“Is he likely to?” Darcy demanded, suddenly and fearsomely reanimated.
Hurst did not quail, though there did not look to be much blood left above his collar. “Caroline seems to think he might cause some trouble. She wrote to tell him to come home, but he never replied. I apologise,” he added when Darcy bared his teeth. “Once Bingley got himself tangled up with Jane, there did not seem any way of mentioning it without causing more harm than good.”
It was a blatant lie. An addle-pate could have guessed their true motivation for silence was the preservation of Darcy’s favour.
“To whom?” Darcy roared, clearly of a mind.
“Darcy,” Fitzwilliam said, gesturing at Mrs Hurst who was visibly trembling. “There is nothing more to be done here. Let us go.”
After a stony-faced appraisal of each person in the room and a single nod of concurrence, Darcy turned and left.
“Bad form, Hurst. Bad form!” Fitzwilliam said before following his cousin from the house.
“This does not make it any more likely that he has absconded with her,” he remarked to his mute and discernibly seething cousin as they steered their horses back across town. “It is an abhorrent abuse of trust, but he has not acted upon his feelings in a year. There is no reason to suspect he will do so now.
“I had not thought Hurst the sort for such deception,” he continued when Darcy did not respond. “It is reprehensible that he should have concealed this from you. That said, I cannot comprehend why Jane never said anything—to Elizabeth, if not to you.”
“Never mind either of them. I would know what the hell Ashby is about, keeping this from me.”
Fitzwilliam had been hoping he would not raise that issue. “It cannot have been his intention to keep it from you, or he would not have mentioned it to me.”
“Intelligence such as this ought to have been brought to my attention as a matter of urgency, not tossed away in a careless aside half a week after the event.”
“He, too, may have thought the letter referred to Jane. Do not rush to accuse Ashby before we know the facts.”
Darcy scoffed contemptuously. “The facts are that he begrudged my severe words against his wife and thought to punish mine in return. Do not attempt to convince me otherwise. We both know I am right. He must be lost to every feeling of decency and family honour to be so indifferent to Elizabeth’s wellbeing.”
With his brother’s remark, “good riddance,” and observation that Darcy ought never to have married Elizabeth fresh in his mind, Fitzwilliam was painfully aware of what little regard Ashby had for her. Nonetheless, he was deeply grieved by the possibility that he should prove capable of such casual betrayal. “Will you go to Netherfield to see Jane?” he enquired, changing tack.
“No, I shall go to Pemberley to see Elizabeth.”
“I shall come with you if you will have me along. When do you leave?”
“Had we left when I wished, we might have been into Hertfordshire by now.”
He sighed quietly. “I am sorry, Darcy, but Elizabeth would never forgive me if I allo?—”
“First light. Do not be late. I shall not tarry.”
Monday 15 March 1813, Somewhere between London and Derbyshire
Darcy awoke with a jolt, his heart thundering in his chest as he tried to dispel the memory of a nightmarish figure that was half Bingley-half Wickham, kissing Elizabeth against her will. All was black but for the feeble light of the torches at the front of the carriage bleeding through the edges of the blinds.
“What time is it?” Fitzwilliam enquired with a yawn.
Darcy took out his watch and peered at it, but it was too dark to make out. It had gone two in the morning when they left the last inn, but the brick in the foot well was still warm and there was not a hint of dawn on the horizon. “Not past three, I think.”
“Where are we?” Fitzwilliam said, hooking a finger behind a blind and peering out into the night.
“Not near enough.”
Indeed, despite having set out at the break of dawn yesterday and spending the entire day and night on the road, it was not likely they would reach Pemberley until late that afternoon.
“All will be well, Darcy,” his cousin said quietly.
“He tried to take her, Fitzwilliam. It is already long past well.”
“Yes, he did, but he failed.”
