“I have told you Richard, again and again, I cannot marry her!”
I am not certain if this really would have come to pass. I liked to tell myself that it, in fact, would. It was reassuring to give it thought and to come out concluding that soon the business would be over and I would leave her behind.
But in my most honest moments, I knew that absolutely nothing had changed. I had come to see her, had essentially no more time with her at all, no way to know who she was or what she cared about or anything of that nature, had still only been bowled over by her beauty, and would leave without having resolved a thing.
I thought Miss Bennet’s visage might haunt me through the rest of my life, that I might spend my marriage to whatever practical and proper choice I eventually made closing my eyes and picturing it was Miss Bennet kissing me back.
Well, as unpleasant as such a thing sounded, I supposed I had little choice in the matter. As soon as I had ascertained that Miss Bennet was safe from the wiles of Mr. Wickham, I would be on my way.
Three days passed, three days full of Richard teasing me that I must go and present myself at Longbourn and ask Miss Bennet to marry me, and on the fourth day, very early, Mr. Bennet came galloping to our house, out of breath. He leaned off the horse to tell us that he had not a moment to lose and that he had only come to find us because he knew that I might be concerned, given everything. “Lizzy was not in her bed this morning and there was a note from her, saying she and Mr. Wickham are bound for Scotland.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “Truly?”
“She says she wished to have it done before the regiment went to Brighton, that she could not wait.” He shook his head. “Itdoes not sound like my sister, I must say. This is not the sort of thing she would do!”
“Are you going after her?”
“Yes, though they have been gone overnight and they have quite a head start on us. My mother thinks there is nothing that can be done in this case, that it is all over and done with, but Lizzy is my father’s favorite, and he is quite out of sorts. He seems to think we could prevent it all.”
“I shall come along,” I said. “Let me get my horse.”
“No,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that.”
“This is my own fault,” I said. “I am the one who let Wickham run free and unmolested all over the country. I knew what he was. You must allow me to assist you, Bennet.”
“Very well,” he said. “But I cannot wait. You may catch me up if you can. I must go on after my father.”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
He rode off without any goodbye, and I sprang into action.
Once Richard had heard the way of it, he insisted on coming, too, and we set out on horseback after Mr. Bennet and his father.
We never did catch up with them, not after hours, which led us to stop and discuss whether we had taken a different route, and if we must have gotten ahead of them or something.
During this pause, I asked Richard if we thought that Wickham might have stopped over at an inn he knew about that my father used to have us stay in when Wickham and I were boys.
He said it was worth inquiring there, anyway, so we headed that direction.
We alighted at the inn, and we were recognized straight off by the innkeeper, who said, right away, “Your own Wickham was here, but he has caused quite a commotion, I must say.”
“Commotion?” I inquired. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Well, I know he is your companion, but I always found him to be a bit of a squirrely type, I may say,” said the innkeeper. “I think he was often making off with things, though your father always said it was a mistake and would just pay us for whatever it was we lost. When he showed up here last night with a young woman in tow, I said to myself that I wasn’t sure what this was all about.”
“This is, in fact, why we are here,” I said. “We are wondering about that young woman.”
“Well, she’s right there in the taproom,” he said. “Not a proper place for her, admittedly, but Sadie’s keeping an eye on her, and she’s been a bit out of sorts since it all happened.”
“Since what happened?” said Richard.
But I was already hurrying into the taproom, where I saw her immediately.
She was perched on a stool in front of the bar, wrapped up in a quilt, so that only her face appeared at the top. Her hair was down and long and wavy and dark and beautiful.
Heart in my throat, I rushed to her. “Miss Bennet.”
“Mr. Darcy?” She was entirely surprised. “What are you doing here? I was trying to think how I might get together the coin to ask someone to go back to my family and tell them where I was, but I have nothing. He took everything.”
