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It was as the two men walked out without another word to her that Miss Bingley noticed that Mr Darcy was a little hunched over. He always stood up tall and proud, but he and his cousin were gone before she could ask him about the way he was standing.

“I assume you have not met Mr Collins, Anne’s parson, have you? He is a cousin to the Bennets, I believe he said,” Fitzwilliam enquired once the door from the hallway into the sitting room was securely closed. As an added precaution, he posted Sergeant Barker in the hallway in case one or both of the sisters decided to try to listen at the door.

“So that is how you heard about the assembly,” Darcy concluded. “Miss Elizabeth should not have been eavesdropping on a private conversation between Bingley and me, and she certainly should not have repeated it to anyone.”

Fitzwilliam walked up to his cousin and shot his left fist forward into his cousin’s belly. He hated hitting William, but his far too high in the instep cousin needed to be brought down to earth. Fitzwilliam had spoken to him many times, but it had done no good. Now it was time for his cousin to feel.

Darcy dropped onto one knee; this punch had been harder than the other two. He felt he was going to cast up his accounts, so he stood and grabbed the nearest vase and retched into it. “What was that for?” Darcy moaned after wiping his mouth.

“You do not deny insulting a lady; all you can say is that our lord and master, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, should be able to slight whomever he wants with impunity?” Fitzwilliam shook his head. “Had Aunt Anne and Uncle Robert been alive, they would have been ashamed of what you have become. I know being hunted like a prize stag is not pleasant, but you have somehow come to think that you are better than everyone. You have become a mixture of Aunt Catherine and the Bingley sisters. Perhaps you have been around them too much so that you ignore their behaviour. I will wager that Miss Bingley spouting hogwash about her being at your level of society was not the first time since you have been here, yet you say nothing to her.” Fitzwilliam realised he needed Collins to be present before he continued with his recalcitrant cousin.

For his part. Darcy knew that defending his actions had been asinine, but he just could not admit he was wrong; so he had come up with nonsense and tried going on the attack. It had cost him another punch from Richard. He had heard about this particular Mr Collins, how he had helped save Anne and assisted in putting things at Rosings Park to rights. According to what his aunt and uncle said, he was as good, if not better, a spiritual advisor to Anne specifically and to the Hunsford Parish in general than the late Mr Belvedere had been. And he remembered that Richard liked the man very well.

“I am sending one of your footmen to the Bennets’ estate, which is Longbourn, according to Collins. How far is it from here?”

“About three miles to the east.” As Darcy said the last, a vision of Miss Elizabeth as she had looked the day she had walked to come care for her ill sister invaded his mind’s eye. He had not been speaking anything but the truth when he had told Miss Bingley that Miss Elizabeth’s fine eyes had been greatly enhanced by the walk. Why could he not evict her from his consciousness?

“Barker,” Fitzwilliam called out after he wrote a note.

“Aye, Colonel, sir,” Barker responded when he came as soon as his name was called.

“This note is to be taken to the estate of Longbourn, and the Darcy footman is to put it into the hands of Mr William Collins and no one else. If Mr Collins is riding or away making calls, the man is to wait; and further, he must wait for a reply from Mr Collins,” Fitzwilliam instructed as he handed the note over.

“Now what?” Darcy asked as he rubbed his aching belly. After three of Richard’s hammer blows, Darcy was aware that he needed to think before he spoke, especially once the parson arrived.

“Now we wait, and you recover from your pummelling.”

Darcy called for his valet, Carstens, and requested that some ice be retrieved from the icehouse and placed inside a towel and brought to him.

Carstens knew better than to ask. All he did was raise his eyebrows before leaving the room to follow Mr Darcy’s orders. He knew that if the master had something to tell him, he would.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

William Collins was seated in the drawing room speaking to Cousin Mary while ignoring Cousin Fanny’s not-so-subtle hints that he should be paying attention to her second daughter. Said daughter flashed him a grateful look when he did not acquiesce to her mother’s attempted matchmaking. As it was, he was close to asking Mary for a courtship, but he knew that before he did, he needed to drop the façade of the fool and be himself.

“Poor Mr Wickham,” Lydia sighed. “He has been denied credit and forced to pay everything he owed already.”

Elizabeth was about to lay the blame for any further misfortune Mr Wickham was suffering at Mr Darcy’s door. Two things held her back. The first was when she had told Jane what Mr Wickham had told her, after her older sister had claimed it was a misunderstanding; she had pointed out that making such a disclosure to one newly met was highly improper. The second thing was Mr Collins spoke before she could.

“As I understand it, Miss Lydia, the embargo on credit is against all officers, not just Mr Wickham. Hence, nothing was done to Mr Wickham, as it applies to everyone in the regiment. And pray tell, what is wrong with paying what one owes?” William asked.

There was truth in what her cousin said. She had wanted to blame Mr Darcy without knowing any facts. Something struck her; other than one or two silly things he said, Cousin Collins had shown a depth of intelligence she had not expected. How was she to reconcile the man who wrote the letter to Papa with the one she was seeing before her? Before she could consider the conundrum that was her cousin further, Hill entered the drawing room.

“Mr Collins, a footman has arrived with a message for you,” Hill intoned as he bowed.

“Well then, hand it to me, Hill; I will pass it to our cousin,” Fanny said.

All William could do was shake his head. The impertinence of the woman to try and take a message for him so she could peruse it while he was seated ten feet from her. Had Cousin Fanny never heard that care[4] killed the cat? “You may hand it to me, Hill,” he stated.

“The man was told to place the message in your hand, Mr Collins, so he refused to hand it to me,” Hill explained.

Understanding this was from Fitzwilliam, as he was the only man William knew who would issue such an instruction, William stood and followed the butler out of the drawing room before Cousin Fanny could say anything.

The liveried footman was standing under the small portico at the front door. Once William identified himself, the man handed him the note.

Collins,

I am at Netherfield Park. Please tell the footman when you are able to come see me. The sooner the better.