“Yes, I believe it was,” Richard averred. “From what I was told, he even tried to charm his way out of his lashing. He failed…miserably.”
“It seems he still has a talent for making friends but not keeping them,” Darcy shook his head.
“I suppose we must get this unpleasant business behind us,” Lord Matlock stated as he rose from the chair where he had been seated. “Giana is with Mrs. Mayers and Elaine. Our ward wanted to make directly for Longbourn but she was reminded she needed to finish a lesson before that would occur.”
Darcy smiled to himself. If he succeeded in wooing Elizabeth, he knew his sister would be well pleased. He didnot want to get ahead of himself, but once he was married he wondered if his aunt and uncle would permit Giana to live with him and his lady, at least part of the year.
Richard and Darcy followed the Earl out of the study and the three men made their way to the front doors where the butler and a footman were ready with their outerwear.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Elizabeth had felt butterflies in her stomach since she woke that morning. Although the day was cold, it had not rained for the preceding three days, so she was able to ride out on Penny to expend some of her nervous energy.
The punishing ride had temporarily helped to take her mind off that which had dominated her thoughts for a few days now. As soon as she had returned home from watching the sunrise from Oakham Mount, escorted by John and Brian, she bathed and dressed. By the time she was ready to go down to join the family in breaking their fasts, the clarity she had found while riding had been banished from her mind.
She was aware of what—or more accurately who—was the cause of the disturbance to her equanimity. Cousin William was to arrive at Netherfield Park that morning. She had a few hours to wait; the residents of Netherfield Park would join them for a family dinner that evening. Elizabeth had a feeling Anne was smiling down on her. Rather than feeling melancholy thinking of Anne’s passing, she was concentrating on the future.
It was not that Elizabeth did not think of Anne all through the day—she did. Each time she saw Jenki, she could not but think of Annie. Rather she was taking her promise to live for both of them very seriously.
Always having been a rational being, the feeling of instant attraction to William Darcy was still something with which she was not sure she was sanguine. Surely love at first sight was a construct of the gothic romance novels she did notread, at least not very often.
After the morning meal, Elizabeth had taken herself off to the still room where she tried to keep herself busy and quiet her mind for a while.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
George Wickham had never experienced the degree of pain he had after his punishment was administered. Thankfully, he had fainted dead away by the time the third stroke of the cat had found its mark. Since that day, he had been lying on his stomach, the wounds on his back were packed with a salve to ward off infection. One of the nights since his lashing, while in a fitful sleep, he had turned onto his back. The pain had woken him almost instantly. Since that one and only time, he had not repeated that error.
Denny had come by a few days after the lashing had been administered to gloat at his pain. It was then his former friend had informed Wickham how Mr. Fitzwilliam had purchased all his non gambling related markers, including the extensive debts which had been discovered in and around Oxford.
There was talk of a trial for the few things he hadborrowedfrom his—at the time—brother officers.
This was the day the Earl of Matlock, Fitzwilliam, and Darcy were to come to see him. All Wickham hoped for was his ability to trade on the former warm feelings the late Mr. Darcy had for him.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The three family members waited in the Colonel’s office while Wickham was brought to them.
When the miscreant shuffled into the office he was shackled by his ankles and wrists. As the gouges on his back had not all healed, he wore no shirt. The two soldiers who had escorted the prisoner into the room stood Wickham in front of the three men and his colonel, and with a salute to the latter,withdrew pulling the door closed behind him.
“Your father would not want to see me suffer…” Wickham tried when Darcy cut him off.
“Do not mention my late father. You know as well as I do from the time his eyes were opened to the truth about you, he wanted nothing further to do with you! Had he been alive, and you had attempted your plan against my sister, you would no longer be living!” Darcy barked at the cowering man.
“Before you waste your breath, you have a choice to make,” Lord Matlock stated firmly. “Do not fritter away my valuable time trying to plead your case because I have no patience for a man who would try to move against a young girl like my ward.”
Wickham stood with his head down. He knew his life was in the hands of the men before him.
“One of the options is for you to be tried by a military tribunal for theft and when you are found guilty, you will be shot,” Colonel Forster stated dispassionately.
“Theonlyreason we are offering you an alternative is the esteem my father and I held for your late adoptive father. As disappointed as he was in the path you chose for yourself, he would not have wanted to see your life end in front of a firing squad.”
For the first time in his life, Wickham knew when not to speak.
“Your one chance is transportation,” Lord Matlock informed Wickham. “It is either a one-way journey to Van Diemen’s Land, with fourteen years hard labour, or you may remain and face military justice. If you do and you are sentenced to gaol and not the firing squad, then the day you finish serving your prison sentence will be the day you find yourself in one of the debtor’s prisons for all the vowels we hold in the amount of more than one thousand five hundred pounds. Thanks to what you borrowed from the officers andyour debts from Oxfordshire, you owe a pretty penny. In other words, if you are not sentenced to die, you will spend the rest of your life in a gaol cell.”
“Transportation,” Wickham chose without raising his head.
“If you should ever be simple enough to return to the United Kingdom once you have served your hard labour, you will be arrested and tried as you would have if you chose to stay here” Richard added. “Do you understand Wickie?”
