The crowd muttered, and Lydia heard shoes on the floorboards as if men were exiting the room en masse. She didn’t look up, terrified of revealing something with her expression.
“Well played, Wickham,” said Denny, extending a hand to Lydia’s husband.
Lydia’s husband, who was scooping the coins on the table into his purse.
Nothing made sense. Wickham didn’t win. He’d done nothing but lose at cards, from what she could tell of their household’s ready coin. But here he was, purse flush and flushed with drink.
Wickham stared at his old friend’s hand and pointedly looked away, only grasping it perfunctorily when his avoidance grew unspeakably rude.
“Will we see you at the table again, Denny?” asked Wickham, clearly wondering how many times he could wager his wife before she’d fail to fetch good sums.
Denny rose, his spine straight. Lydia cast him a glance and wasn’t surprised to find Carter and Chamberlayne hanging back from the exiting throng, waiting for their friend.
“I don’t know that I could witness this again and call myself a gentleman,” said Denny, finally showing his disdain for Wickham.
For his part, Wickham secured his purse and glanced about the table for any stray coins. Lydia’s husband registered the hit; but he simply did not care.
And why would he? He’d been forced to marry Lydia by the sudden intervention of Fitzwilliam Darcy, now her sister Lizzy’s husband.
The cards in Lydia’s mind shuffled themselves as she realized a few things in rapid succession: Wickham had won. His purse was nearly bursting, but he already had it in his mind that he’dwager Lydia again. And all the appeals to honor and gentlemanly conduct failed to penetrate his armor of indifference.
Her life would never get easier from this point forward, only harder. And the next — she shuddered — the next time, she might be won by men who thought nothing of her pleasure, who might use her most terribly.
Lydia hiccupped. Which unleashed a sob.
“Gather your things,” said Wickham, grabbing her wrist. “Time to go back to our rooms. There’s no need to cry. I won. You’re mine tonight.”
His words were tinged with lust, but Lydia knew a show when she saw one. It was unlikely that Wickham had any intention of exercising his marital rights, not after so many years of neglecting them.
But what if he did? What if Wickham wished to enjoy his prize and played the husband this evening, enjoying the rights he’d have traded away so willingly?
Lydia stood from the table, her spine just as straight as Denny’s had been. She now understood what put the steel in it: resolution.
Her chair skittered on the floor, dragging over floorboards as she pushed it away with her legs. Her behavior was alarming and unmannerly, but when had Lydia begun caring about such things? When had she traded so much of herself away for thesake of propriety that she would sit in this inn and watch as she was wagered?
At fifteen, she’d have kicked anyone who tried such a thing, then run off laughing as if the entire scheme was a lark. At sixteen, she’d have cast a cutting glare and delivered a blow to the kidneys under the table. Who had tamed Lydia Bennet?
She looked at George Wickham. Now that she studied him, she noted that he had a rather weak chin that he attempted to disguise with a pugnacious expression in moments like this. He wasn’t capable of taming her, not really. Oh, he’d heaped insults upon her and treated her most vilely, but he simply couldn’t have brought Lydia low without the participation of another person.
And that person was Lydia herself.
More than anyone, Lydia had wielded the blade that clipped her own wings and made this monstrosity possible. Wickham shouldn’t have done it, to be sure, but that it could be done to the girl born asLydia Bennet? Unthinkable in the Meryton of her youth.
As it would be again.
“No.”
The shuffling footsteps slowed, and the officers tried to catch her eye.
“Come along then, Mrs. Wickham,” said George, pretending he hadn’t heard her.
“No,” she repeated.
“I suppose I’ll see you at home,” he said jauntily, tapping his purse and making to leave. “I have someone I need to see tonight, anyway.”
Of course he did. Some widow or wife who would be happy with what George Wickham offered.
Lydia wasn’t happy with what Wickham offered; she hadn’t been for some time. He wasn’t even useful in safeguarding her reputation. The events of tonight were a prime example of that.
