“Yes, she got back not long ago. She has gone upstairs to change. Why, what has happened?”
“I shall tell you what has happened. That cur Rutherford has turned his sights on her!”
Darcy stared at him, no less baffled than appalled by the complete non sequitur. “What?”
“You heard! The scoundrel is planning to seduce your little sister.”
“Did Elizabeth tell you this?”
“I did not see her.”
“You did not—” Darcy paused to swallow an imprecation. “Please do not tell me something came up at the barracks again.”
“Would that it had! Then I might not have spent the morning hanging around the arse end of London, waiting for the wrong bloody sister, when I clearly ought to have been here, watching over yours!”
“The wrong—? For the love of God, would youpleasetell me what is going on?”
Fitzwilliam began pacing up and down, shaking his head as he went. “I went to Potters Fields as you asked and spent most ofmy morning walking up and down the same four paths, waiting for Miss Bennet to show up. Which she never did.”
“Oh.” Darcy knew not whether to rejoice that she had decided against Mulhall or despair that he had been denied yet another opportunity to hear news of her.
“Shall I tell you whodidturn up?” his cousin continued.
“Not Georgiana?”
“Oh, no. That would have made everything far simpler. No, the young lady I picked up off the ground after she was bowled over by a rampaging ewe, was not MissElizabethBennet. I see from your face that you have deduced the rest. Mulhall gave your warning to the wrong Miss Bennet.”
Darcy closed his eyes in vexation. “Which one?”
“I have no idea, and what does it matter? That is not the salient point.”
“Well, what is?”
“Miss Bennet was not there because, according to her sister, she was at the blasted exhibition, in search of Rutherford.”
“What?”
“Oh, do not concern yourself, she was not there.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Iwasthere, and I did not see her.”
Fitzwilliam’s pacing, coupled with his rambling explanation, was driving Darcy distracted. “Speak plainly, man!”
“I am trying to!” his cousin retorted angrily before standing still and rubbing a hand over his face. “Rutherford has lived up to his reputation by throwing Miss Bennet over in favour of a different young girl.”
Darcy went cold. “Georgiana?”
The turn of Fitzwilliam’s countenance confirmed it. “Or at least, so I later found out, although I did not know it at the time. All I knew at that point was that somehow Miss Bennet had wind of an agreement the pair made to meet today at the exhibition.And after receiving your warning via her sister, she decided she must intervene to save Georgiana from Rutherford.”
“Bloody hell—I was trying to keep her away from him!”
“Precisely why I rode across town to intervene in her intervention. Only she was not there, and neither was he. Instead, I had the misfortune of becoming acquainted with his cousin.”
“And who is he?”
“She, and I never discovered her name. She refused to tell me. All I found out from her before sheflouncedoff in a snit was that the woman Rutherford was meeting was Georgiana.”
