“I will go.” Giving no one a chance to contradict her, Elizabeth left the table.
She found Jane in their shared room, sitting on the side of her bed, sobbing, and rushed to her. “Whatever is the matter?”
Jane raised a tear-streaked face. “Charles and I have had a row.”
“A row?” Elizabeth repeated, stunned. Jane did not have rows. “Over him keeping things from you?”
“It started that way. I said he ought to have told me about Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy. He said he was sorry, but the subterfuge had been a clandestine mission of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s, who apparently holds a secret position that we are not to know of nor speak about.” Jane offered a helpless shrug. “He said that Mr. Darcy did not even know about it until the moment he arrived, uninvited, in Meryton. Given that, I allowed Charles keeping the details from me made sense, but insisted he tell me about the mission now, as it obviously is a secret no longer.”
Elizabeth nodded, trying to appear encouraging, her thoughts spinning as she attempted to sort what she knew, from what she guessed, from what lies they’d been told.
“Charles said that man you found, Mr. Wickham, put a bounty of—” Jane trailed off, looking about. Dropping her voice to a whisper, she continued, “Of ten thousand pounds on Mr. Darcy, the real Mr. Darcy, to be paid December first, to anyone with proof that he was dead.”
Fear pulsed through Elizabeth. “Ten thousand pounds? But the danger is over?” It must be. The subterfuge had ended, and Mr. Wickham was dead. Still, December first remained several days away. Was Fitzwilliam…rather, Mr. Darcy…safe?
Jane nodded. “Apparently, Mr. Wickham died, so the whole scheme, which Colonel Fitzwilliam was employing to keep Mr. Darcy safe and to capture miscreants, ended.”
Elizabeth worried at her lower lip. Yes, surely the danger to Mr. Darcy had passed.
“You knew,” Jane accused.
Elizabeth looked up in surprise.
“You knew about Mr. Wickham and the bounty, and you did not tell me.” A sob wracked her. “Why do the people I love most insist on lying to me?”
Elizabeth caught one of her sister’s hands, beseeching. “I did not. Truly. That is, I knew it was all to end on December first, but I did not know why, or about the bounty.” With a grimace, she added, “I did know that Mr. Wickham was dead, but I did not think his death mattered to you. And yet learning of it would still have upset you, so why share such news? I learned of his death the morning that—” She broke off, fresh understanding flooding her. “That the earl called.” And Mr. Bennet sold her right to marry the Honorable Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam for four thousand pounds.
Miss Bingley’s earnestness, her insistence that Elizabeth should sign, made sense now. Miss Bingley had been trying to help her, and Elizabeth had four thousand pounds of the earl’s money in a bank in London. Should she return it?
Jane pulled her hand free to dash at her eyes. “I suppose you are correct. I did not need to know that Mr. Wickham is dead. I did not know him, after all. Still, you could have told me, or Charles could have.”
“Your disagreement with him does not sound so dreadful,” Elizabeth suggested tentatively. “Perhaps you could see it as Mr. Bingley behaving with honor, for he made a commitment to Colonel Fitzwilliam and to the Crown.”
“Perhaps I could, but then I asked him why he had not told me, or at least told Papa, that his uncles are traitors.”
“What did he say?” Elizabeth asked with growing dread.
“That he loved me too much to risk losing me over what they had done.” Jane sniffed, tears once more mounting in her eyes. “To which I said that I loved him too much to marry him under false pretense, which is why I insisted he know about Mary’s elopement before we entered into an agreement.” Meeting Elizabeth’s gaze, Jane added, “It seems to me that I trusted him enough to tell him the truth, and him hiding things from me shows he does not trust my love for him.”
“He was merely worried,” Elizabeth protested on Mr. Bingley’s behalf. It felt odd, being the one to argue for the goodness in someone, as Jane usually would. “And I still do not see why you have come home on your wedding night, crying. Mr. Bingley has been foolish, but surely he can be forgiven?”
Jane dropped her gaze, wringing her hands. “I asked him why he looked at you before he made up his mind about offering for me. After I told him about Mary.”
The still, quiet way her sister said those words worried Elizabeth. “What did he say?”
“He said he had heard certain rumors regarding you, and that he weighed what might come to pass against what Mary had done.”
“I do not understand. What rumors?”
“Apparently, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Caroline believe that Mr. Darcy, the real Mr. Darcy, is in love with you and will ask for your hand.”
Stillness settled in Elizabeth, too. Astonished, blank stillness, as if someone had shoved so much cotton into her ears that her brain was full. Wrapped. Insulated. Cut off from the world. From her senses. From thought.
“So I said, do you mean that if you did not believe that Mr. Darcy will marry Elizabeth, you would not have offered for me?” Jane’s voice cracked. “And Charles said that he would have. He was simply weighing the connections I might have, if Mary and Mr. Collins did marry, or did not, or you and Mr. Darcy did, or did not. He said that, in the end, he decided he loves me enough not to need the assurance of a connection to Mr. Darcy.”
Elizabeth nodded, wanting to appear as if she listened intently, but the haze filling her mind wouldn’t lift. Could the colonel and Miss Bingley be correct? How did they know Mr. Darcy would offer for her?
After his deception, did she want him to?
