There was no fire, and she started to shiver as the hours went by.
She wouldn’t sleep at all tonight.
At least she had saved Lydia.
Sounds of pounding and rhythmic moans came from a neighboring room through the walls, and Caroline pressed herself even deeper into the corner, as though that provided safety. She had always been sheltered, but she was not so sheltered as to not know what those sounds meant.
Wickham would take her in that way once he’d forced the marriage vows out of her.
She was scared.
Eventually, despite the terror, Caroline fell asleep, her head lying against the wall.
She woke from unsettled dreams with a shriek at the sound of the bolt being thrown back.
Mrs. Younge opened the door. She paused to take in how Caroline was lying, pressed into the corner, and she sneered. “Get up. Time for your wedding.”
With an involuntary sideways shake of her head Caroline refused to move.
“Zounds! You rich useless girl. You always need to make everything difficult for everyone?”
The dingy man stood in the door behind her, clearly present to manage her if she tried to make a wild run to escape.
Mrs. Younge stepped into the room and jerked the quilt off Caroline. “You always thought everyone was so kind to you, and did so many things for you, fed you and pampered you and told you that you were special because youwere. You ain’t, you slut. You just had money. But you won’t. Not after today. Not anymore. It’ll all be your husband’s, and I don’t reckon George will be a good husband. No, I don’t imagine he will be a satisfactory husband for you at all — get up!”
At the roar Caroline shrank against the wall, but then as Mrs. Younge went to grab her and yank her she steeled herself, took a deep breath, and rolled off the bed.
Something suddenly clicked in Caroline’s mind. “You were the companion of Miss Darcy who Mr. Darcy dismissed.”
“Heh, and you are the slut who threw your virginity away on him — did the stiff Mr. Darcy actually take your maidenhead before he abandoned you, like George said?”
At the way that Caroline did not reply, but rather stood there, in her dirty riding habit that she had set out in when leaving her little home so many hours before, Mrs. Younge shrugged. “No, I reckon he wouldn’t. That man would have married you if you’d convinced him to wax his wick with your butter. Eh?”
Caroline made no reply. But she could see no choice so she followed Mrs. Younge out the door and down the stairs. The dingy man followed them from behind.
Her heart raced with every step she took.
The fantasies of fleeing and being shot in the back, through the heart, through the head — dying in any case — returned. But this time she considered actually risking it.
Did she really want to live, if living meant marriage to Wickham?
If she died now, at least her fortune would be distributed to Charles and Louisa. After the wedding it would be Wickham’s.
And perhaps the king’s justice would catch Wickham, and he would hang for what he had done.
During the course of the four flights of stairs down, Caroline determined that even though it would fail, and he would shoot her, she would try to escape back through the door, as soon as they reached the ground floor, or maybe once she was brought out to be put in a carriage.
However the instant she was shoved into the common room of the establishment, that intention fled.
What first caught her eye was Wickham. He stood by the bar, a glass of whiskey in one hand, and the other played with the pistol that lay on the counter.
That pistol.
She could not look away from it.
I don’t want to die.
The impossibility of acting out her plan became clear to her.
