Elizabeth felt absolutely sick at what she had to tell him.
“Another postilion said a couple from Ramsgate arrived hours ago in a post-chaise and hired another, but Wickham and Lydia could not have afforded that.”
Georgiana could easily afford it. And that was why Wickham wanted to marry her.
Darcy sat at the table and put some food on his plate. “I doubt that was them,” he continued, eating a few bites between words. “When I am finished eating, I will discover if they got into a hackney here. I can get the number and eventually learn where in London it took them. It is not likely that money should be abundant on either side,” he muttered. “It would cost them at least one hundred pounds to get to Gretna Green.”
He looked up at her and he must have seen something of her alarm on her face. “I can find them, Miss Bennet,” he assured her. “And together we can convince Lydia to leave him, and no one will know what she was tempted to do.”
“Oh, Mr Darcy,” she began hoarsely, holding out both letters across the table to him. “Lydia walked back from Margate alone. Wickham never intended to elope with her.”
He looked surprised, but immediately smiled in relief. “I am sorry for the inconvenience to everyone, but I am glad for your sister.”
“No, no.” She thrust the letters at him. “It was all a scheme todistract from his true purpose. He wanted everyone to think he was with Lydia, but he left with Georgiana instead.”
Disbelief flooded his eyes, but he still took the letters. “She would never.”
Whatever he believed about what his sister was capable of, the truth was soon laid plain: Lydia was in Ramsgate; his sister and Wickham were not. She felt for him as he read both letters twice, pacing while he read, his head bowed and his brow contracted. Then Darcy slowly sat in a chair by the window, certainly in heart-struck wretchedness. She had felt the same anxiety all day, and it had only intensified since she learnt what Wickham was.
Indeed, there was no one else who could better understand what he must be feeling.
“Mr Darcy,” she began hesitantly. “What are we to do for Georgiana?”
“There is nothing to be done.” His eyes stared vacantly.
“Of course there is.” The shock of the news must impair his judgment. “Wickham will drink away his earnings, if he ever has any. He will gamble away Georgiana’s fortune. And he will bring diseases into his home to his wife, his children, if he has any, and probably his unwilling servants too. We must stop them.”
She saw a spark of interest in his eyes, but then it faded. “They are too far ahead of me. It is too late.”
“Maybe we can catch them. Our plan does not have to change,” she said eagerly. “Two women left Ramsgate with a family friend. Instead of Lydia and me returning to Longbourn, now Georgiana and I are going to Pemberley. We can catch up to them and stop Georgiana from marrying him.”
She realised she had said “we” and not “you.” Preserving Georgiana’s reputation required her to go alone to Scotland with Darcy. But how could she leave another woman, a friend, a victim, to such a cruel fate? She was perfectly safe with Darcy, after all, and he had been willing to be of use when it was her sister whose reputation and future happiness were at risk. She would do the same for him.
“Ma’am,” Sarah said tentatively, interrupting her rapidly jumping thoughts. “If Miss Lydia is home, you ought to return to your family.”
She could never forgive herself if she let Darcy remain here in hopelessness and did nothing to recover Georgiana. She was decided in an instant and ran down the stairs to ask the innkeeper about the coach routes.
When she came back five minutes later, Darcy was still in the same place. He was very pale, but she could not be sure if it was from distress or a deep-rooted rage against Wickham. Perhaps it was both.
“Mr Darcy, we are leaving! We will intercept Wickham and Georgiana before she marries him.”
He blinked at her. “They are a day ahead of me. They are not in a lumbering stagecoach after all but a private chaise.”
Just as she felt hopeless and lost this morning, so too must Darcy. He was not shrieking or on the verge of tears, but the same tumult of confusion and a desire to be doing something if only someone would tell him what to do must be running through his veins.
“But Wickham fears you stopping him, otherwise he never would have gone to the trouble of this ruse with Lydia.”
“He could not have assumed you would confide in me and that I would try to rescue Lydia.”
“Of course not.” Darcy was not seeing it clearly. “But he does not want you to know he is with your sister, so he made everyone think he was with mine. You said Georgiana was absent for the day? He must have known when Lydia was discovered missing, you would never assume your sister had run away with him instead. You might not even have known Georgiana was gone until tonight or tomorrow. It was all a ploy, but he will still stick to side roads to throw you off, just in case. And as eager as he is for her fortune, he would not strain Georgiana with a breakneck pace. She will expect to rest and they will stop to sleep and eat.”
Darcy stood and took a few steps toward her. “But even if they do not take the Great North Road, how do I catch up to them?”
“We take the mail coach,” she cried.
“I beg your pardon?”
She wanted to shake him. Elizabeth hoped the man of action and decision who helped her this morning would eventually return, but the shock of knowing your sister was in the clutches of a villain mustbe considered. “They told me in the yard that the mail coach leaves from the Bull and Mouth for Carlisle. Gretna Green is only a few miles across the border from there.”
