Comeuppances: A Sneak Peek from my WIP

Of course every JAFF writers favorite person to give a comeuppance to is Miss Bingley (well one of the favorites!) and being that I have one in my current book-in-progress, I thought a sneak peek might be in order! Hope you enjoy! So Material a Change is one that many might remember from the boards but the published form will be available soon!!

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She gently laid one shaking hand on the outside of his door. Her heart pounded so, she wondered that he did not hear it, nor the sound of her panicked breathing. This was it. She was doing it.  

She had never believed she would grow so desperate as to resort to something like this. In her heart, she thought that he would realise how ideally suited she was to be the mistress of Pemberley and thus would offer for her. However, as each successive year of their acquaintance ticked by, her age advancing accordingly, she had grown increasingly dismayed by his apparent reluctance to propose.

She had come out at eighteen, certain she would receive an offer during that first season, but it had not been so. A few dances was the most he had afforded her. The second season proved equally disappointing, and the third did likewise. So now she was soon to be in her fourth season, with all of the gentlemen eagerly eyeing those who had just come out, all so fresh-faced and young. She would languish like some bolt of material at the modiste that everyone had already seen and passed over. 

Nearly all of her friends from school were long since married—even the ugly ones!— and most of them mothers as well! Did he not see how beautifully she dressed? How wonderfully she arranged dinners? Her education, her accomplishments, that certain something in her air—did these things mean nothing to him? 

She shook her head to clear it of these disturbing thoughts. Now was not the time for doubt and frustration; success was within reach. She simply needed to help things along, particularly in light of the recent events they had attended which also included the horrid Eliza Bennet. 

I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow

She nearly gagged thinking of it. When he said that she could scarcely believe her ears! Nevertheless it was good he had said it because it served her a warning. Fitzwilliam Darcy—long known for his reserve, his haughtiness, and his general imperviousness to the charms of ladies—was developing some chinks in his armour for a disastrously inappropriate, low-born hoyden. 

She shuddered. Who could imagine being so unmannered and uncouth as to think nothing of simply showing up at Netherfield, unbidden and unwanted, her petticoat six inches deep in mud, because her sister had a trifling cold. Such a thing—such a person—could not be borne. 

Some day Darcy would thank her, ardently, for rescuing him from this near-calamity. Clearly his lusts were overtaking his reason, and now with Miss Eliza in residence (probably trying to entrap him herself), catastrophe was nigh. 

That thought in mind, she removed the housekeeper’s keys from the pocket of her dressing gown, inserted the appropriate key into the keyhole and turned it, holding her hand over it to muffle the click. She entered the room, soundlessly closing the door behind her, then tiptoed across the room to where her soon-to-be intended slumbered. 

The fire in the room burned low, but in the dim light she could see that he had not stirred when she entered and approached his bed. She nodded, relieved. Charles often teased Darcy for being such a deep sleeper. He required fewer hours of repose than most did, but when he was fatigued, he could fall asleep in an instant and sleep as though he was dead. Very good to find it was true.

Taking a deep breath to still her nerves, she undid the ties on her dressing gown, and dropped it to the floor, revealing a very sheer nightgown lent to her by her sister (who certainly had no need for it, as her drunkard of a husband could rarely remain sober enough to come to her at night). She pulled back the blankets and slid under the counterpane, moving just enough so that her body was close to his. 

Her sister suggested that to get things started, she might wish to touch him. Touch it, Louisa had said but now, at the crucial moment, her resolve failed her. But never mind that; she was in his room, in his bed. That was quite enough to suit the purpose. 

Of course, she did need to wake him, so their tryst could be discovered. To that end, she snuggled closer and wrapped her arm around him, tentatively rubbing his nightshirt-covered chest with her hands. Goodness but he was warm, did he have a fever? She nearly yelped with surprise when he uttered a low moan, turning toward her and encircling her waist with his arm. “Lizz-zz-zy.”

It appeared she was intervening just in time. Was he dreaming about Eliza Bennet? Ugh. Not a very proper dream, either, from the sounds of things. Leave it to Eliza Bennet to be as ill-behaved in a dream world as she was in reality.

She renewed her efforts to wake him, pressing her body to his. He shifted slightly and pressed his body to hers as well. What in the world?—something was poking her in the stomach? Was that? Stifling a giggle, she hesitantly pressed a kiss to his jaw. He turned and captured her lips, running his hand down her back to her leg, which he then pulled up and around his hip. His action brought that which was poking her very close to a certain place—she could not help herself, a small, high-pitched shriek of alarm escaped her, and Darcy startled awake. 

“Miss Bingley! What are you doing here?”

*

Darcy had been in the midst of what was becoming a nightly ritual, a highly enjoyable and scandalous dream about Miss Elizabeth Bennet. The first time he dreamt of her was immediately after the assembly. In comparison to what followed, that one had been relatively chaste, involving little more than kissing and caressing her. 

His dreams grew more fervid each time he saw her and he was waking nearly every morning to find himself in an embarrassing physical state. Worse yet, he found himself thinking of his dreams at inopportune moments. Like the other day in the library, when she sat there so innocently reading her book, and he, like a rake, sat alternately reliving his dream from the night prior and adjusting the book on his lap to cover the evidence of his degeneracy. 

He was quite ashamed of himself for his lack of gentlemanly comportment, even in his thoughts, and yet was powerless to stop himself. There was something about her, something that compelled him and broke apart his control, nay, made him lose his desire to even have control. To have such a woman as one’s wife was unimaginable, in more ways than one.  

The more he denied what he wanted, however, the more heated and vivid his dreams became, almost as if they were trying to convince his wakeful self of the need to accede to his desires. This particular night had been no different, he and Elizabeth enjoying his bed at Pemberley… when at once she emitted a very high-pitched and un-Elizabeth-like shriek. 

It was then that he awoke to his deepest dread. 

Struggling to shake off the vestiges of slumber, his heart pounding with fear and distress, he leapt from the bed, frantically reaching for his dressing gown. 

“Get out! Get out now! What are you— never mind, I do not wish to— but how… I always make sure the door is locked! How did you—Get out! Go away now!”

Miss Bingley recovered from her surprise first and cooed, “Darling, you must calm down, this is for the best, you will see—”

“No! You will leave! Immediately!” 

But as she seemed disinclined to leave his room, he would leave instead. He went into his dressing room, where he summoned his valet. When the man appeared only minutes later, Darcy asked him to have Mr Bingley woken because Mr Darcy required his presence in the study as soon as possible. 

Hastily, Darcy pulled on his clothing and went to await Bingley, using the back servant’s stair so he would not have to see Miss Bingley again. 

*

The sound of his door crashing into the wall woke Charles Bingley from a sound sleep. He sat up just as the curtain was unceremoniously thrust aside to reveal his hysterical sister. 

“Caroline! What in the blazes are you doing here?” 

Caroline grabbed his arm, seeming intent on pulling him from his bed. “In Darcy’s bed bed….I thought he wanted to…nightshirt…and I…”

Sitting up, Bingley scrubbed at his face and squinted at the clock on the mantle above the fireplace. It seemed to be right about three in the morning. “I cannot understand a word you are saying. Are you ill?”

Caroline shook her head through her sobs, still attempting to pull him from the bed.

“Stop pulling my arm,” he snapped. “Is Darcy ill?”

Again she shook her head. 

“Then whatever it is can surely wait for morning. Just try to calm down and let us all get some sleep.” Bingley settled back into his pillow, closing his eyes. 

Just then, a knock came from his dressing room. Bingley sat up, bidding whoever it was to come in. Evidently, he would not sleep in the near future, and he resigned himself to the need to deal with this problem straightaway, whatever it was. 

It was his man Perkins, looking sleepy. “Beg your pardon, sir, but you are wanted on an urgent matter by Mr Darcy. He awaits you in your study. May I assist you in readying yourself for the meeting?”

Bingley nodded, again told his sister to go to her room and try to get some sleep, and then rose to dress and meet Darcy. 

*

Darcy’s thoughts were a mass of confusion as he paced in Bingley’s study. Caroline Bingley! The very notion made his blood run cold. And yet, what might Bingley ask? Were the servants, even now, beginning to gossip about this? He cursed himself for being indiscreet in his exclamations—no doubt they were heard. 

At last Bingley entered, his step hurried and his voice breathless. “Darcy, what happened? Caroline could do nothing but sob incoherently at me. Are you ill?”

“No, nothing like that. Bingley, I…We should sit.” Darcy forced himself to sit, perching on the edge of one of the chairs across Bingley’s desk.

Bingley did not sit behind his desk, taking instead the seat next to Darcy. “Shall I ring for some coffee?”

“Yes. No! That is to say, no, let us not wake any of the servants.” Darcy took a deep breath even as his fingers beat an anxious staccato on the arm of his chair. “It would be best that as few as possible are alerted to the problem.”

Bingley nodded just as the door as thrust open and Mrs Hurst marched in, tugging a weeping Miss Bingley behind her. Mrs Hurst had a look of self-righteous indignation about her that did not bode well for the conversation. With utmost disdain she said, “Mr Darcy, our family always believed you were an honourable gentleman.”

“And so I am,” Darcy retorted fiercely.  

“Good.” Mrs Hurst was just as fierce. “Then I am sure you will do as you ought and marry Caroline.”

“What is this?” Bingley exclaimed. “Darcy? What on earth…?” 

Mrs Hurst turned to him. “Mr Darcy invited Caroline into his chambers this evening, and she went! Very unwise, I told her, but she is in love with him and thought he loved her too—and now that he has had his way with her—”

“I beg your pardon,” Darcy protested icily. “But such untruth will not be tolerated. I did not invite Miss Bingley to my bedchamber, nor would I ever—”

He was interrupted by a mass of incoherent shrieks and sobs from Miss Bingley. Darcy cringed imagining who must be overhearing them. This story would surely be in every house in Hertfordshire by sunrise. 

Bingley was holding his hands over his ears, likely to preserve his hearing from the worst of the shrieks. Speaking over the din, he said, “Can someone please tell me what happened? And do cease with this caterwauling, I beg you.”

Darcy was quick into the breach. “Your sister admitted herself into my room as I slept and now wishes to persuade you, and apparently Mrs Hurst as well, that it was an assignation between us.”

“But it was not?”

“Of course not!” 

“She was in his bed,” said Mrs Hurst insistently. “Nearly naked I might add!”

Darcy shot to his feet, feeling desperation grow within him. “I was asleep and hardly able to prohibit her!”

“Regardless, she is ruined!” Mrs Hurst cried out dramatically. “Who else would have her now?”

Bingley looked concerned by this assertion. 

“If she is ruined, it was not my doing!” Turning to his weeping tormentor, Darcy ordered,  “Tell your brother the truth Miss Bingley. Surely you would not wish to enter into a loveless marriage with a man whose hand you forced in such a way?”

Miss Bingley looked up at him, teary-eyed. “But I thought you did love me.”

Full-fledged panic rose in Darcy’s breast as he comprehended that, having come this far, Miss Bingley intended to see her scheme through to the end. Bingley’s expression alarmed him still further—he seemed like a man considering what it would be like to have a spinster sister tied about his neck for the rest of his life. Darcy could only imagine what Miss Bingley’s seasons in town cost his friend…no doubt he wished her married with equal desperation as the young lady felt herself. 

Sympathy for his friend aside, Darcy would not consign himself to the fate of marriage to Caroline Bingley. She was all that he detested in a lady, and this manoeuvre was clear evidence of the selfish meanness of her character. She would be supercilious and demanding to his servants, uncaring to his tenants, and a dreadful example to Georgiana. His life he dared not even think of, so sure was he of utter misery. 

The next moments of conversation became increasingly heated as Miss Bingley insisted that it was a shared assignation and Darcy just as adamantly denied it. Darcy kept one eye on his friend who looked confused and uncertain, rubbing his hand over his forehead as if he hoped that would make an honourable reply come out. 

At length, his gaze focused on a point beyond Darcy’s shoulder, he said, “If there were some other way, Darcy, you know I would agree to it. Alas, I fear gentlemanly honour—”

Pressure rose in Darcy’s throat and for a moment he believed he might vomit. What could he do? If he refused, there would be a breach between him and a dear friend, talk in London…how would Georgiana be affected by this scandal? What would his uncle say?

“—requires me to insist that you—”

“Bingley… I… I cannot.”

“—offer my sister your hand—”

“I am engaged to Elizabeth Bennet.” The words shocked Darcy as much as the rest of the room which fell immediately, deathly silent. Everyone stared at him, jaws slack and eyes wide. 

At last Bingley said, “What?”

Darcy spoke quickly, ignoring the pang of guilt that smote him as he lied. “I asked Miss Elizabeth Bennet to marry me yesterday, and she accepted me. We are to marry. Miss Elizabeth Bennet and I are getting married.” 

With a deep breath, he added, “Surely no one thinks I would stoop so low as to invite Miss Bingley into my bed while my… my intended wife slept just down the hall.”

There was a short, shocked silence until Miss Bingley renewed her wailing and shrieking while Mrs Hurst began to ring a peal over everyone’s heads.  At last Bingley, mercifully, dismissed his sisters, instructing them to return to their beds, then nearly pushing them from the room when they went too slowly. 

The two friends were then alone again. Darcy stood, feeling sweat trickle down his back as his friend studied him closely from his chair. “Bingley you must know that this is…this is all nonsense.” 

“Which part?” Bingley asked. “An assignation with my sister or an engagement to Miss Elizabeth Bennet?”

Darcy clenched his jaw a moment before replying, “I did not have any assignation with your sister, nor would I. How long have we known one another? Have you ever known me to behave thus?” 

Bingley sighed heavily, and scrubbed his face with his hands. “But Miss Elizabeth Bennet? I had not realised that you had developed a regard for her.” 

“My feelings have surprised me as well.”

After several more long moments, Bingley added,  “You argue quite a lot for people who wish to marry.”

“I like a lady who is unafraid to speak her mind.”

Bingley heaved another massive sigh. “Caroline was in your bed Darcy.”

Nausea rose at the recollection. “Uninvited Bingley. I am, as you know, a deep sleeper. She admitted herself as I slept.”

“But she is ruined!”

“No, she is not ruined because nothing happened. If this is kept quiet—”

“And now you cannot marry her because you are already engaged?”

“My conduct was unimpeachable save for the fact that I was slumbering when she entered,” said Darcy. “In any case, I am engaged. To marry someone else is impossible.”

Bingley sighed heavily and began speaking, as much to himself as anyone. “She must marry and soon. Someone, anyone.”

He turned his eye to his friend. “The problem is that she refuses to face the facts before her. She has turned away several very promising suitors because she had her eye on a bigger prize.”

“A bigger prize?”

“You.” Bingley regarded him thoughtfully. “She believed you would eventually ask her to marry you.”

“I have done nothing to encourage her in that belief.”

“I know.” Bingley rose and went to stare out the window. The sun had just begun to rise over the fields around Netherfield, promising a lovely autumn day ahead of them. 

At last, Bingley turned, studying Darcy closely. “May I speak frankly?” On Darcy’s nod he continued. “It seems… unlikely…to me that you have gotten engaged to Miss Elizabeth Bennet. I want to believe you more than I actually do. But you have long been my friend and I have no wish to see you bound to a woman you…you…” 

He made a helpless little gesture and Darcy finished his sentence for him, in a manner of understatement. “To a woman I do not wish to marry.” 

“Yes, exactly.” 

“Perhaps it will serve us both, my, um engagement that is,” Darcy suggested. “With me unavailable, your sister will no doubt turn to other prospects.” 

“Just so!” Bingley exclaimed, as amenable to suggestion as always. “She will realise ere she acts soon, she will remain unmarried.”

“So my marriage will force upon her a bit of urgency. After all, you would not like her always with you.” 

“No, I would not,” said Bingley firmly. “No indeed. So this matter of you and Miss Elizabeth—as unanticipated as it seems, it will kill any whispers about this business tonight.”

“To be sure,” said Darcy. “The gossips will presume you found Elizabeth with me not…not…” He could not even bear to speak it aloud.

“Of course,” said Bingley. Then with uncommon severity, he added, “For what sort of gentleman would I be if I allowed my friend to dishonour my sister under my own roof without demanding justice?” 

“Indeed,” agreed Darcy numbly. 

The two gentlemen left each other then, intending to return to their respective bedchambers for a little while. Darcy knew he would not sleep and therefore did not bother returning to the bed. Instead he took a chair and turned it to face the window. 

He had just lied, grievously lied, to his dearest friend and it could not sit well with him. Disguise of every sort must be your abhorrence —his father had counselled again and again and again. No good ever came from lying. And yet, when it all came down to it, he had lied boldly and completely. 

And if I had not, I would be even now bound to Caroline Bingley—through no fault of my own. 

He closed his eyes a moment as various scenes ran through his mind: Miss Bingley triumphantly crowing about ‘securing him’ to her friends; walking with her during the fashionable hour in Hyde Park; seeing her preen during the theatre as the entirety of the ton examined them. Of course, the marriage itself would be even worse, sitting to dinner with her, every day, hearing her grating titter and mean-spirited gossip; having to bed her for the creation of his heir!—the very notion made him shudder.

It was done and done for the best. Only one thing remained: telling Miss Elizabeth Bennet of her role in turning his untruth into truth. 

Marriage to a lady like Elizabeth Bennet? Beauty, figure, and wit notwithstanding, she was certainly not the sort of lady he had ever envisioned as his wife. She had an uncle in trade, her mother was crass and vulgar, and he had overheard Miss Bingley once say that her fortune consisted of only one thousand pounds. London society would eat her alive. For a moment he cursed himself—had it not been for his nighttime imaginings, his dreams, Elizabeth Bennet would not have been the name to drop from his lips. 

But there was no real choice here, was there? He had to marry and it would be either Miss Bingley or Miss Elizabeth Bennet. At least he was not physically sickened by the thought of the latter. 

Miss Elizabeth Bennet your life is about to become something you might never have dreamt possible. 

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The bedchamber shown in the photo above is my actual bedroom. Ha! I wish… no, its a bedchamber from Houghton Hall done up as it might have been in Georgian times!