“No. With you, Richard, and Bingley present.”
“And perhaps the magistrate, Sir William Lucas, if he is willing,” Mr. Philips added. “If we can get the dastard to confess, having a man of law as witness will greatly help the matter.”
“He will be,” Elizabeth said quietly.
Darcy looked at her, his joy sobering into gratitude. “Will you remain at Netherfield?”
“I cannot tonight. I need to return to Longbourn. Jane will worry, and my mother will have imagined seven calamities and three weddings by now.”
Bingley’s expression grew hopeful at the mention of Jane, but he restrained himself nobly.
Darcy’s disappointment was clear, though he did not argue. “Of course.”
“But I can come again tomorrow,” Elizabeth said. “For the confrontation, if you will allow it.”
“Allow it?” Richard said. “Miss Elizabeth, if you are the only person in the room capable of defeating Wickham with a single misplaced letter, I vote you preside over the entire affair.”
Darcy looked as if he agreed entirely, though his concern returned. “It may be unpleasant.”
“It has already been unpleasant.”
“He may say things unfit for you to hear.”
Elizabeth lifted her brows. “Then he will only further prove himself unfit to marry Georgiana.”
Richard laughed. “Darcy, marry her quickly. I want her officially in the family before she decides we are not worth the trouble.”
Darcy’s eyes warmed as they rested upon Elizabeth. “I have every intention of doing so.”
The look between them held long enough that Mr. Philips cleared his throat again, this time with more intent.
Elizabeth stepped back, though Darcy’s fingers lingered around hers until the last possible moment.
“I shall go to Georgiana before I leave,” she said. “She should hear the good news gently.”
Darcy nodded, emotion tightening his mouth. “Tell her it is not over, but there is hope.”
Elizabeth smiled at him.
Hope.
It was too small a word for what she felt as she gathered up the truth they had found in that one misplaced letter. Wickham had arrived at Netherfield smiling over his forged paper and stolen confidence. Tomorrow, he would be made to look upon what carelessness, arrogance, and one clever woman’s eye had brought down upon him.
And Elizabeth intended very much to be present when he did.
∞∞∞
Darcy did not sleep well the night before Wickham’s appointed return.
He had slept better than on the first night, certainly. There was comfort in knowledge, and Elizabeth’s discovery had given them the first firm ground upon which to stand since Wickham had appeared in Bingley’s drawing room. Yet knowledge was not victory until it was used, and Darcy knew George Wickham too well to believe a single exposed error would make him surrender with grace.
By the time Wickham arrived, every arrangement had been made.
Sir William Lucas had come to Netherfield the previous afternoon, not in his usual expansive spirits, but with all the consequence of his office and a seriousness that did him credit. He had examined the disputed paper, listened to Mr. Philips’s explanation, and agreed that an inquiry was necessary. A charge of forgery, particularly one made in connection with a contract of marriage, could not be ignored.
Darcy had not wanted Georgiana present, and he told her so shortly before Elizabeth left to return to Longbourn for the night.
On that point alone, however, his sister had resisted him.
