“It is no trouble. Wait here while I retrieve the key. When you leave, please lock the door and place the key in the drawer of the small table in the hall, opposite his chamber.” With that, Mrs Brown was off. She returned in a few minutes and presented the key to the lieutenant.
Seeing that he would be away in the next hour or so, Wickham cared not that she had seen him. By the time she said anything, he would be long gone.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
No matter how mortifying it would be, Paulette Jackson decided that she needed to follow the Bennet sisters’ advice and speak to her mother and father.
She informed them carefully that she had something difficult to tell them, and begged herparents to hear her out before they reacted. Then she told them all, including falling for his lie when Lieutenant Wickham swore that he would marry her, and the meeting with the Misses Bennet. She only omitted the part about Miss Lydia being another of the miscreant’s possible victims.
During her telling, her father had barely controlled his fury. As soon as she was done, he jumped up, his huge muscles rippling with the anger he felt. “I will bloody kill ‘im,” he vowed before storming out of his house. He stopped at his forge to grab one of his heavy hammers.
Mrs Jackson hugged her only daughter to herself. “What will we do if you begin to increase, my darling girl?” the anguished mother wailed.
“I was so very foolish; I am so sorry, Mama.” Paulette sobbed as the tears fell.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Denny’s purse was exactly where Wickham expected to find it. He did not even bother to push the bed back against the wall and left the key in the lock. He stood in the hall and did not hear any sounds of anyone close to him. He could hear a maid humming as she was cleaning a chamber two doors away from Denny’s, but she was in the room with the door partially closed.
Wickham made his way down the stairs as quickly as he could without attracting unwanted attention. He walked through the alleyway and back to the town’s main street.
He decided that the best choice was a horseborrowedfrom the regiment. He did not want to wait for the post, knowing that the first possible one would not be until the next morning. His plan was to go to Karen Younge’s boarding house on Edward Street. There he would use the money he liberated from Denny to gamble, and as he believed that his luck was dueto change, he was sure he would win and win big.
His way forward decided, Wickham began a jaunty walk towards the encampment. He passed the house Colonel Forster and the young fluff he had married were using. It was also the one where the regimental offices were. He was about to turn into the encampment when he heard some approaching horses.
He saw Sir William first and was about to give him a wave when he froze. Just behind the knight were none other than Darcy and Fitzwilliam! There was no one who frightened Wickham more than Richard Fitzwilliam. It seemed that Darcy was no longer willing to restrain his cousin as he had after Ramsgate.
Before he thought either cousin had seen him, Wickham broke into a run towards the area where the horses were kept. He saw a private about to unsaddle a horse.
“Leave the saddle. I have urgent business for Colonel Forster, and I do not have time for you to saddle a different mount,” Wickham commanded with as much authority as he could muster while fighting the abject terror welling up in his chest. If he was not careful, he would cast up his accounts. Even though it was irregular, the private handed the reins to the officer. Who was he to argue with a lieutenant?
Although he would need to leave his belongings in his quarters, Wickham could not care about them at this moment. All he knew was that he needed to escape. He vaulted onto the gelding’s back and pointed him towards the street.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Fitzwilliam was about to follow Sir William and Darcy into the regimental offices when he heard a commotion made by a galloping horse. ‘What irresponsible man would gallop here?’ he thought, as the horse shot outof the encampment with a terrified Wicky on its back.
“STOP THAT MAN!” Fitzwilliam yelled.
Wickham heard Fitzwilliam’s words, but he was confident he would be out of the town in seconds. He just had to pass the blacksmith’s, and he would be free. Hopefully, Fitzwilliam and Darcy had not been able to give chase yet.
Peter Jackson just stepped out of his shop when he heard a man shouting. He looked up and saw the despoiler of his Paulette looking back towards where another officer was mounting his own horse. Jackson did not think; he pulled his arm holding the hammer back and threw it towards the man who had stolen his one and only daughter’s innocence.
Seeing Fitzwilliam mount and Darcy about to do so, Wickham knew he needed to urge the nag to greater speed. He turned forward just in time to see a missile flying towards him. It was too late to evade the item, which was tumbling end over end.
As his hammer hit the seducer in the chest and knocked him clear off his horse, Jackson felt a measure of satisfaction.
The hammer hit Wickham to the right of the centre of his chest, smashing some ribs. The last thing he felt in the mortal world was the intense pain of his neck breaking as he fell to the unforgiving ground below the mount.
Although he had been confident that he and Darcy would have eventually caught up to Wickham, Fitzwilliam was not sorry that the chase had ended prematurely. He could see the fury written all over the blacksmith’s countenance as he stood over Wickham’s body, almost daring him to move. It was obvious the man was the father of one of Wicky’s victims.
The cousins dismounted and approached the still form on the ground. As soon as Fitzwilliam saw the way Wicky’s head was folded under his body, he knew. “He’s gone, William,”he stated and shook his head at the same time. “What a waste of a human being.”
“If ‘e be dead, will I ‘ang?” Jackson asked dispassionately.
“No, you will not. On my command, you were stopping a fugitive who was attempting to escape. We owe you thanks, not punishment,” Fitzwilliam assured the smithy.
Just then Sir William, Colonel Forster, and some of his officers arrived. Denny was one of them. He was about to demand an explanation until he saw something protruding half out of the body’s jacket pocket. “Bloody hell! That is my purse!” Denny exclaimed as he stepped forward and pulled the item clear of the dead man’s pocket. “My initials ‘JRD’ are engraved on the front of the purse.”
