First Impressions
CHAPTER 1
Disclaimer: If affection between people of the same sex offends you, this story is not for you.
First Impressions by StSciurus
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of what you wish for; it may come true! At least that is what his mother told him the strange writing on the old wishing well meant. Will thought about the many times as a child he and his mother would walk around the grounds of Pemberly and end up here at the well. “Can it really be five years already since she died?” he said to himself. His mother would always throw a few coins into the well. “I want to guarantee a good outcome to your wishes,” she would tell him. Of course, that was all nonsense! He was thoroughly grounded in the skepticism of science. And if the well was really so powerful, why didn’t she wish anything for herself? Why didn’t she wish for a cure to the llama flu that killed her? What a nightmare that time was! Science did find a cure and vaccine eventually, but it came too late to save his mother. “Why am I thinking about this again?” He tried to concentrate on other things. “Did the well just wink at me?” The stone face at the top of the well was a feature as old as the well itself, and the tale was that the well predated the Darcys coming to Windenberg Island and building the estate some two hundred years ago. eware
“Nonsense!” Yet, for some reason he always paused at the well on his daily jog around the estate. Sometimes the stone face seemed to frown, sometimes to smile. “I must be overworked.” He started back to the main house. He was still thinking about his mother. Shortly after his father had died, she told Will that he should adopt a child.
“I know that it is unlikely that you’ll every have a child in the usual way,” she said to him frankly. She knew that he “preferred the company of other men” (as she put it). “And I’m not concerned about the ‘sacred Darcy bloodline’.” This was a phrase his father used to use frequently when urging him to get married. After all, Will was the 11th or 12th Fitzwilliam Darcy to live at Pemberly. “You need a child,” she told him, “to take you out of yourself, and because you have so much to give! Adopt a child or try in vitro. I don’t want you to end up alone.” He remembered how much it had shocked him at the time. Not just the content of what his mother had told him, but that it was in such direct opposition to his father’s wishes and attitudes!
Don’t you realize the responsibility you have as a Darcy to carry on the sacred bloodline? You are the 12th Fitzwilliam Darcy to live at Pemberly! Doesn’t that mean anything to you, son? You must marry!
But I’m only 17, Dad…
But could he be a good father? Could he be a good husband for that matter? He had dated often enough, but he always had the feeling that his dates were more interested in his position in the community or in his money.
And then there was that disastrous affair with Henry Wickham! The two boys had grown up together on the estate, Henry being the son of the former groundskeeper. Will had thought it was true love, but when he caught his friend groping Georgiana, Will’s sister and only 15 years old at the time, he went into a rage like he had never experienced before (or after, thank heavens!). He had forgiven Henry and even given him an executive position at DarCo, when he had come to him a year later, out of money and desperate (something his father would never have done had he been alive). But Henry betrayed him again six months later, leaving the firm to start a company of his own and taking with him some of Will’s best people. Will had heard since that Henry was doing well although there was something decidedly shady about the nature of Henry’s business practices. “But what do I care?” Will said out loud. He had “retired” from business. He was still the chairman of the board of DarCo but no longer was actively involved in the running of the business. Not that his days were any less busy. Between his charitable work, his scientific studies, his collections, and simply keeping Pemberly from falling apart, he never lacked for something to do or someone who wanted something from him.
Are you ready for dinner, Georgiana honey?
Yes, Mrs. Reynolds.
“How could I even think about adopting a child?” he thought. He had his sister to care for. After the death of their parents and then the “unpleasantness” with Henry Wickham, Georgiana, always a shy child, had withdrawn even further into herself. With the help of their longtime staff, Mrs. Reynolds and Mr. MacDougal, Will had managed to help her to open up again, even laugh occasionally, but worries about Georgiana were never far from his thoughts.
Will had reached the formal garden just outside Pemberly’s grand entrance. Lost in thought, he absentmindedly reached into his sweatpants and fingered the few coins that were there. Without realizing what he was doing, he ran back to the wishing well and threw the coins in. As he hurried back to the house, he missed the strange emanations coming from the stone face.
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