“Oh, no,” she breathed. “It cannot be.”
A tall man with lean shoulders and a rakish cast to his expression stood several lengths away, a familiar mischievous cast to his face and posture. Not a malicious mischievousness, but a purely irrepressible boyish selfishness. The kind that had embroiled Elizabeth into a multitude of scrapes growing up in Derbyshire.
“George,” she said, taking a step forward. “It is George.”
“No, Elizabeth,” Jane said firmly. “You cannot. Let the past remain where it is.”
She shook her sister off. “The past is here, and standing in front of my face. I will not ignore it. He must have news of home.”
News she craved. The craving rising ferociously in her breast, proving that all her attempts to grind feelings into the dust had been in vain. He would have news of Derbyshire, and of William, too, perhaps.
“We are home, Lizzy.”
The man glanced in Elizabeth’s direction, the casual perusal of a person simply taking in his surroundings. At first, as Elizabeth had done, his gaze passed over her. Then it flickered back and a frown dimmed his smile. Glancing at Jane, who continued attempts to pull Elizabeth along, his eyes widened in shock.
They would be grey eyes, dark and cloudy like a rainy day.
“Remember what our family went through, Elizabeth,” Jane said. “We had to leave our home, our friends. You did not speak for weeks.”
She remembered very well. Remembered the foiled elopement and Will’s anger and her father and Mr. Darcy’s break of friendship. All because she had allowed Mr. Darcy’s stepson to talk her into marrying against their parents’ wishes. Elizabeth’s dowry was modest for their class, a mere six-thousand pounds. The elder Mr. Darcy had wanted more than a country gentleman’s daughter for his stepson, even though Mr. Bennet and Mr. Darcy were good friends.
And William. Will had been livid. Jealous and livid.
“I cannot unsee him and he will not unsee me,” Elizabeth said. “No one here knows.”
“Yet.”
“Ever, unless we or he speaks of it.” George was already striding towards them.
Elizabeth waited, a cloud passing overhead to dim the bright sun as he approached. She shivered. Was it an ill portent? That was ridiculous, and she was far too old for such nonsense.
“Lizzy,” George said when he drew close. “It is you.”
His voice was different. Deeper, an edge of gravity that she and Will had despaired of him ever attaining. Always into some fresh, mad scheme, never serious.
“Yes, it is I.” She did not smile. How could she? “You are an . . .” How baffling. An officer. Of all the ends she had imagined for him, one that required work and discipline had never occurred to her. It gave Elizabeth a niggle of hope that the years had matured him.
“Officer. Yes.” He stared at her, seeming at a loss for words. How unexpected. George Wickham, at a loss for words.
“And Jane.” Belatedly, he bowed and the sisters both started, making their curtsies. And then he smiled. “How ridiculous this is. We searched for you for months after father let us return home. And you’ve been here . . . the whole time?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth knew who the ‘us’ must be, of course, and the words were on the tip of her tongue to inquire, but she held back.
“My God,” He shook his head. “Now we are all such serious, grown-up creatures, bowing and saying how do you do.”
“We have not actually said how do you do.”
He snorted, taking a step closer.
“I think that is quite close enough, sir,” Jane said crisply.
George glanced at her, expression turning roguish. “Do not fret, dear Janie. I shan’t elope with Lizzy here in broad daylight.”
Elizabeth inhaled sharply. That he could joke on it so easily was her familiar Wickham. “One attempt was enough, I assure you.”
His face creased in an exaggerated expression of hurt. “What? Now that we have found each other again, you will refuse to wed? Are we not a modern day Romeo and Juliet?”
“You are incorrigible. My father is going to be furious you are here.” She turned to Jane. “We cannot tell Papa.”
“Well, why not?” Wickham demanded. “Let bygones be bygones. We are all grown up now, the foibles of passionate youth behind us.”
“Except,” she said, eyeing him, “I have a feeling the only foible behind you is the one from just last week.”
He grinned. “I swear I have been on the up and up ever since our brush with disaster.”
Did he mean a near marriage to her was disaster or being foiled in the attempt was disaster? Elizabeth smoothed her expression rather than let him see her irritation. But despite the shock of seeing him and the inevitable twinge of hurt, she sensed a lightening of the bindings around her innermost heart, an easing of the old pain. Faced with an all grown up and still flippant George—if she was any judge of character and how in the world was he managing a career in the militia?—her conclusion of having had a fortuitous escape was confirmed.
“I cannot imagine the travails the poor woman you marry will go through,” Elizabeth said, thinking aloud.
He pressed a hand to his chest. “I am hurt. Here I was hoping to convince you to try your hand at it again. The same reason applies now as before.”
She sighed. “Go on with you, George. You may have convinced a sixteen-year-old girl it was her duty to save you from the world with her modest fortune, but you will never convince the grown woman.”
George grinned. “Well, as long as I know you forgive me, Lizzy, I shan’t be desolate.”
“You have not been desolate a day in your life.”
“Elizabeth, we should go,” Jane said.
George glanced at Jane, then grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and pulled her away several feet, just like they were children again. “The dragon glares,” he whispered quickly, “tell me you will meet me alone later.”
Elizabeth drew back in surprise, tugging at her hand. “Are you mad, George Wickham! We are not children anymore, you cannot just grab me.”
He released her hand, looking annoyed. “Just ten minutes. Where do you live, is there a quiet tree or a bridge?”
“I am not meeting you in private, George. The last time—“
He shrugged and glanced over his shoulder as several of his comrades called out. “Ten minutes. I need to talk to you, Lizzy. Your father took you away while our backs were turned, without even a note. We never said goodbye.”
“No, and you look like you have not slept a day ever since.”
He grinned, unperturbed by the heavy sarcasm in her voice and glanced at Jane, who had had enough.
“Elizabeth, let us go, now.”
Air hissed through Elizabeth’s teeth. Wickham’s eyes pleaded, though he could not hold the expression for long without a bit of his customary mirth intruding.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, very well. Where are you quartered? I will send you a note.” It was not proper, at all, even with the excuse of childhood friendship. What other choice was there, but to ignore him entirely? Which she could not do, at least not yet.
Jane waited patiently, albeit a tad thinner lipped than usual, until Elizabeth was done arranging the delivery of the note. He bowed and stored of with a jaunty skip in his step, not at all like an officer should walk.
“I know I cannot dissuade you when you have that look in your eyes, Lizzy. But at least allow Charlotte or I to accompany you? Think of what might happen.”
Elizabeth could not, in good conscience, dismiss Jane’s worries. “No one here knows of the history between George and I, and even were someone to come upon us as we spoke, that is not enough fodder to do any damage to my reputation. I promise I will only speak with him a few short moments.”
“But why, Lizzy?”
She sighed. “I do care for him still. I would like to know that he is well. I suppose I feel guilt I did not handle him better—there is no doubt I was the more sensible of us though he
the more brave.”
“Elizabeth Bennet, you are not to blame for George Wickham wheedling you into an attempted elopement! You were sixteen, and he already a young man of twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one,” she retorted, “is approximately nine in boy years.”
The quip coaxed a reluctant smile from Jane’s worried mouth and she laughed. “So true. Though, the other one, I recall . . .”
Elizabeth’s own smile faded as she thought. “William? I do not believe William was ever merely nine.”
Fitzwilliam Darcy. She would never admit to Jane the real reason she would brave George’s company. For news, any word, of the third of their former triumvirate.
What Lingers in the Heart
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About the Author
Allison Smith is a work-from-home mother of five who is only semi-accomplished in various arts such as music, jewelry making, and sewing, but feels herself reasonably accomplished at stringing a sentence or two together into a pleasing story.
Prince Darcy Page 23
