetry?”  She had not come across a man in the early nineteenth century that read poetry.  They were all playing cards or, when not, managing estates.  No one seemed to have an appreciation for Pope, or Gray.  Men would discuss Byron, but only because he was scandalous.  She doubted they actually read his verse.

“You found me reading poetry at the Grecian Temple,” he reminded her.

“Yes,” Bella agreed carefully.  “I had not actually thought—”

His watery blue eyes glistened in amusement.  “I am neither Fitzwilliam nor Darcy, madam.  I daresay I am not Septimus Wimsey either.”

“No,” Bella realized.  “I suppose you are not.”  She slated this new information into the Owestry-file she had in her head.  The more she learned of Owestry, the more she liked him.  He was cultured, sophisticated, well-read, it would appear, compassionate, sincere, caring, lovin—She stopped the thought there.  Owestry was only being kind.  He perhaps felt a duty toward her as it was his brother (or, well, half-brother) who had hit her.

He was regarding her quietly as this all flitted through her head.

“What were you saying?” she asked, clearly distracted.

“Only that I like poetry,” he reminded her with a silly smile, “which is a trait we have in common.”

“Yes,” Bella wondered out loud.  “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

Before he could respond, there was a knock at the door.  Bella looked over at it, astonished, wondering who would disturb her as she had been continually ‘indisposed’ for a good week.

“Who is it?” she called out.

There was a pause.  Then, “Maddy, mum,” a feminine voice answered.  “I am Miss De Bourg’s maid.”

Bella looked at horror toward Owestry.

“I have a note from Mr. Darcy,” Maddy continued through the door.

“Give it to Carrie!” Bella shouted back.  “I am not receiving visitors.”  She did not want to be seen in the state she was in, and she didn’t want the maid reporting her looks back to Darcy or—worse—Lady Catherine.

There was a long pause.

Bella had thought Maddy had gone away, but then she spoke through the door again. 

“Has Carrie given you his previous note?” she asked tentatively.

No, no, Charlotte hadn’t.  She would know that Bella would want no part of it.

“Slip it through the door,” Bella called back.

There were muffled sounds on the other side of the door, and then a note was slipped underneath.

Owestry got up and fetched it for her.  Holding it out to her, she motioned she didn’t want it.  He considered for a moment and then opened it up himself.  “He asks after your health and wonders if he should call the apothecary for your comfort.”

“The surgeon was here yesterday,” Bella reminded him.

“Yes, of course, but Darcy does not know that.”  Owestry set the note aside and resumed his seat.  “I snuck him in again.”

“How can Lady Catherine not know that a lane abuts the back of the house?” Bella wondered aloud.

Owestry smiled to himself.

They fell into companionable silence.

“I suppose I could leave now,” Bella mused to herself.  “Go back to London.  I could leave before the sun rises.  Wear a cloak with a hood so the servants can’t see my face.”  She shrugged.

“I should be sad to see you go,” Owestry admitted.  “It is nearly idyllic, holed up with you with nothing but poetry to occupy our time.”  He looked at her carefully.

“You need to meet Miss Bennet,” Bella reminded him.  “That shall amuse you.”

“The contents of Darcy’s heart are not amusing.”  This was said dryly.  “—especially as I suspect which way they actually turn.”

“The sooner I am gone the sooner Darcy can stop worrying about me.”

“I shall not stop worrying,” Owestry admitted in nothing more than a whisper.

“I shall write,” she found herself promising, making her wonder to herself.

“Shall you?”  He was hopeful now.

“Certainly,” she agreed.  “You need only tell me where you shall be, so I know how to address my letters.  You can tell me all your news.”

“And you can tell me how you do not plan to marry any of the myriad of men who are in love with you.”  He said this in jest, but there was an earnestness to his gaze. 

“And you will know what Lady Whistledown does not,” Bella countered quietly.  “I can read about you when the Season begins.”  This was said in almost melancholy.

“I could call—”

The offer hung between them.

He leaned forward in his chair.  “We could go for ices at the glacier,” he now suggested carefully.  “You could meet Annabelle.”

Bella looked over at him sadly.  “You know that can never happen.”  She didn’t wait for him to answer.  “I shall leave on the morrow.  It is decided.”

Without another word, he picked up the book of poetry and opened to the bookmark. 

Bella let the sound of his voice wash over her.  If her good eye teared up, there was no one to know.

The End.