Mr. Darcy could not respond.
Finally, Colonel Fitzwilliam sat down in a chair beside Mr. Darcy. “After seeing this newspaper article, I rode like the very devil was after me to Pemberley.”
“I was not there, of course. How did you know where to find me?”
“Mrs. Reynolds broke down crying and I persuaded her to tell me. Do not be angry with her, Darcy.”
“Of course I shall not be.”
“Tell me everything,” Colonel Fitzwilliam commanded.
Where to begin? “You recall Mrs. Younge?”
“The companion you hired? Yes.”
“I did not know that she was a – a compatriot, I suppose – of Wickham’s.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam shook his head. “How is that even possible?”
“I suspect he persuaded her to apply for the post of companion, with the sole purpose of engineering this elopement.”
“But her references?”
“Forged.”
“You did not check them?” Colonel Fitzwilliam’s tone was one of disbelief.
“I thought I need not do so; she seemed so very –“
His cousin interrupted him. “So you believed you could rely on your instincts, or some such thing, rather than actually going to the trouble of checking her references. Damn you and your Darcy pride! So how did Georgiana end up in Ramsgate?”
“Mrs. Younge told me Georgiana would enjoy a fortnight at the seaside.”
“So you let them go.”
“I did, yes.”
“And then?”
“I thought to surprise Georgiana by joining them there. I might have been in time to prevent this disaster, had my carriage not broken an axle.”
“Which cost you several hours.”
“A day and a half, actually, as it happened far from any town. By the time the axle was repaired and I arrived at Ramsgate, they were already gone.”
“And then?”
“The servants at the establishment I had leased for Georgiana and Mrs. Younge had overheard the plan to go to Gretna Green, so I took the fastest of the carriage horses and set off after them.”
“On horseback? The entire way?”
“Yes. I found them at an inn in Gretna Green, but I was too late. As Mrs. Younge so very eloquently put it, Georgiana was already wedded and bedded. And the way Mrs. Younge touched Wickham, I would swear that those two are more than just friends.”
“Bedfellows?”
“Very likely.”
“Might I conclude that fists were then employed?”
