Page 30 of Mr. Darcy’s Victorious Bride

Captain Gill had sent a militiaman three days since, a square-built corporal named Pratt who slept over the tack room. Alban had been told the man was helping with the horses. Alban was six, not simple. "The man who came asking about me," he had said to Jane. "Was he from the bad lord?"

Jane could not lie to a child the world had already lied to. "Some people are making sure you are safe. That is why Corporal Pratt is here."

"Mr. Henson has a pistol in the feed room," Alban had said. "I seen it!"

Captain Gill himself arrived at eleven, on horseback, in uniform, a leather satchel at the saddle. He was a large man, square-jawed and copper-skinned, with a thick dark mustache. "Miss Bennet. I apologize for the intrusion. I have intelligence reports for Mr. Darcy, but I understand he is in London."

"He is. You may leave them with Mrs. Darcy."

Elizabeth came, took the satchel with polite thanks, and asked after Wickham. In custody, turned King's evidence, the court-martial in train. She excused herself to the study.

Jane poured tea. Gill took the straight-backed chair by the window, with his back to the wall and his eye on the door. A soldier even at tea.

Kitty appeared in the doorway with a copper beech stem in her hand and pollen on her cheek. "Oh! I beg your pardon. I did not know we had a visitor."

"Miss Catherine Bennet. Captain Gill, of the militia."

"Captain." A small curtsy. Then Jane watched her sister do a thing she had never once done before a militia officer. She did not giggle.

Kitty set down the stem, wiped her cheek, and poured the cream. "Captain, may I ask about Mr. Wickham?"

Gill's attention shifted to her. "What would you like to know, Miss Catherine?"

"Is it true that desertion carries a court-martial? Even in peacetime?"

"We are at war, Miss Catherine, and have been these eight years. But yes. The Articles of War make no distinction. The penalties differ. The proceeding does not."

Kitty turned her teacup in her hands. "My sister trusted a man who did not deserve it. I want to understand how such men are held to account. Whether the system is fair, or whether it protects them because they are charming."

Gill set down his cup and regarded her. "The system is imperfect. Charming men do sometimes escape, because charm is its own currency. But a court-martial is a military proceeding, not a social one. The officers who sit in judgment have seen charm deployed as a weapon. They are harder to buy with it than a drawing room."

"Good. Then I hope they are thorough."

"That is a wiser question than most officers ask."

Kitty's cheeks went pink. Jane said nothing and let the moment be.

Gill asked after the household, and Jane gave him the fever story. He received it with the neutral face of a man who knew both versions. Then he made his mistake. "It is well Wickham never reached Gretna Green. A forced marriage on top of the rest would have been irrecoverable."

Kitty's face went white. The cup stopped halfway to her lips.

Gill saw it one beat too late, and winced. "Forgive me. That was clumsily said. I am better at reports than parlor conversation."

"You are forgiven," Kitty said, steadily, and set the cup down before it could rattle.

Into the silence, Jane asked whether he had been long with the militia.

"Seven years. I joined at eighteen." A pause. "My father was a surgeon in Calcutta. He came to England to study and stayed to practice. I grew up in Hertfordshire, but I heard Bengali before I heard English, and I learned early that an accent and a complexion are enough to make a man remarkable in a country village. Whether he wishes to be remarkable or not."

There was no bitterness in it. It was a fact, delivered with his other facts.

"Is that why you joined the militia?" Kitty asked. "To be noticed for the right reasons?"

Gill looked at her with something Jane could not entirely read. "Yes," he said. "That is exactly why."

Kitty was looking at the satchel on the side table. A small brown-leather book had slipped loose from it. "Is that a sketchbook?"

"I draw. When camp life permits." He picked it up with care. "Nothing accomplished. Studies, mostly."