Darcy rolled his eyes. “You know I would not do that.”
“Eh, I hope my neck doesn’t ever depend on you deceiving a jury.”
Darcy wrinkled his nose. “I should have asked Elizabeth to burn the letter, but I did not think that…”
“That my cousin would steal the correspondence of a girl who you had reason to trust and who had no connection to him at that time. It is only a little your fault. Staring backwards does not help anything. You acted reasonably at the time.”
Darcy frowned at his coffee. It was almost empty, and the hazelnut liquid mixed with cream around the bottom of the mug. The friendly, familiar aroma of coffee wafted to his nose.
“Miss Bennet, how does she get on at present? Is she in the house? Was that why you were delayed in joining me, you were busy making love to your guest? Tut, tut. Quite improper.”
Darcy flushed, since in rough details General Fitzwilliam’s supposition was correct. “She was very ill at first. She walked through London from Hyde Park to her uncle’s house at Gracechurch Street, and then finding that the authorities were already present there, she walked back again to my house, all the way,” Darcy spoke proudly, filled with admiration of Elizabeth, “on a swollen foot, in slippers and a thin cotton dress on a half frozen day.”
“Deuced impressive woman. Is she recovered?”
“Partly, she still is weak, but the fever has completely left her the past two days. I was terrified at first.”
“She turned to you,” General Fitzwilliam said firmly. “And I can tell by your manner you are once more infatuated with her — these particulars promise well for your possibility of happiness.”
Darcy was unable to stop himself from flushing again. “I have spoken nothing to her on the matter yet, but I hope her opinion of me is changed. It would be impossible for me to speak to her while she is lost in the world, and entirely dependent upon my support for her safety, succor, and very survival.”
“Good man. Deuced good man. So we must get her out of any chance of the hangman’s noose. For your sake too.”
General Fitzwilliam walked to the window that looked out from the breakfast room. “Damn. Forgot this window looks over the inner courtyard — does Miss Bennet’s room face the street?”
Darcy blinked and shrugged at the quick question. “It does.”
“Might I call upon your visitor with you?”
Chapter Six
When Becky told Elizabeth that Mr. Darcy’s cousin, General Fitzwilliam, wished to pay his respects to her with the master of the house, and that both gentlemen desired to know if she would be amenable to such callers in her present state, Elizabeth smiled and happily struggled to stand up. She stretched out her arms, though she wavered a bit dizzily.
“Even if I am quite the invalid yet, I will be dressed properly to greet such an august creature — a general. I confess, I made acquaintance with him when he was a mere colonel.”
Elizabeth’s body felt considerably improved from the previous day, and when she restlessly sat on her bed, desperately tired of inactivity, she could imagine that she was almost healthy. In fact Elizabeth barely stood long enough for Becky to throw the beautiful but girlish and conservatively cut dress that Becky had modified for her from one of Miss Darcy’s “old” castoffs that had not yet been handed to the servants to make with as they would.
Elizabeth half collapsed into the bed, while she let the maid button up the back of the dress, and her corset was tied in very loosely. She’d look quite frumpy, but she suspected Mr. Darcy rather liked it when she looked that way. And she was becoming quite certain that she liked it when Mr. Darcy liked the way that she looked.
She closed her eyes while sitting on the bed, feeling Becky’s hands quickly and nimbly work on her buttons.
Despite having felt full of energy and desperate to stand when she had been in bed a few minutes before, she found herself almost drifting off. She had never been so sick as she had been the past week. Hopefully she would soon be much better.
“There, ma’am,” Becky said patting Elizabeth’s hair fully into place. “In the chair I imagine?”
Elizabeth shook herself into wakefulness. “You do understand me.” She grinned. “No reason to play the invalid more than I must.”
The maid moved the armchair that Darcy liked to sit in next to the fire and helped Elizabeth to stand. Then Elizabeth shook away her supporting arm and walked the rest of the way. She felt less dizzy than she had when she stood to be dressed, but she still collapsed gratefully into the warm chair, enjoying the fire that made her skin almost glow with heat.
She would never cease to love fires and warmth, and never forget how grateful she was to not be freezing. It had become dangerously cold for her that night after the sun had fully set.
“All right, Becky, you may tell the gentleman that her sickliness is presentable, and ready to receive gentleman callers.”
Becky smiled back. “Are you certain, ma’am, that you do not wish to require them to wait yet a little longer — always does a gentleman good to wait a while for a woman. Reminds him of his proper place in the world.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Ah, but I think Mr. Darcy can never forget his proper place in the world.”
The maid snorted, and then resettled her face in an expression of servantly decorum. She curtsied with her intelligent eyes sparkling with humor and opened the door. As chance occurred, Mr. Darcy and the General Fitzwilliam both stood there already.
Darcy had been pacing back and forth, while General Fitzwilliam, who Elizabeth noted did look a little similar to his other cousin, lounged against the wall with a look of amused relaxation as he watched Darcy.
The two gentlemen snapped to attention as soon as the door was open. Becky curtsied to them and announced, “Mrs. Benoit is ready to receive visitors.”
The two filed into the room, and bowed to her.
Elizabeth with her dimples said, “I apologize for not rising to curtsey, but I yet am rather weak from my recent illness.”
General Fitzwilliam chuckled as he pulled forward one of the other seats in the room and sat. “Mrs. Benoit, eh? I must congratulate you on your recent marriage.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth laughed. “The suddenness with which I found myself named a married woman surprised me as well. Would it shock you terribly if I confess I cannot recall the ceremony?”
“My cousin Lord Lachglass. Damned man — I apologize for my language, but I despise him to the bottom of my heart. He is like a wild dog — I confess we have a slight similarity in appearance, I know that such can often trigger unpleasant memories in one who has been attacked.”
“I do not mind seeing you in the slightest,” Elizabeth replied with a friendly smile, “but I suspect that our mutual friend would not enjoy seeing my sister Kitty’s face, for she is the most similar in appearance to me.”
“Is she similar to you also in character? Since your recent marriage removes my chance to pursue you, I must settle elsewhere.”
“Alas,” Elizabeth grinned back, remembering how easily Colonel Fitzwilliam, when he was Colonel instead of General Fitzwilliam, could banter and set her at her at ease, “I am given to understand that Mr. Benoit is deceased. So while I am yet, I think, in mourning, your pursuit has some hope of success.”
“Jove, Richard,” Darcy exclaimed, “wait till she has fully recovered to flirt.”
Elizabeth laughed merrily, and winked at Darcy, who flushed a little.
The dear man was jealous.
General Fitzwilliam laughed. “I think I may have a competitor for your affections who is a little taller, in person and rents, than me.”
“Not his only virtues,” Elizabeth exclaimed, smiling warmly at Darcy.
Darcy noticeably brightened at her saying that.
Without having consciously decided to, she was definitely encouraging him.
“Did you know we had a visitor this morning?” General Fitzwilliam said with a frown.
Elizabeth
blanched. “That was the noise beneath? I heard something, but could not make out any of it and fell back asleep.”
“My cousin happened upon a letter which our somewhat incautious Mr. Darcy once wrote to you.”
“Lord! I had forgotten.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “I always buried the letter in the bottom of my trunk. I — my apologies. Mr. Darcy, I know there is information in those pages you do not want in general circulation. I ought have burned the letter soon as I’d digested the words, but… I liked having the pages as an object of some sentiment.”
“In honest truth? You liked keeping it near you?” Darcy replied with a deeply interested smile. “In truth?”
“In honest truth.”
“I would not then, no matter the consequence, have wished you to remove such a token from your possession.”
Elizabeth smiled back into his beautiful, deep eyes.
“I see that I am outmatched,” General Fitzwilliam drawled. “But this means we need you out of England, and quickly. That at least is my view.”
“You think he shall be back?” Darcy said to his cousin in an anxious voice. “But—”
“Back, with a warrant signed by a backpocket judge, and with constables to search the premises.” General Fitzwilliam stood and walked to the window, pushing aside the wispy drapes. He studied the bare winter road and the square dusted with snow.
He nodded with a frowning visage. “As I thought.”
Sweat suddenly stood on Elizabeth’s forehead. The room that seemed so warm and cheery was now becoming oppressive and cloying from the too warm fire.
The officer sat back in his chair. “Two men watch the house. One is Mr. Blight, with his delightful new scar. Lord Lechery would have done better to find a different spy; he is obvious at present.”
“What can he do to me?” Elizabeth asked, worriedly. She pulled in a deep breath. She would not fear that man, she had prevented him from hurting her once when she was alone, and now she was cared for by Darcy and his cousin, she would not feel frightened of him again. “He is alive, and he hardly would bring a case against me for assault.”
“Claims you stole twenty pounds off his person after knocking him out. He is determined to see you hang in vengeance.” General Fitzwilliam leaned forward and spat into the fire.
The fire hissed and sizzled.
“I hate him,” General Fitzwilliam added. “I’ll testify against my cousin’s character in trial. But juries. Juries can be strange animals; any true man of action will avoid having excess of todo with them. No, until we have settled matters in some permanent fashion with my cousin, you ought to be out of the country. And without delay. Today I think. My regiment’s training cadre and their new recruits are back to France to join the occupation army two days from now, but the ship is ready, and a goodly part of the regiment’s complement aboard it. We’ll sail off today, and find other means to get my men to Paris. You ought to be on that ship with me, protected by three hundred good British muskets.”
Elizabeth’s heart beat heavy.
She felt faint, and not from the aftereffects of the illness.
The vivid intense fever dreams she had of the noose came back to her, though she insisted to herself that she would not let herself be affeared to an excess before any such matter was necessary.
She would have accepted the noose, and bravely walked to it, had she killed the earl. It was a righteous act of self-defense, yet he who took up the sword, might perish by the sword, and have no cause for complaint in that.
But to be hung while he yet lived.
That she protested against in her soul.
“We must hide Elizabeth elsewhere in London,” Darcy exclaimed. “She is yet too ill to travel.”
“Mr. Darcy, my dear, my dearest friend. I thank you,” Elizabeth smiled at him warmly. “I thank you greatly for your consideration for my wellbeing, but I am well enough for a carriage to the docks. I must be well enough.”
Elizabeth stood, and she found her claim was almost true. Perhaps some part of the weakness her body had felt was because she believed she had ample opportunity of recovery. But now that drive in her spirit returned which had let her walk six miles through London streets in the freezing cold upon a swollen foot.
Darcy rushed to her side with a supporting arm, and she took it, but she smiled at him, with what she hoped was reassurance.
General Fitzwilliam walked back to the window and stared out, clearly studying the men across the road again.
“We have a little time, but not much. He’ll not easily convince a judge to put a warrant against the house of a man such as Mr. Darcy. Not with only correspondence stolen from four years ago.”
“Three years and only nine months. Not yet four,” Elizabeth replied without thought.
“You remember the date quite precisely, madam,” General Fitzwilliam quipped in reply.
Both Elizabeth and Darcy blushed.
“Naturally,” General Fitzwilliam added, “naturally you remember that date so clearly as it was the time most recent that you saw me.”
“You may freely believe that,” Elizabeth replied with a smirk that showed humor she did not feel.
“The servants. He may need to bribe the servants for evidence that you are staying here before they give him the warrant. But he’ll get it sooner or later. Always someone cracks, sooner or later. Even if he needs to hand a judge a bribe of a hundred guineas. He wants his revenge. Miss Bennet, is any stationery in this desk?”
“I have no idea, as my bedridden state has not yet given me liberty to write.” Elizabeth shrugged, looking at the dainty desk that General Fitzwilliam had sat down in front of, as he rifled through it, clacking the drawers open and closed. “Mrs. Benoit, please — it shocks me how quickly my husband is forgotten after his decease.”
General Fitzwilliam rang for Becky once he gave up finding papers in the desk. She brought the officer a stack of sheets and ink and a sharpened quill. He said as he began writing, “We’ll have a group of my picked men, Peninsular veterans, and men who were at Mont St Jean with me when Ney’s cavalry tried to run us over at Waterloo.”
“How terrible! You were at the very center then of the fighting at Waterloo?”
“Not at very center, madam. At Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte the fighting was much warmer. But warm enough where we were. Warm enough. Three men were killed who stood directly next to me during the fight. I received only a sharp cut across my neck that was not deep enough to even leave a scar — so you need not worry, we are a group who’ll get you out of England safely, even if I need shoot a dozen Bow Street Runners to get you free of my cousin’s evil.”
The quickly written letter was then handed, closed over, sealed with wax and an official seal that General Fitzwilliam produced from his coat.
After he called to Becky, and handed the paper to her, General Fitzwilliam sat back in the thin chair that creaked under him with a moderately worried air.
“Ought I…” Elizabeth paused, and then she spoke quickly, in a single breath, to get the idea out. “Ought I perhaps stand trial for what he accuses me of? There was no money, and I can charge him with his attempt to violate me, and surely a jury would listen to me, and then that would be the end of the matter.”
“No. Too unsafe,” Darcy said sharply. “If you are captured by the law, we will pursue every avenue of that sort, and we shall destroy Lord Lechery’s name, and bring all his enemies out to court to testify as to his character, but a jury is a chancy thing. We are going to do this carefully and systematically. Your safety and your life matter more than any other consideration in this matter.”
“Too many blasted privileges for the titled,” General Fitzwilliam growled at them both. “Jury of his peers. We ought to be accusing him. If England was as well governed as we pretend it is, my dear cousin would be hung by his neck till dead, but that is impossible. Even if a good accusation and case was made against him, he would be tried by the House of Lords, and I greatly doubt that my fa
ther and his ilk would be so hypocritical as to condemn him for what the rest of them do.”
Lachglass had been here below, in this house. He wanted to hang her. She needed to call on that strength in her again, to remain calm. Elizabeth made herself smile thinly at General Fitzwilliam. “A rather radical opinion you express now. I had not detected such attitudes in you when we conversed at Rosings those pretty years before.”
“Hmmph. Hadn’t had them, not yet. But even if I had… you’ve pounded the head of a peer in. Don’t pretend innocence, Miss Bennet. I salute you for it. But it gives me a courage to freely speak to you, as freely as I think — Darcy, could you give orders to have your carriage prepared? We’ll ride out to the docks soon as my men join us.”
Chapter Seven
Darcy paced back and forth and back again on the ground floor room of the house they had gathered in to wait for General Fitzwilliam’s soldiers. Anxiety ate at the back of his throat. He’d brought Elizabeth down, supporting her with his arm as she needed help still to get down the stairs. Now she sat pale faced but composed in a winged armchair that she made to look like a throne.
Elizabeth was astonishing, the way she could keep some sort of calmness at such a moment.
He could not.
It was three quarters of an hour after Richard sent his message out when ten soldiers on horseback clattered up to the entrance of Darcy’s house. They dismounted as a body. All of them wore the splendid red-coated uniforms of the British army, and they carried the long muskets of the infantry with them, in addition to pistols and cavalry sabers. A splendidly armed and well equipped group.
They entered the house, General Fitzwilliam embraced the young officer who led them, a lean young major with fine sideburns. “Excellent. Are you ready to defy law and order if you must?”
The officer smirked, “If I must.”
“I’ll do my part to keep from getting the whole gang of us hung, but I make no promise.”
“Of course not, sir.” He grinned back and raised his eyebrows.
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