“But what you said about your own sister… you are so angry at her.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Am I being inconsistent? Shocking. But I suppose, foryoursake, I’ll forgive Lydia more quickly than would by my wont otherwise. But no matter what, she would remain my sister.”
Charlie exclaimed, “He imposed upon you too! There is not a worse scoundrel in England than that man! A hardened reprobate. I never say such things, but I hope someone gives him proper horsewhipping!”
Darcy nodded and said something in agreement.
However when Elizabeth’s eyes landed on Colonel Fitzwilliam, there was something cold in his eyes that gave her a chill in her stomach.
And she thought about Caroline, and her fear for her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
During the whole of the carriage ride into London, Caroline had kept her mind alert for an opportunity to escape. But they had gone at a steady pace, keeping to the smaller roads as much as possible.
Wickham had an angry look, and he reached over to laughingly grip her thigh. With a squeak Caroline scooted herself as far away from him as she could in the small gig.
He chuckled evilly.
The bulge in his coat where he’d hidden his pistol had a sort of hypnotic fascination for Caroline.
Her brain imagined him pulling it out and firing.
She’d try to jump aside… and still be hit. She felt it again and again in her mind. The ball breaking through her ribs, tearing open the heart. Her last thoughts as the blood bubbled out quickly.
A shot through the head. Instant blackness?
Would she even go to heaven after the sins she had committed?
That sense that in some sense she deserved such a fate, which had driven her to convince Wickham to exchange her for Lydia was still there.
The way he had grabbed her leg made her shiver with a sick slithering horror.
Like everyone else in the neighborhood, she had seen Wickham as a particularly handsome man.
But his good looks merely served to turn him into a more terrifying villain — the fact that a woman might enjoy his attentions if he had a worthy soul made the terror of rape worse.
Her hands squeezed and unsqueezed again.
There was a red fringe of sun falling over the horizon when they at last made their way to the outskirts of London. They came up to one of the main thoroughfares from the side road. Wickham looked at her before they turned onto it, and he patted his gun in the coat with his right hand. “Call out to anyone — show any sign of distress. If I even think you’ll make an attempt to escape, I’ll kill you.Vous comprenez?”
“They’ll hang you!”
“Think that will stop me? They’ve already ruined me — I’ll kill you if I can’t use you to escape everything.” He laughed with an unhinged edge to the tone. “I always wondered what it would be like to watch a man die, whoIkilled. Would it be like killing a dog?”
There was this terror in her stomach. What would he do to her after he’d married her and acquired her money?
But she had no choice. None.
That gun kept her.
“I won’t try to escape.” Caroline was surprised that her voice came out steady and clear, rather than as an inaudible squeak.
He clucked and drove them through the streets of the city, into a dirtier, seedier part of the city than Caroline had ever been to before. High piles of rubbish were stuffed in the alleyways. Beggars in rags. Burly men on street corners. Plaster that had crumbled away revealing the brick structure. Bricks that had been beaten away and were crumbling themselves.
The scent of garbage was revolting.
The air was ominous with cold.
