Page 66 of Stuck

I heard Bingley shuffle his feet before he said, “I really am sorry. I had no idea you had misgivings about her. But… didn’t the licensing proposal clue you in? The way these investment meetings have been going, Elizabeth might have found the thing that saves the company, not sabotages it.”

I opened my eyes. “The licensing proposal? That was Polanski’s idea.”

Bingley shook his head. “It was Elizabeth who persuaded him to speak to us about it, and only because I was so stubbornly opposed to the idea before.”

Elizabeth’s voice ran through my mind. It’s nice to meet a man who recognises that women can be experts too. Could I have let her down in any worse way? I’d given Polanski full credit for that idea without ever questioning the source then accused the woman behind it of trying to sink the company. The memory of her tears cut deeper still.

I swore and slammed my head back against the wall. “If anything’s happened to her because of me⁠—”

Bingley didn’t allow me to continue spiralling. “Nothing’s happened. Elizabeth’s going to be fine.”

Everything made more sense when we reached Elizabeth’s flat and her sister opened the door. I’d known Elizabeth wasn’t Bingley’s type from the off, and if you’d asked me to describe what was his type, Jane Bennet would be the epitome of it. She was beautiful, in a china doll sort of way: fine features, model proportions, with a drop-her-and-she-might-shatter delicacy about her. I couldn’t see this sister playing rugby or jumping in a lake, that was for sure.

But she was kind. Her concern for her sister was palpable, yet she was eager to make Bingley and me comfortable, and once she heard the explanation for what had led to me sending Elizabeth home in the first place—which I was certain would have her blaming me as much as I was myself—she began falling over herself to apologise.

“This is all my fault,” she said, wringing her hands. “If I hadn’t suggested Elizabeth pretend to be Bingley’s girlfriend in the first place⁠—”

“Technically, if Elizabeth hadn’t poisoned you with goat curry, you wouldn’t have needed to suggest it. She must take her equal share of the blame.” This was from Elizabeth’s other sister, Mary, whose presence here, combined with ours, was making the small flat feel like some sort of war room.

Jane persisted. “But I feel terrible. Elizabeth asked us again and again to tell you, Darcy. She thought you wouldn’t appreciate being lied to.”

I didn’t—I despised all forms of deceit—but I wasn’t going to make the situation worse by falling out with Elizabeth’s sister about it.

Mary didn’t have any such compunction and regarded Jane with undisguised exasperation. “It genuinely astounds me that you needed to be told that.”

“Don’t blame your sister,” Bingley said. “I think we all know this is my fault.”

Mary scoffed, and though she answered Bingley, it was me she glared at as she said, “It wasn’t you Elizabeth was crying over in my kitchen six hours ago.”

She was right; it didn’t matter whose idea it had been to begin the pretence or who was to blame for not ending it when they should have. The only person who’d reduced Elizabeth to tears today was me. Because of the things I’d believed her capable of. Because of my lack of faith in the woman who had shown me nothing but compassion since our first meeting.

“Six hours?” Bingley repeated, sounding alarmed.

“She left mine just after half one,” Mary said.

After a pause, Bingley cleared his throat and ventured in a cautious voice, “That’s longer than I realised. Should we be thinking about calling the police?”

I forced myself to keep breathing in and out, trying to rationalise that Bingley had easily been out of contact for that long today and nobody had been worried about him. It didn’t work, because he hadn’t been distraught when he was last seen.

While everyone else debated the wisdom of reporting Elizabeth missing, I racked my brain, trying to think where she might have gone. To see her father, perhaps? Mentioning him might stir up unwanted trouble with her sisters—although, there was a chance they might already have found out about his recent visit thanks to the doorbell camera I hadn’t noticed while I was bodily lugging him over the threshold.

I jerked around in my seat to face Jane. “You have a doorbell camera! Have you checked it to see whether she ever got home?”

Jane’s eyes widened, and she lunged forwards to grab her phone from the coffee table. “I didn’t even think to look. Elizabeth asked me to turn off motion alerts so I wouldn’t see her kissing her dates on the doorstep.”

I clenched my teeth. I’d only recently found out Elizabeth wasn’t seeing Bingley; I wasn’t ready to hear about her going on dates with other men. I watched as Jane opened the app and scrolled backwards through the camera feed—and I saw her face pale.

“What is it?” I demanded, none too politely.

She turned her phone around and replayed the clip for all of us, and dread sank its claws into me. In the grainy picture stood a man I recognised all too well, swaying on his feet, clearly drunk, clearly waiting. He looked at his watch repeatedly, jabbed at his phone, rubbed the back of his neck. Viciously punched the wall in apparent impatience.

At two twenty-two p.m., Elizabeth came into shot. The man stumbled towards her and grabbed her arm, and they both stumbled out of frame. They did not return.

Panic consumed me. I couldn’t find words or thoughts or air.

Bingley swore quietly under his breath. “Was that…?”

“George Wickham,” Mary said, finishing for him. “I shouldn’t be surprised in the slightest that he’s behind this. He’s never been anything but trouble.”