“We cannot tell her she did this,” I said. “She would not wish to know.”
“You do not think so? Perhaps she’d be pleased with herself for having dispatched him.”
“What were we going to have done with him if we’d found him and killed him ourselves?” I said. “Buried him somewhere, told no one?”
Richard nodded. “Yes, that would have been the way of it.”
“So, that is what we shall do with him now,” I said. “And we should have said nothing of it to anyone, of course, so we shall say nothing of this either.”
The colonel nodded. “Yes, I’m quite in agreement.”
Upon arrival back at the inn, it was late afternoon. We went in to check on Miss Bennet, who we found lying curled up on the bed in the room we had rented, swathed still in that same quilt.
When we entered again, she sat up and said, in a very small voice, “I wish you would not have left me alone. Could I not have come along?”
“No,” said Richard. “No, Miss Bennet, that would have been a very bad business.”
“You found him?” she said.
“No need to worry about him anymore,” I said.
Her gaze met mine, her eyes widening in alarm, and then she looked away. She hunched into her quilt and looked down at the floor. “You must be wondering why I went with him in the first place.”
“No, no,” I said. “We are not here to cast any blame. I know the man, and I know that he can spin tales and make things seem differently than they are. I know he can convince other people to do things they regret.”
“That is kind,” she said, looking up at me. “I had not thought you would be that way. But I suppose I had taken his word about you, and I now see I should not have trusted him.”
It was quiet.
“We must make haste, I think,” said the colonel. “If we can get back into a carriage, the three of us, we have a chance of making it back not too long after nightfall. We shall take you to your mother, Miss Bennet, and we shall hope your father and brother turn back and do not go all the way to Scotland seeking you.”
“My brother and my father went after me?” she said. “I did not think they would do that. I left that letter, after all. I thought they’d wait for my return.”
“Well, your father was quite out of sorts, I understand,” I said.
“What he must be thinking of me!” she cried. “And if my father rides all the way to Scotland—”
“All right, all right,” said Richard. “We shall get you safely back home and then we’ll go in search of your brother and father.”
“No, I cannot ask you to do that,” said Miss Bennet. “I have caused far too much trouble already.”
“You mustn’t talk that way,” I said. “Mr. Wickham is to blame for all of this, not you.”
“He most certainly is,” agreed Richard stoutly.
Richard fell asleep in the carriage. He and I were on one side of it, and Miss Bennet was on the other side, still wrapped in that quilt of hers. We were barely back on the road before Richard was snoring on my shoulder.
I pushed him off, annoyed, thinking he’d wake, but he did not. Cheek against the carriage window, he continued to sleep.
Miss Bennet eyed me. “It’s odd,” she said. “My brother told me that he thought you had some preoccupation with me, and I said it wasn’t true. I said you thought me entirely beneath you and not worthy of your attention. But here you are.”
“Your brother told you that, did he?” I gazed at her. “Well, I suppose none of it matters anymore.”
“No, I suppose it does not,” she said. “You were correct when you said I was ruined, and that is that. I shall have to go back and beg the forgiveness of Lady Susannah, but she will be disgusted with me for having flown into the arms of a man, and then, what with the state of my reputation, she may not wish to associate with me, and I may not get the inheritance from her after all, and I shall be the downfall of my entire family.”
I did not know what to say. She could be correct about all of that. The consequences for all of this could be dire for her.
“You wouldn’t have married me in any case,” she said. “My brother told me that as well.”
