I sat there contemplating this until a scream rent the air.
I recognized the voice. It was Charlotte. Yes, just as I’d predicted, it had come to pass, had it not? She and Maria were making their way through Rosings to report that they’d found Mr. Collins dead in the rectory.
Mr. Wickham rolled his head on his shoulders. “It’s all so very unpredictable with you around, Elizabeth. I’m not sure if I like that. Perhaps I should just shoot you, too, in the morning, keep things as they were. Of course, I have to say, I was gettinga bit bored.” He sighed, getting up and reaching for a gun. The bucket of guns was sitting next to the table now.
I stood up. “Wait. Not Charlotte. Please.”
“What am I to do with them, then?”
“Oh, as if they will do anything at all with the threat of your guns!”
“You’d be quite surprised about that,” he said. “People really do fancy themselves fit for heroics. You shouldn’t underestimate the human desire for survival, really.”
“Please,” I said.
He shrugged. “Oh, fine.” He set the gun down.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
elizabeth
It was later.
I sat with Charlotte, Maria, and Lydia on a couch in the sitting room in Rosings.
In the opposite corner, the cook and a handful of other servants, ones that Wickham had deemed “useful,” sat on the floor. All of them appeared terrified.
Everyone had cried a lot today. There had been tears and sobs and some wails, until Mr. Wickham had thrust the barrel of a gun in our faces and said that we would be quiet or he would make us quiet.
I didn’t know what to do.
I was thinking through the rest of the day, of course, but I thought my best chance of besting Wickham was after the day reset and we all lived it through again.
I considered getting myself shot on purpose.
If I were shot, I would end up waking in my room at the parsonage, which would mean that I would wake somewhere alone. This could be to my advantage.
Mr. Wickham could, of course, be there when I woke. But that would mean he could not take care of Will first or ColonelFitzwilliam first. He had indicated he usually shot the colonel before the colonel woke up.
Well.
No.
It wouldn’t mean that, would it?
Wickham would have from midnight on to see to both of them. He could shoot everyone in their beds if he liked.
I wondered why he didn’t usually do that? I cocked my head and surveyed him. Should I ask?
I would. But I would first think this through. All right, so he could easily kill everyone and still be there when I woke up.
So, I mustnotallow myself to get shot. It was not an advantage for me to wake up there, not at all.
I needed, however, to get to Will, to get us free of this. If we could be elsewhere when the reset happened, somewhere other than where Wickham was, we would have the advantage.
How was I going to do that?
I chewed on my lower lip. “Mr. Wickham?”
