“Well, I don’t know if I have the stomach to do it again,” he said. “Some part of me is relieved he isn’t dead. I don’t know what that says about me. Perhaps it makes me some sort of sniveling coward. Perhaps it lowers me in your esteem—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, we do not have to kill him.”
He squared his shoulders. “All right. Well, I shall find out whatever I can.” He touched his chin. “If I’m going visiting, however, I need a shave.”
She smirked. “I like it, for whatever that’s worth. But, yes, you must make yourself presentable, of course.”
He came to her, bent down over her and kissed her. “I wanted us to be preparing to get on the road for Scotland now, not dealing with all of this.”
“I know,” she said, touching his face. “We could simply leave, not worry ourselves with him at all.”
He searched her gaze. “Is that what you wish?”
“No, I think we must find out more about Mr. Wickham,” she said. “He does not know that I am with child. I do not wish him to know at all, of course. I thought that if the babe belonged to someone else, he might never suspect, but now…”
“True,” Mr. Darcy said. “Also, we may have a bit of a problem in Caroline Bingley. She seems entirely too eager to destroy us both.”
Elizabeth’s nostrils flared. “What did I ever do to that woman to make her so horrid to me?”
“We shall deal with all of these things, Elizabeth,” he said. “And we shall be married, and all will be well.”
She looked up at him, wanting to believe him. But she had not believed that all would be well for some time now.
MR. DARCY LOOKEDin on his sister after getting changed and shaved.
When he told her that Mr. Wickham was, in fact, not dead, he expected her to be relieved, but she was not pleased. She whispered to him, “You did not finish what you started, then? You left him alive? It is worse than if you had not attempted it at all!”
And she was correct about that, he knew. It was, indeed, worse now.
He decided to ask her what he should do. Elizabeth had declined to order him to murder Mr. Wickham, but perhaps his sister would do it. If either of them wanted it, he thought he could do it with entirely no qualms. It would feel entirely justified, if so.
Perhaps it would not feel righteous. Perhaps it would still be a sin, a grievous one.
But there was a difference between following the rule of law and doing what he needed to do for the people he loved.
Georgiana gave him a look of wild terror. “Do not ask me that, Fitz!” she breathed, still whispering, though they were alone together.
“It is a simple question, Georgiana, do you want him dead or not?”
“It is not simple at all,” she said. “As it happens, I think the answer is that yes, I want him dead, but no, I do not wish my brother to have killed him.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
“You would take any excuse to take your bloodthirsty revenge on him, I suppose?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t think I wished to kill him at all, truly. I think I wished to kill the part of myself that had caused so much pain and suffering. When I think of you, looking out at the sea, Georgiana, thinking you were worthless… I would not have survived it if you had drowned yourself, do you understand me? Promise me you will never do harm to yourself, promise me that you will speak to me before you ever attempt such a thing, promise me—”
“I am sorry, Fitz,” she said, swallowing. “I suppose I only thought of such a dreadful thing because I felt so lonely. Perhaps I meant it as revenge, so that you would hurt the way I hurt.”
“But then you would be dead,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Well, I did not actually do it, did I?”
“See that you do not,” he said.
It was late morning by the time he was able to make it to the Wickham house. When he had been the steward of Pemberley, old Mr. Wickham had resided in the estate cottage on the grounds. Now, the old steward lived a mile down the road from Pemberley in a respectable two story cottage. As a courtesy, his grounds were cared for by the servants at Pemberley.
Mr. Darcy and the old Mr. Wickham had worked together for nearly a decade after the death of Mr. Darcy’s father. Old Mr. Wickham was not about to leave when Darcy inherited—Darcy was an adolescent then, so it was not until Darcy was well into his twenties that old Mr. Wickham even thought about stepping down.
