I poured her some tea.
Mr. Wickham was eating toast, chewing.
“You brought her here?” I whispered.
“It’s not easy bringing people,” he said. “And they don’t seem to remember anything, even if you keep them from going back at midnight, like everyone else. They can be physically kept in one spot, but they can’t remember anything.”
“Right,” I said. “I suppose it’s like horses in that way. But what have you done to my sister?”
He leered at me. “About what you’d expect.”
I clenched my hands into fists.
“Nothing, Lizzy,” said Lydia with a little hiccup, reaching out for the cup of tea I’d poured for her. “He has done nothing to me. I won’t allow him to touch me, of course, the blackguard.”
“Nothing today,” said Wickham, laughing. “She lets me every day willingly, though, despite all of this.” He gestured around. “Your sister is not particularly hard to convince.”
I picked up another teacup and hurled it at his head.
It hit him, square in the middle of his nose.
He shrieked, getting up, drawing a gun and pointing it straight at me.
I cringed, bracing for the impact.
He sighed, setting the gun down. “No more of that, Elizabeth. And certainly, I’ll leave your sister to be reborn on Thursday, back in Longbourn, just as per usual, as long as you take her place. I only ever went after her because she looks the most like you of the Bennet girls, anyway. It’s always been you.”
I picked up another teacup.
“Now, now,” he said, touching the gun. “I shall shoot you, and then you will be dead, and then I shall tup your sister again, anyway.”
“You mean you shallravishher,” I spat at him. “Because of course she acquiesces, you horrible man. You have shot everyone who isn’t inclined to do as you say, so she has no choice. That’s not a sign of being willing.”
“Well, she came with me in the first place, didn’t she?”
“You likely promised you’d marry her,” I said.
He shrugged.
“He has said that, even this morning,” said Lydia. “But I don’t want to be married to a man who’s mad, and who kills everyone. I don’t want to be the wife of a murderer!”
“Of course you don’t, Lydia,” I said. “You don’t have to marry him.”
She tilted the teacup to her mouth, her chin trembling. “Lizzy, I wish to go home to Mama and Papa.”
“Yes, I know, Lydie-loo,” I said. “I shall do my best to get you there, all right?”
“I have already told you that you hold all the power,Lizzy,” he said, emphasizing my nickname in a way that was abominable.
I shook my head at him. “You are out of your mind, Mr. Wickham, if you think I shall ever agree to touch you.”
“I am out of my mind,” he said, nodding, giving me a smile that I could only term demented. “One goes out of one’s mind rather quickly when one is stuck living the same day over and over again. Perhaps you don’t know what it’s like, madam, since you seem to have had company, but I have been all alone.”
There could be merit in what he was saying, I supposed. I knew that Will had lost himself with some haste when he had been living the day without me. I had never been on my own, not for any meaningful amount of time. I could see how the loneliness might truly drive one batty.
“Why do you need so many guns?” I said. “Truly, could you not get by on one or two?”
“Well, they need to be reloaded,” he said. “And I find it’s just easier to load them all the night before, after I tup your sister here—”
