With a sinking sensation, he realized it might be more interesting to everyone than he might have counted upon.
“Well?” said Caroline.
“It’s too early for this,” he muttered, and he pushed past her, walking off without bidding her goodbye. He left the dower house as the dawn was breaking across the sky, and he began his walk towards the grounds of Pemberley.
He stopped in the stables to speak to someone about readying a carriage so that he and Elizabeth could go north. He would need a shave before he went anywhere. He practically had a beard. He looked like some sort of wild man at this point. He wondered what the servants were all saying about him.
“Yes, sir. I must tell you, though, I sent some of our horses off with the carriage that brought Georgie Wickham in,” said the stable hand. “They needed fresh ones, for their own horses had been riding all night.”
He stiffened. “George Wickham?” Had they sent his body back for burial here? He supposed that was done sometimes.
“Yes, he’s been badly wounded. They say it will take him some time to recover, and he’d be better off with his family in the meantime. They say he would have died if the bullet had been one inch over.”
Mr. Darcy swallowed. Wickham was alive? “He’s with old Mr. Wickham, that’s where you sent the carriage?”
“Aye, sir, off to his father to convalesce. I’m sorry about the horses, though, for their horses, you see, are quite tired, and we may need to procure you some fresh horses, perhaps from Lambton, or—”
“Never mind readying that carriage,” he said. Scotland was going to have to wait.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“HE’S NOT DEAD?” said Elizabeth, who was still in bed, having slept in her stays, which was one of the worst feelings ever. She was leaning up against the headrest of the bed, looking at Mr. Darcy, who’d just come into the room.
“I have word that he’s wounded and has been transported to his father’s house to recover,” said Mr. Darcy. “When I checked his pulse, I thought it had stopped, but I suppose it hadn’t. I did think I should shoot him again to be sure, but I did not do that.” He fixed her with a gaze. “Shall I finish the job?”
He wanted her to decide? She did not feel like Lady Macbeth anymore. “How would you do that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Likely smother him or something. Sneak in under the cover of darkness. Not that it would be easy to sneak in to that house. It’s very small.” He shifted on his feet. “His eyes were open. He must have seen me. He must know that I did it.”
“What do you think?” she said.
“About?”
“About whether or not you should kill him again?” she said.
He let out a helpless laugh. “How could I have bungled this so badly, really? And it’s so ludicrous, the way I was feeling so conflicted about it, and now, here I am, just feeling inept.”
It truly had been cleaner with Mr. Wickham dead.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I shall simply go to visit, go to gather information, see what I can discover. If George knows that I was the one who shot him, he’ll not conceal that in front of his father.”
“The steward,” said Elizabeth.
“The old steward. He does not work at Pemberley anymore. He’s quite getting on in years now,” said Mr. Darcy. “We have another steward who serves now.”
“I see,” said Elizabeth, who did not see what that really mattered, in the end.
“Elizabeth, if you tell me you need it done, you may count upon the fact that I shall see to it,” he said. “I need to know if you do or not. I don’t wish to worry about anything other than that.”
Her lips parted. Oh, well, it was one thing to say that Mr. Darcy had killed him for her, and it was entirely different toaskMr. Darcy to kill a man for her. She shook her head. “Not for me. Not at my behest. I cannot…” On the other hand, Mr. Wickham was wounded, and he might speak against them both. He did not know about the babe, but he would figure it out, and he might think that meant he had some kind of hold over them both. “I suppose we must find out what he knows, however. We need to know what he intends to do with what he knows.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Darcy gravely.
“I should not fault you for killing him,” she said. “For killing him again, I mean. Or, well, you know what I mean.”
He nodded. “But you do not require it of me?”
“No.”
