“Did you truly think I would let you live after what you did to Georgiana?”
Wickham opened his mouth to scream, but he was dead before he could do so.
The Colonel stood over his enemy for just a moment. Then, quickly, he pulled his knife out of Wickham’s chest, wiped itclean on Wickham’s uniform and thrust the weapon back into its hidden scabbard.
He heard a gasp; he looked up and met the shocked brown eyes of Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Miss Mary Bennet.
Chapter Fifty-One
Elizabeth opened her mouth to scream, but Mary immediately clapped her hand over her sister’s mouth. “It is Colonel Fitzwilliam!” she hissed. He was not in a uniform, but she would have recognised those broad shoulders and that muscular chest anywhere.
Elizabeth froze, and then stared first at Mary and then at the rough-looking man standing over what was very obviously a dead man. She looked at the Colonel, eyebrows raised, questioningly. “Colonel?” she whispered.
“This is the man who tried to seduce Georgiana,” the Colonel said, in a low voice.
Elizabeth nodded. Then her face hardened, as soprano voices could be heard. Someone was coming! She sprang into action. “I will head them off.” She left immediately.
Mary said, “You should go at once, before anyone else comes by.”
The Colonel stared at Miss Mary, shocked. He had expected screams, tears, hysterics, but certainly not this calm comprehension.
“Go now,” she ordered, and she followed Elizabeth back into the street, greeting Miss King and Miss Carmichael and engaging them in conversation.
The Colonel immediately left the alley, leaped onto his horse. He rode out of town and through the back fields toward Netherfield.
***
He did not see Mary and Elizabeth smile cheerfully as they made their farewells to Miss King and Miss Carmichael, and leave town at a quick pace, hand in hand.
When they were safely away from Meryton, they collapsed against one another and tried to make sense of what they had just seen.
“The man standing over the – the other man was Colonel Fitzwilliam?” Elizabeth asked. “I did not recognise him in those clothes.”
“Definitely the Colonel,” Mary answered.
“He killed the man who hurt Georgiana!” Elizabeth said. “I am not – not certain –“
“I know,” Mary replied. “But the man deserved it, did he not?”
“But to murder a man! Mary, we must tell someone!”
“No!” Mary grasped Elizabeth’s shoulders. “No; the Colonel will count on us to keep silent!”
“But this is wrong, Mary!”
Mary’s mind whirled; then she came up with the one argument she knew would succeed. “Mr. Darcy would not thank you for revealing his cousin’s actions.”
Elizabeth froze. Finally, she turned to Mary and said, “Well played, sister. I will keep silent.”
***
The Colonel rode to Netherfield Park’s back door. He banged on it, and was eventually greeted by one of the footmen. “Wot you want?” he was asked.
As expected, no one would look at this disheveled, dirty man and recognise the Colonel who had so recently been an honoured guest in this house. “Got a message for a Mr. Darcy.” The Colonel was careful to alter his usual speech patterns.
“Gi’ it to me, then.”
“Just tell ‘im the problem is solved.”
