“You may, but her future purchases are her own responsibility. Any credit extended against my name—or the name of my sisters—will not be honored. You will require written authorization from Mr. Gardiner in London for any Bennet account.”
The man paled, the gratitude vanishing under the weight of his own lost convenience. She didn’t care. She was the one paying the bill, and she was done being the silent guarantor of her mother’s vanity.
“I understand, Miss Bennet. Perfectly.”
She repeated the operation at Mrs. Croft, the milliner, for Mr. Potts, the butcher, and Mr. Graham, the wine merchant. She had to endure questions about whether she was to marry a London lord, and several protests that Mrs. Bennet was her mother, and that Elizabeth owed her mother.
“I do honor my mother,” Elizabeth said. “But these assets are held in trusts, and the trustees will not agree to pay unauthorized debts. I am giving every merchant in town fair notice, and I shall leave a declaration with the magistrate so there are no further questions.”
By the time she reached the Assembly Rooms, her head throbbed, her gloves bore the dust of every errand, and she felt as if she had been pricked by a thousand exquisitely polite needles.
Sir William Lucas intercepted her near the portico, bowing with such excessive, theatrical grace that his hat wobbled.
“Miss Elizabeth! The talk of the county! Lady Lucas has been in a positive dither since your mother’s letter arrived.” He beamed at her, oblivious to the frost in her eyes. “A most magnificent windfall! And to have Lady Sophia herself as your sponsor—why, it is a triumph!”
“It is a change of pace, Sir William,” she said, her voice dry.
“We must celebrate! The Assembly Rooms have been dormant since Christmas, and what better occasion than to honor Hertfordshire’s own heiress?” He waved a hand toward the hall. “A grand assembly! Three weeks hence! When the roads are dry and the weather is fine.”
Elizabeth’s first impulse was to refuse. The prospect of serving as the main attraction in a provincial spectacle, to be inspected and prodded by every family in Meryton, was hardly enticing. Yet, as she glimpsed the knot of matrons conferring over the latest Bennet scandal, she decided her family might benefit from a little public celebration.
“That is very kind, Sir William. I would be honored to accept. Indeed, I think it is precisely what Meryton requires.”
A display of order, she thought. A place to show everyone that the Bennets were worthy, despite petticoats tracked through the mud, a mother whose nerves approached operatic level, and a father so deeply buried in his books he could not sniff out a scandal if it sat on his lap.
“Good, good,” Sir William said, rubbing his hands. “And do invite your London friends. We would like to meet all of them. In fact, that fellow Mr. Darcy was just here. He provided me with valuable information. Great detail. Connected to the Earl of Matlock and his investigators. The very best runners. Rest assured that Mr. Wickham is not welcome in all of Hertfordshire, for he has defrauded your uncle Philips out of two hundred and eighty pounds of wages paid to what he had supposed was a clerk.”
“Two hundred and eighty pounds!” Elizabeth’s voice rose, the sheer scale of the theft piercing through her exhaustion.
Sir William nodded, his face solemn, though he could not entirely suppress the thrill of being the bearer of such sensational news. “A staggering sum, is it not? Your uncle is beside himself. It appears that fellow Wickham convinced Mr. Philips that he was a man of connections, a graduate of the best institutions, and that he required a ‘retainer’ commensurate with his stature and the complexity of the firm’s legal filings. He drained the coffers, Miss Elizabeth. He drained them dry.”
“But that is a year’s salary in advance!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “And now, he has escaped to London. He has no intention of?—”
“The warrant is already drawn.” Sir William puffed out his chest, clearly relishing the authority. “With Mr. Darcy’s absolute proof of the forgery at Lincoln’s Inn, should that scoundrel so much as show his face in Meryton, he shall find himself in the gaol before he can invent a new lie. And, as for your Assembly,I have assured the town fathers that the Bennet family stands above all reproach. We shall have a celebration that puts every scandal to rest!”
Elizabeth left the portico, her mind spinning with her uncle’s loss and Kitty’s narrow escape. Nettle, untroubled by human folly, busied herself with a patch of clover and the promise of a rabbit hole.
“Come along, darling.” She gathered the scruffy terrier into her arms, grateful for the excuse to shield herself as she faced the two miles home. Had Mr. Darcy already vanished to London, his duty discharged? Or, as Jane hinted, had he lingered to seek an audience with her father?
She found out soon enough when she entered the house, and Hill intercepted her in the hallway.
“Your father wishes to see you, Miss Elizabeth. In the library.”
Elizabeth’s heart performed a nervous little dance. Her father might summon her for any number of reasons—a merchant’s complaint, Kitty’s predicament, or perhaps some fresh grievance occasioned by Mr. Darcy’s presence.
She knocked and entered Papa’s sanctuary, Nettle padding in holding a soup bone Hill had given her. Mr. Bennet sat behind his desk, the glass of port at his elbow untouched. He looked aged—the lines around his eyes seemed to have deepened in the span of a single afternoon—but beneath that exhaustion, there was a strange, searching light in his gaze.
“Close the door, Lizzy.”
She swallowed and closed it, sitting in her familiar chair.
“Mr. Darcy spoke to me this afternoon,” her father said, his voice unusually thin. “After he finished at the magistrate’s office.”
Elizabeth’s breath vanished. The room seemed to tilt. “And… what did he say?”
“He asked for my permission to address you. To court you, in the fashion of a gentleman.”
Elizabeth licked her dry lips. “And? What did you tell him?”
