Page 5 of Mr. Darcy’s Victorious Bride

Blast Wickham! Blast him to the devil, and Darcy along with him, for letting the sod walk free at Ramsgate.

Darcy folded the map. He was wasting time on geography when what he needed was a soldier.

The soldier arrived some ten minutes later, half-dressed, coat thrown over his shirtsleeves, boots unlaced, hair flattened on one side from the pillow. Richard said, "Tell me what has happened and what I am to do about it."

Darcy told him. The letter. Wickham. Lydia. The head start.

Richard listened without interrupting once, which was how Darcy knew he grasped the gravity of it. Richard only interrupted when a problem was small enough to argue about. "Gretna Green," he said when Darcy finished.

"Possibly. I doubt it."

"As do I. But it cannot go unchecked. If they are on the Great North Road and I ride hard, I can overtake a post-chaise inside two days." He dropped into a chair and began lacing his boots. "What is the girl worth?"

"Nothing. No fortune. No connections beyond mine."

"Then he is not marrying her." Richard's mouth twisted. "He wanted thirty thousand with Georgiana. He does not take a penniless girl to Scotland for love. So what does he want? Money from you to vanish quietly? Or is he working for someone?"

Darcy said nothing.

Richard's eyes sharpened. "Braithwaite."

"I have no proof. But Lydia elopes the very night Braithwaite is taken. The timing is too pretty."

"She is an insurance policy." Richard stood and stamped his heels into the boots. "Disgrace the family, and Elizabeth's testimony before the Lords is the word of a woman whose sister ran off with a deserter. Blast the man! He is in chains and still moving pieces."

"Then we take his pieces from him. You ride north. If they went to Gretna, you will have them. If not, you will know within two days and turn back."

"And you?"

"To London. With Elizabeth."

Something crossed Richard's face. Not surprise. Approval, grudgingly issued. "She will not be managed, your wife."

"No. And I am done trying."

"Good. It only ever ended one way." Richard shrugged into his coat, then paused at the door. His voice dropped. "How is she?"

"She is dressing for Longbourn. She means to search Lydia's room."

"I meant, how is she?"

"Angry. At Wickham. At herself. At me." Darcy set down the pen. "We had twelve hours of peace, Richard. Twelve bloody hours."

"Then we had best make certain the next peace lasts longer." With that he left, the footfalls of his boots quick on the stairs, the gait of a man with a horse to saddle and a country to cross.

Darcy drew a fresh sheet toward him. Three letters yet. One to Captain Gill, for if Wickham had drawn militia pay after deserting, there would be a money trail, and Gill was thorough. One to Pemberley, in case word traveled through Derbyshire channels. And one to his solicitor in London, instructing him to begin building the case against Braithwaite without delay.

That last gave Darcy a grim flicker of pleasure. Braithwaite would expect the elopement to consume them. Let his lordship sit in his cell and learn that his diversion had diverted nothing.

He wrote quickly. His pen did not falter. His mind was another matter. Elizabeth's voice from the study kept sounding in it: You let Lydia walk into the very danger you knew he posed. She was right. That was the whole trouble with her. She was so often right.

The door opened without a knock. Bingley, in yesterday's coat, his hair standing on end. "Darcy. What in heaven's name is happening? Mrs. Bennet arrived before I was down, in a state of absolute—" He gestured helplessly, at a loss for words.

"Close the door."

Bingley closed it and sat. Darcy gave him the essential facts. Lydia gone with Wickham. Marriage doubtful. The family's reputation at stake, which meant Jane's reputation at stake, which meant Bingley should think clearly, and now, about whether he meant to stand by the Bennets or to step quietly back before the scandal attached itself to his name.

It was blunt. Darcy was too tired for anything else.