He was reading a book on the other side of the room. “You know, Elizabeth, I believe I’ve indicated, on a number of occasions, my interest in peace and quiet.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t just shoot everyone at midnight.”
“And yet, you keep jabbering, don’t you?”
“It just seems to me that you could do that and then go back to sleep and have the whole morning to yourself.”
“Perhaps I tried that and some footman got away to bring neighbors and then I was hauled off and tied up and kept in someone’s barn until they could summon someone to take me off to the gaol, which would have been on Friday, had Friday ever dawned,” he said. “And perhaps, I got to that footman first the next time, but a different footman got away. And perhaps I determined that it was best after the dawn, because everyonewas busy, and they didn’t hear the noise and wake and go running for help immediately.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding. “I see.”
“Further questions?” He raised his eyebrows.
“If you were tied up in a barn, and you couldn’t get free all day, did it matter that everything reset? I assume the ropes would have stayed with you? How did you get free?”
“Well,” he said, “the next morning, no one understood why I was there and they took quite kindly to my explanation that I’d been set upon by ruffians, and they freed me.”
“Of course,” I said with a shrug. “So, that’s what happens, if we summon someone. They tie you up and throw you in a barn?”
“You must think I’m particularly stupid, Miss Bennet.” He shut the book, picked up a gun, and started across the room. “Which of your little group were you thinking of sending for help?” He pointed the gun at Lydia. “Lydie-loo here?”
I sneered at him. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”
He laughed in my face.
“You know what?” I lifted my chin. “Do it. She’ll wake up at home, safe and sound, and you won’t be able to touch her anymore.”
He gave me an irritated look and moved the gun to Maria. “Could shoot this one.”
I narrowed my eyes. I was thinking that he didn’t usually shoot Mr. Collins at the breakfast table, did he? I was thinking that he had claimed that he usually waited until the party came to Rosings to report that I was missing and then he shot them here. I was thinking that the servants at the rectory had seen their master killed and then that Charlotte and Maria had gone up to Rosings for help but had never returned.
I was thinking… maybe there was no need to send for help.
Maybe we simply waited.
fitzwilliam
I woke, gasping.
First thing I did was jump out of bed and sprint through the hallways in search of my cousin Richard. Together, we would put a stop to this nonsense.
I was yelling his name as I rounded a bend.
And Wickham was already there, sputtering and swearing and saying I was nothing but trouble.
Then, he shot me again.
All right, really, I was aboutdonewith being shot to death!
I woke with a gasp in my bedroom at Rosings again. I sat up straight, clutching the place where I’d been wounded this time.
Elizabeth was standing in the doorway.
I ran to her. “Lizzy!”
“We haven’t a moment to lose,” she said. “He is in a barn on the neighboring estate of Ridgeton. He has told me that he has little trouble talking his way out of the fact they’ve bound him there, so he will get free and come here, undoubtedly. I don’t know if he’ll shoot people today, not when he hasn’t got everything all ready like he usually does. He won’t have all of his guns, for instance. I don’t even knowwherehe got all those guns.”
I pulled her into my arms. “God in heaven, you’re alive. I am so glad to see you.”
