“Oh, I should think you’d understand,” I said. “What with the way the two of you risk hanging every time you touch each other.”
Bennet hung his head. “All right. I suppose.”
It was quiet.
“What would you have me do?” said Bennet. “My thought was to go after her and steal her back from him—”
“You don’t want to get into an altercation with my cousin,” I said. “You remember how I spoke of his bloodthirstiness since his time in the war.”
“He cannot simply have my wife. It’s not as if he can marry her himself,” said Bennet.
“Well, to be fair,” said Elizabeth, “you are not really functioning as a husband to her.”
“She knew it would be that way going in!” said Bennet.
“You must make some sort of bargain with him,” said Bingley. “As I was willing to do with Darcy. I don’t like to think about my sister in this way, but I think we have to say that we should not deny her the ability to have a full life, with all of its experiences. And if she is in love with him, it would be cruel to prevent them being together.”
“You know where he is, do you not?” said Bennet to me.
“I may have some ideas about where he could have gone,” I said. “But I think I should go alone to talk to him. Perhaps I can get to the bottom of it. Would you be willing to allow them to have some time together?”
Bennet sighed. “I suppose I would be a villain if said that I would not. But I honestly don’t see how such a thing can work.”
“I can keep her as a mistress,” the colonel was saying to me. We were standing in the outer chamber outside of the room he’d rented at an inn not far away. I had an inkling this would be where he would come. “I do not entirely know how yet, but I shall have to find the money for such a thing. I haven’t a choice.”
“You do have a choice,” I said. “You had the choice not to take her away.”
“No,” he said. “I do not. You see, though I told you I was not a fool, I am quite a fool, and I have not been careful at all, and she may indeed be with child.”
“You have not been tupping her long enough to know that for certain,” I said. “It’s been less than two weeks.”
“Well, she said when she saw him, when he came back, and she looked at him, looked at the prospect of being with him forever and always, she could not bear it. She would rather be shamed and be with me than live the way she has been living.”
“He says he’ll make an arrangement with you,” I said. “Allow you access to her.”
“Well, who says that’s what I want?” said Richard.
“What about what she wants? Can’t we talk to her? She may not want to be entirely shamed and to bring ignominy down on everyone she is intimately connected with.”
“Fine,” he said. He thrust open the door into the room he’d rented.
She let out a cry, startled. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you. You’ve come after me, not my husband.”
“Erm,” I said, “I convinced him not to. I didn’t want my cousin to kill him.”
Richard touched his chest. “Why would I kill that poor molly of a man, hmm?”
“Well, he’s annoyed with you,” I said. “He said he was going to come and steal Caroline back.”
“He did?” said Caroline. “Really? Because I didn’t think he would care. He won’t want me once he knows I’m likely gone with Richard’s child, though.”
“Well, if he did, if he would allow you to spend time with Richard sometimes, would you wish to be a mistress or a wife?”
“Oh,” she said, biting down on her bottom lip. “Well.”
“Truly?” said Richard.
“Richard,” I said, “you are always and forever being called off with the army for months on end, you know.”
