“If no one remembers, I am only saying—”
“What if it were Georgiana?” I demanded.
His shoulders sagged and he flinched. “Oh, God, what iswrongwith me?” He rubbed his forehead. “That makes no sense, you know, that somehow murder seems better than rape? It’s what drove me to hesitate, you see.”
“Well…” I considered. “I suppose it is very quick, the way he’s killing them?”
“True,” said Will. He smirked. “Though I wager he’s quick regardless.”
“Bloody hell,” growled Wickham.
“None of that,” I said, glaring at my husband.
“Sorry.” Will was chagrined. He cleared his throat. “All right, well, we can’t leave him to his own devices, and that is all there is to it.”
“We cannot,” I said.
Suddenly, there was a knocking downstairs, on the front door of the dowager house.
“Who even knows anyone is here?” said my husband, pounding down the stairs.
I followed behind him.
“Ah, Mr. Darcy, youarehere,” said the servant at the door. “Someone said they thought they watched you bringing someone into the dowager house, someone who was tied up, and I thought it must be nonsense, but everyone is looking for you everywhere—”
“I’m not to be disturbed,” said my husband, making to shut the door on the servant.
“It’s only that it’s Colonel Fitzwilliam, sir,” cried the servant.
Will sighed heavily, glancing back at me. “They found the body.”
“They found the body,” I said.
“Is that Miss Bennet?” said the servant, peering in. “Because I heard from servants at the parsonage that you were also missing, and—”
“Go back to Rosings and claim you could not find me,” said Mr. Darcy, cutting in. “Here, I’ll give you some coin for your trouble and for the lie—”
“No, Will,” I said. “I think you must go to see your family.”
“It doesn’t matter, Lizzy. We must hold steady here until the morrow when everything resets,” he said. “If we keep Wickham here, everything is tidier.”
“They are all quite beside themselves!” I said. “They are reeling from the death of the colonel—”
“Who is not actually dead.”
“Well, they don’tknowthat,” I said. “Look, we cannot have it both ways. Either these are real people who are really suffering or they are not. And if they are not, we can do anything we like to them, and—”
“If we can do that, what becomes of us?” he finished with a sigh, turning back to the servant in the doorway, who was ever so confused. Will shook his head at the man, still speaking to me. “What does that do to us, over time, my sweetling, if we have no compassion for any others?”
“What is italreadydoing to us?” I said with a sigh. “How many awful things have we done to everyone who is not us?”
“Oh, it’s not so dire, my love,” he said.
“But you will go and comfort your family,” I said.
“I shall go,” he agreed. He gestured to the servant. “Out of the way, there. I am coming along with you.”
Then, I was left with Wickham.
