“Oh, I wasn’t so brave. I acted before I thought. If I’d thought about it, I don’t believe I could have done it.”
“Worst thing about a battle is that there is a dashed lot of time to think about what you are doing,” Colonel Fitzwilliam agreed. “And don’t be bothered that Darcy still has a rock in his boot. He holds grudges. That was the most forgiving speech I’ve heard from him in the whole course of my life.”
Caroline looked at Colonel Fitzwilliam with warm eyes again. “You do not despise me? I… I do not think that… It was not to gain forgiveness. I simply did what made sense to me.”
“Exactly so,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied.
“How did you find me?”
“Mrs. Younge was an unfortunate acquaintance of ours,” Darcy replied. “I shall be most glad if I never see nor hear hide nor hair of her again.”
“You arrived at the last moment — when the vicar demanded that I say ‘I will’. Another few seconds and I would have been a widow instead.”
She shivered, and Elizabeth squeezed Caroline’s hand.
Colonel Fitzwilliam bumped his elbow against Caroline. “Nonsense. Marriage made under duress is not really marriage. Not valid.”
Suddenly, rather to Elizabeth’s confusion, Caroline started giggling helplessly, but then the giggles turned into sobs, and she clung again to Colonel Fitzwilliam, her tears soaking into the red coat of his uniform.
When they reached Darcy house after a surprisingly short ride — it had seemed terribly long when theywentto the seedy part of town they found Caroline in — Georgiana rushed out to meet them, and she embraced Elizabeth and her brother as soon as they entered the hall. “I was so scared for you all — were you made to marry Mr. Wickham?”
She looked at Caroline with wide eyes.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Good, not evenyoudeserve that.”
Elizabeth could see that it was clear from Georgiana’s expression thatherresentment on behalf of her brother was alsonotwholly forgotten.
“Hope you do not mind,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, poking Georgiana in the forehead, “but I shot Mr. Wickham. Afraid he’ll never manage to marry anyone.”
“Oh.” Georgiana gasped and went pale.
Elizabeth rather did not approve of the way that he told Georgiana that the man she’d nearly eloped with had died.
“It was ghastly,” Elizabeth said. “Caroline, we must clean you up. Can a bath be drawn before we go to my aunt and uncle?”
At that Caroline perked up. “We are going to Gracechurch Street after this? But will Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner accept my visit?”
“Of course they will if they wishmeto visit,” Elizabeth replied with determination. “Besides, they already said they would. Letters were sent off earlier from a post stop. And we have clothes for you to change into.”
“Oh yes,” Georgiana said. “I told Mrs. North to have a bath kept ready so you could have one when you returned. Or Elizabeth suggested that I do so, and so I did when they all went off.”
“Thank you!” Caroline exclaimed. “Thank you!”
The two of them went up. Caroline’s maid was there to help her mistress undress, and Elizabeth could perceive theusualnessof seeing Aliette did a great deal to break Caroline out of the shocked reverie that she’d fall back into if not made to talk or pay attention for a few minutes. Elizabeth sat with her in the bathroom talking, and she began to feel sleepy in the warmth in the room.
She could tell that Caroline was sleepy in the same way. It must have been impossible for her friend to sleep at all, or at least not in any restful way, the previous night when she was under the threat of an enforced marriage, and who knows what else.
HadMr. Wickham forced her friend?
Such a question was impossible to ask.
When the two of them came down, both in fresh clothes, they found that Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner had come in person with their own carriage.
Everyone downstairs talked and talked about the shocking events, and Mrs. Gardiner embraced both Caroline and Elizabeth. “We’ll send you back to Longbourn in a few days,” she said. “But you are both always welcome for a visit. I have missed you, Caroline.”
“I don’t deserve—” she began.
