Chapter Five
Lambton, Derbyshire
“Twoletters‘avecomefor you, miss.” The inn-maid curtsied as she proffered the papers.
“Oh, thank you!” Accepting them, Elizabeth looked at Mrs Gardiner. “They are from Jane... I wondered why she had not written! She has written the direction on this one very ill, it must have been delayed. Would you mind very much..?”
She did not even have to finish the question. Her aunt smiled and patted her arm. “Of course you must sit down and read your letters. Henry and I will just walk to the church, and call back for you in a little while.”
Elizabeth thanked her aunt and uncle profusely, which thanks they waved off, laughing as they departed. Left alone, she hurried to sit on the window-seat. The date on the mis-directed one came first, almost a week past; she opened that one first and frowned as she tried to decipher Jane’s normally neat writing.
My dearest Lizzy,
Prepare yourself, for what I am about to say will surely come as a great and terrible shock. Last night, after we were all gone to bed, an express rider came from Colonel Forster in Brighton.
“Oh, no,” Elizabeth said aloud. “Whatever has Lydia done?” Biting her lip anxiously, she read on.
Colonel Forster’s letter related some very strange goings-on in Brighton. Oh Lizzy, Lydia attempted to run away, to elope, to leave all her friends and run off to Gretna Green, with none other than Mr Wickham!
The letter slipped from Elizabeth’s fingers to the floor. She stared at it, tears welling in her eyes. “No,” she said. “No, this cannot be.”
She did not want to pick up the letter. She did not want to read the rest, to know that she and Jane were surely as ruined in the eyes of society as Lydia now must be. To have it confirmed thatMr Darcy, once he knew, would never again look at her with that warm light dancing in his dark eyes.
A tap on the door made her look up, and as though her thoughts had summoned him, the inn-maid introduced Darcy himself. She could barely make herself rise, and no sooner had the door closed behind him than Darcy was striding towards her, concern all over his face.
“Miss Bennet! Whatever is the matter?”
Elizabeth covered her face, unable to look at him. She felt his strong hand at her elbow, guiding her to sit back down, even as she burst into helpless, hopeless tears.
“Good God, whatever is it?” Darcy said softly, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it into her hands. “Whatever has caused you such distress?”
“Lydia,” Elizabeth choked. “She has - she has run off with... with Wickham!”
“What?” Darcy went very still.
He will leave now, and I shall never see him again. Elizabeth cried harder at the thought, barely able to get the words out. Somehow, she managed to gesture at the letter on the floor. “Read it. I cannot bear to...”
“It is your private letter, Elizabeth.” He scooped it up and glanced quickly at the salutation.
“Read it!” Burying her face in his handkerchief, she sobbed her grief, heartbroken.
Darcy sighed, and, to her surprise, took a seat beside her, his arm brushing hers. She peered sideways at him through her tears, watching his expression harden as he read, until suddenly he began to look quite startled.
“Elizabeth, did you readallof this letter?“ he asked, never taking his eyes from the page.
“N-no,” she admitted. “And there is a second. Jane wrote the direction on the first very ill.”
“She must have been shocked, I daresay.” Lowering the page, Darcy looked at her. “Elizabeth, Lydia is not with Wickham. They were stopped before ever leaving Brighton.”
“What?” Elizabeth’s tears stopped immediately, and Darcy put the letter back into her hand.
“Jane says that they were intercepted by some other officers, one of whom, a colonel in the regulars, has offered to marry Lydia himself.”
Elizabeth scanned the page with mounting disbelief. There was no further mention of Wickham, nothing really more than Darcy had already said. Looking up at him, she shook her head.
“This makes no sense!”
“It is rather surprising,” Darcy understated. “What of the other letter you mentioned?”
