The sun went down.
Few lights. Just the sense of men staring at her.
Every wellborn girl knew there were parts of the metropolis — most of them — that she ought not go into ever, not even with an escort. This was undoubtedly one of them.
Caroline then had her chance — the moment she might have escaped.
They pulled to a stop in front of a tall building that looked a bit better maintained than many of them: bars on the windows above her, and an oak door with no placard.
Wickham leapt from the gig, leaving the horses standing, but not tied up. He pounded on the door.
She could grab the leather reins sitting on the seat next to her. Snap the horses into motion. Run away. Get far away. Escape.
Cold night air on her face.
Mr. Wickham would turn around, see her rush off. He’d pull the gun out and shoot at the back of the carriage, but he’d miss her because he could not directly see her anymore, and the bullet would anyways be stopped by the wood of the carriage.
Do it. Do it. Run!
Her hands remained stiff by her side. The reins were not picked up. The horses pawed at cobblestones that were slippery with horse manure.
A burly man with a dingy beard came out to speak with Wickham, and they talked together in low voices that did not carry while he gestured at her.
Now! Your last chance!
She tried to make herself do it, she really did.
Caroline lifted her hand to move towards the reins, but her terror of that gun created a sort of field around the leather straps that she could not press her hand through. It was like trying to force a lodestone against the wrong end of another lodestone.
Wickham returned, and he grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her from the carriage. She stumbled, but he kept shoving her, through the door and into the candle lit room beyond.
He slammed the door behind her, and then stood with his arm thrown dramatically out to display her. “A proper lady,” he said. “My ship has come in at last!”
They were in a short corridor that looked far better appointed than the outside of the building. Dark wood paneling, a thick red carpet dirty from boots tracking mud in, and two fine silver candle holders on either side of the door.
A brown haired woman who looked respectable from her dress and manners stood by the door next to the dingy man who'd met Wickham.
The man said, “Don’t know, George. Don’t know at all. She could be just a trollop you totted up nice.”
Wickham laughed. “This is Caroline Bingley, the heiress to twenty thousand pounds.Of age. She owns the money direct. No waiting. No worries about annoyed relations. All her relations hate her already. No one to rescue her. And she has agreed to make me the happiest of men.”
All three laughed cruelly.
“You sure she ain’t a trollop?” the man asked.
The woman sneered. “Look at that stiff nose she holds up over us. As though she is contaminated by the very neighborhood. That woman’s quality. Mark my word. She’s quality.”
“If you insist, Mrs. Younge,” the man replied skeptically. “But does she have a fortune? — Twenty thousand pounds. Girls like that aren’t unprotected. How are you going to marry her?”
“Special license.”
Both of them crackled with laughter. “How are you gonna manage and getthat?Delusions of grandeur! Delusions!”
“Fuck you both.” Wickham snarled. “I’d shoot a hole through you as soon as speak to you. I can manage it — the assistant to the archbishop. He was at university with me. He’ll make sure I get a signed license if he knows what is good for him.”
“Blackmail, eh?” The woman shook her head. “Every person who comes in contact with you suffers for it. I’d still be Miss Darcy’s companion if I had never met you.”
“Fuck you too, Younge — I’ll need a loan. Twenty quid for the license.”
