An Unexpected Ally

Part 1

"I have heard a rumour about you..."

Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam flinched when he recognised the sound of George Wickham's lazy drawl over the noise of other drinkers at the Meryton inn favoured by the men of his barracks.

It had become Richard's habit of late to find time most days to pass a quiet half an hour nursing a mug of weak ale and making conversation with whichever of the men chanced to surround him. It served him well, for the difficulty of assuming control of a band of men opposed to his arrival had lessened and he had begun to build something of a rapport with them. He grimaced, wishing that any of his other subordinates would choose this moment to come to him with a question, however complex and arduous to resolve if only to rescue him from Wickham's sly smile. No one came, so Richard met and matched his gaze, concealing his reluctance with a smile.

"Indeed? I wonder at people's lack of occupation if they choose me as a topic for their idle tongues."

"Then it is false?" Wickham set his glass down firmly on one corner of Richard's table and pulled up a chair, accepting an unoffered and unwarranted invitation to join him.

"Most probably." Richard took a sip of his drink, his eyes fixed on Wickham over the lip of the glass. "Rumours tend to be."

"Occasionally they are not," Wickham conceded, with a smile that betrayed secrets neither of them wished to revisit. "In this case...." He tilted his head to one side, surveying Richard with curiosity.

"You shall have to ask me outright, Wickham, I am in no mood for games this evening and too tired to have confidences teased out of me." He sighed, raking a hand through his hair and thinking wearily of the pile of reports he had yet to read through before he could begin to think of retiring that evening. His mind taunted him, accurately, that if he had spent fewer hours at Longbourn and more attending to his regimental responsibilities over the past few days he might be in a better position that evening. His cheeks warmed, for he could not help but think he had made the right decision. What is a pile of reports compared to love? He scoffed at his own nonsense, glad that none of his men - and above all George Wickham - were privy to the sentimentality that had invaded his thoughts.

"Very well." Wickham's expression had changed, such that it took Richard a moment to confirm to himself that his friend could not read his mind. Somehow, he seemed to sense the contents of his thoughts all the same. His sly grin grew, making Richard uncomfortable.

"You are to be married."

"I am -" Richard choked on the mouthful of weak ale he had taken in an attempt to hide from Wickham's probing gaze. He coughed, clearing his lungs before responding. "I am to be married. That is the rumour, is it? Well." He raked his hand through his hair a second time, dishevelling it further.

"Then it is not true? You have not been making frequent calls at a certain house? Paying your attentions to the eldest and most beautiful of all the sisters - arguably the most beautiful young lady in all of Meryton?"

Richard swallowed a curse, seeing there would be no denying the truth. Wickham had gleaned it from somewhere, even if he exaggerated about the matter being the talk of Meryton.

"It is true I have called there on occasion," he equivocated. "That is not a revelation. You accompanied me there yourself. Mr Bennet and I have become friends. We play chess."

"And you take long walks with Miss Jane Bennet." Wickham reached across the table and slapped Richard on the shoulder, hard. "Come, Fitzwilliam! Do not act as this were some great secret you must keep quiet on the pain of death. It matters little to me if you should marry her. I would be a trifle more vexed, should you have set your cap at Elizabeth, but..."

Richard frowned, recalling the rapport he had noticed between Wickham and Elizabeth and wondering at it. He had dismissed it at first, certain that George Wickham was merely being George Wickham, charming any young lady who happened to catch his eye. Now he wondered if, truthfully, Elizabeth Bennet had caught his eye, and if his game with her was more than the transient display of charm he offered most young ladies of short acquaintance.

"I did not realise you thought so highly..."

"Because I do not find myself there every moment I am spared from my duties, you mean?" Wickham chuckled, swallowing the rest of his drink and summoning another. He grew serious. "I am a little less welcome than you, for Mr Bennet has no desire in courting me for a chess companion." His voice dropped. "Or for a son."

Richard frowned, wondering, not for the first time, how Wickham came across his information, and how he so often succeeded in being unerring in its application.

"Family disapproval as never stopped you before," Richard muttered, grimly, feeling a strange compulsion to remind Wickham, however obliquely, that he had not forgotten their shared history, even if the fates had forced them now into a tense kind of friendship. He had not forgotten it, nor had he forgiven Wickham for the trauma he wrought on poor Georgiana. I am hardly inclined to stand by and watch you do so a second time!

"True," Wickham conceded. "But this time...it is different. Elizabeth Bennet is unlike any young lady I have met before and knowing her...perhaps I might even say I am a changed man." He shrugged, affecting an unreadable smile. "I dare say my long stint in His Majesty's Regiment has reformed me. As has your sterling supervision." He saluted Richard with his empty glass. "I am glad we are friends again, Fitzwilliam, and if you are poised to win the delicate Jane Bennet's hand for your very own, perhaps you will not forget to put in a good word for me with her sister." His eyes glinted dangerously. "And recall that I know shadows from your past just as well as you know mine. It would serve us both ill to drag them out into the light, wouldn't it?"

Richard said nothing and a moment later Wickham was hailed from the corner of the inn, where a small group of soldiers were poised to begin a card game. With a smile, Wickham got to his feet, punching Richard lightly on the arm as he passed him, and joined the group to a roar of welcome. Richard barely noticed, his gaze fixed, unseeing, on the middle distance.

That was Wickham's game, then. He had helped Richard gain status and security within the regiment knowing his own past would stay buried: Richard could not risk sharing it without harming Georgiana. Now, he wished for Richard to smooth the obstacles in his personal life as well, or he would destroy them both.

Can I do it? Condemn another young lady to the fate Georgiana so narrowly escaped? After all, it was my fault the pair ever even met one another, and my fault that things escalated as they did...

Another volley of laughter reached him from the corner of the pub and his stomach turned. He stood, leaving his drink half-drunk, and made his way back to the barracks, feeling in need of quiet rather than company, and hoping that in doing so he might puzzle himself out of the unfortunate allegiance that had ensnared him.