Wickham forced a smile and made his way over, though every part of him wished to retreat to his quarters and brood in solitude. His mind was a storm of revelations and suspicions, and the noise and heat of the room grated against his frayed nerves. But appearances had to be maintained. He could not afford to seem distant, not now—not when familiarity and camaraderie might later yield him favours and information.
Denny pulled out a chair, and Wickham sank into it with a lazy air, the picture of ease.
“Denny, well met. And Carter, Sanderson, how do you do?” he said smoothly, his smile a mask of practised charm. “You all look as though you are celebrating. What is the occasion?”
“Besides the rain?” Sanderson chuckled, nodding towards the window. “Did you see the clouds? It will pour buckets tonight. Maybe the colonel will cancel morning drills.”
“Ha!” Carter scoffed, taking a deep swig from his mug. “You are young, Sanderson, and far too hopeful. Colonel Forster would march us into a hurricane if it pleased him. No, Wickham,” he added, turning to their newest companion with a grin, “we’re celebrating something far more pleasant than the weather. Our good colonel has received an invitation—to a ball.”
Wickham raised an eyebrow. “A ball?” he repeated, feigning just the right note of casual interest.
“At Netherfield Park, no less,” Denny confirmed, lifting his glass. “On the twenty-sixth. All the officers have been invited. Full evening affair. Music, dancing, the prettiest ladies in Hertfordshire—all under one roof. What say you to that?”
A ripple of genuine pleasure passed through Wickham. His expression warmed, and he leaned back in his chair with the languid grace of a man perfectly at ease. “I say,” he drawled, “that is a very fine prospect indeed. Are you a fair dancer, Denny? What of you, Carter? Sanderson?”
The men chuckled, the conversation lightening.
“We have had enough practise to keep from embarrassing ourselves,” Denny admitted with a grin. “And you? With your reputation, I imagine you’re the finest dancer in the room.”
Wickham’s smile widened. “One does one’s best. After all,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, “how else is a poor soldier to woo a lady if not through the quadrille?”
The table erupted in laughter and knowing jests, but Wickham’s mind was already straying. Their words blurred together as he sipped from a proffered tankard and turned his gaze towards the hearth, watching the flicker of firelight dance across the tavern walls.
A ball at Netherfield. An elegant gathering teeming with opportunity and danger in equal measure. The thought of Miss Elizabeth, radiantin candlelight and silk, stirred something primal in him—a mingling of desire and ambition. She had resisted him at Mrs Philips’s card party, but the war was not lost. A dance. A single, intimate dance, with the music spinning around them and Darcy forced to watch—yes, that could change everything.
Yet... the thought of Darcy and that blasted cousin of his, Fitzwilliam, stirred unease. Both men were sharp-eyed and suspicious. If they learned what Wickham suspected—if they already knew—then appearing at the ball could be a mistake.
Still, he could not show fear.
He reminded himself that he had stared down creditors and angry fathers, fled from worse than Darcy's glower. No, this was not the time to run. This was the time to strike—to charm, to gather information, to slowly peel back the layers of deception that hid the truth about the boy. And if, in doing so, he could wound Darcy by stealing the woman he favoured? All the better.
“Denny,” Wickham said, returning to the conversation, “I do hope Miss Elizabeth Bennet will be in attendance?” His friend had been teasing Wickham about his interest in the lady since that card party.
“She always is,” Denny replied. “Though from what I gather, Bingley’s after her sister. Still, you would do well to dance with Miss Elizabeth. She is clever, lovely—and she holds her own in conversation.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Wickham murmured, lifting his mug in a toast. “If music be the food of love…then play on.”
And as the fire crackled, and the ale flowed freely, George Wickham sat back, smiling like a gentleman, with manners marked by calculation.
The rain had broken just after noon, and though the sky remained bruised and heavy with unspent clouds, George Wickham slipped from the militia encampment and once more made his way towards Longbourn. He donned an inconspicuous grey coat in place of his red uniform in an effort to blend in. The recent storms had turned the roads to muck, but he took a less-used path that skirted the edge of the Bennet estate. He moved with care—he did not need to be seen again on Bennet land. Not yet. Not until he was ready.
By the time he reached the hedgerow, the sun was casting pale silver shafts through the thinning clouds. Wickham crouched low beside the hedge, the scent of wet earth rising around him, sharp and clean. Longbourn’s modest grandeur stretched before him, its bricks dampened darker by the storm. Chimneys smoked lazily. A gardener emerged from a side door and began to rake up storm-fallen branches.
And then—there. The door nearest the nursery opened, and a figure stepped out onto the sodden lawn.
An older woman, plainly dressed, with a large shawl around her shoulders. Wickham recognised her type immediately: governess or nursemaid. She held the hand of a young boy who skipped at her side, unfazed by the chill in the air or the puddles that clung to the lawn like spilled ink. The child laughed and let out a whoop of joy before breaking away from his minder and running through the grass.
Wickham narrowed his eyes. He crept a little farther down the hedge, stopping behind the gnarled roots of a hawthorn. The boy had snatchedup a stick and was brandishing it like a sword, whirling in slow, wet circles. He leapt over puddles and chased a flurry of leaves carried on the wind. The woman called a warning about the mud, but he only laughed harder and darted farther into the yard.
And then he turned, his face lifted towards the sun peeking through the clouds.
Wickham froze. The smile died on his lips.
There it was.No doubt now. The boy’s face—those clear, aristocratic features—was a mirror of Richard Fitzwilliam at age six or seven. He remembered the way Richard’s eyes flashed with mischief, the way his jaw set when determined.
And this boy—hisboy—looked the same.
Except… The child’s hair was golden—very like the honeyed tresses of the Fitzwilliams. There was something of his father there, though. The locks flopped to one side, one unruly strand forever falling across his brow. Wickham felt a strange tightness in his chest as he watched the lad swat at it in irritation before resuming his imaginary duel.
