“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.Imustbe well enough.”
Elizabeth stood, and she found her claim was almost true.Perhaps some part of the weakness her body had felt was because shebelievedshe 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 sawme.”
“You may freelybelievethat,” 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.”
