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  Well, he would conquer this. Handing the reins to the stable keeper, Darcy broke into a jog, then a run. A few laps around the estate would do him good.

  After another hour of exercise, Darcy was exhausted and hungry. Good, he thought. Thinking of eggs and toast meant he was not thinking of Miss Bennet. He turned back to the house, and headed to the side entrance as it was closest to the kitchen. It was also less likely to disturb anyone except the servants; he did not want to trouble Georgiana.

  He eased open the side door, and was closing it silently shut behind him when he heard footsteps. Richard was coming from the kitchen, with a cup in one hand and his boots on. He was also holding a paper, and looked at Darcy with surprise.

  "Richard!" Darcy was glad to see him; perhaps he could be persuaded to a round of fencing or shooting that afternoon. "Is that coffee?"

  "What? Oh, yes," Richard said distractedly. "By God, Darcy, have you been out all this time? You have become exceptionally interested in your own health. Whenever I see you, you are running, riding or fencing. Man cannot live by sweat alone, you know."

  "I am only taking in the air," Darcy said, waving a hand in the direction of Outdoors. He was still faintly out of breath, and his sweat was beginning to dry; perhaps a swim before lunch would be just the thing. "I could ask you the same thing. Boots on already?"

  Richard looked grim. "I've had a letter from – from my commanding officer," he said.

  It was unusual for Richard to talk about his occupation, even in such broad and glancing terms. Darcy knew his cousin was involved in that mysterious and thrilling area of the country's service known as "intelligence". Occasionally men came for him in the middle of the night with messages that prompted quick packing and hasty departures. He would return a few days or a week later with rough clothes and no explanation. Darcy did not ask what his cousin's job was, exactly; he knew that Richard would share only enough that was necessary. And it seemed that now, he was bringing Darcy in.

  "Though we are officially at peace with France, of course there is some – hesitation on both sides," Richard said. "With civilian transport across the Channel re-opened, a man of ours has slipped over to the French side. We've had our eye on him for a while – he's had some money coming in that's much more than a militiaman should be able to spend." He looked at Darcy with a concerned eye. "Particularly this one, as you and I have very good cause to know."

  "Who is it?" Darcy asked, but with a sinking feeling realised he already knew.

  "George Wickham."

  Darcy's face went hot. Of all the careless, harmful, offhanded schemes Wickham had pulled. His father had provided for him so well, and at every turn he threw it back in Darcy's face, betraying any little bit of trust that was ever handed to him. He had poisoned his relationship with Miss Bennet from the start; and now he was possibly betraying the nation. Darcy did not stop to examine too closely which of these made him more dismayed.

  "And – I'm afraid there's more," Richard said. He was watching Darcy carefully. "Wickham has not gone to France alone. A young lady is with him – Miss Lydia Bennet."

  "Bennet?"

  "Sister of Miss Elizabeth who was staying with Mrs. Collins so recently. One of the younger girls – I believe you would have seen her in Hertfordshire?"

  Darcy did remember her. "Tall and loud," he said darkly, "and rather too easily pleased by a red coat. I can see it easily, I'm sorry to say."

  Lord. The full understanding of what this meant for Elizabeth came crashing down onto him. Darcy saw everything: her prospects ruined, her family torn apart, Elizabeth herself grieving as if it were the end of the world. A girl eloping with a soldier was not unheard of, of course, but several things in Darcy's mind made it clear this was no usual elopement. Wickham's base character had to be taken into account. Such elopements may have been common in times of war, when a soldier was about to be called up – but peace had just been declared, and there was no prospect of Wickham dying heroically in battle, more was the pity. Worst of all, Wickham had no reason to expect that marrying Lydia Bennet would bring him any fortune. Darcy knew all too well the prospects of marrying one of the Bennet girls – had thought it through in every possible way, turning and turning it over in his head – and if a fortune hunter as shameless as Wickham had gone off with Lydia, it did not seem likely that marriage was his object.

  Richard's expression showed that he had come to the same conclusion. Everything pointed to the worst – Wickham was not only a likely turncoat, but had taken Lydia Bennet to France alone with no intention of marrying her.

  "Is there anything to suggest she did not go willingly?" Darcy said. It was a fragile hope – if they could prove kidnapping… but Richard shook his head.

  "Far from it, I'm sorry to say," he said. He checked the letter in his hand. "She was… 'laughing and merry, talking all over town about her nouveau beau and their French adventure'. Damned stupid girl!" Richard exclaimed, crushing the paper in his hand. "Apologies for the language, but it has to be said."

  Darcy agreed. He knew all too well the charms that Wickham could exert over an inexperienced young woman, but while he had thought Lydia Bennet silly and frivolous, he had not realised she was this catastrophically brainless.

  Richard ran a hand through his hair. "So I am afraid I must take my leave," he said. "The major-general has asked me to go to France to help track Wickham down – as I have the family connection, you know." He smiled wryly. "Even in peacetime, it seems, a British officer's job is never done."

  A glimmer of light was appearing for Darcy. "Why don't I come with you?" he said. "You say your commanding officer mentioned the family connection. Well, I've tracked Wickham down before. I can do it again."

  Richard looked at him as if he'd gone mad. "You, a wealthy civilian, travel to France? Do you know what they do to the aristocracy over there?"

  "I'll leave off the 'de Bourgh' on my calling cards," Darcy said dryly. "And I can take care of myself."

  "I'm sure you can. Though they won't look too kindly on a d'Arcy either. What about Georgiana? Are you really going to abandon her – both her guardians off for a dangerous journey overseas to track down a turncoat?" Richard's incredulity built with every clause.

  "As you know, I have a personal interest in Mr. Wickham's activities," Darcy said. Did Richard want the man caught or not? "My father set me the task of looking after him. I have tried my best to do so, as much as my ethics allow, and I do not see this venture as any different. On top of that, a girl's honour is at stake – more than that, Richard, her health and wellbeing. Do you think Wickham is equipped to look after a young wife on foreign soil? Do you think he intends to? I could not live with myself if I allowed him to ruin another – to ruin a girl."

  Richard had no answer except a heavy sigh. Darcy knew his cousin well enough to take that for assent.

  "All right," Richard said crossly. "He was last seen taking ship from Southampton."

  "Then we'll do the same," Darcy said.

  "That is my plan," Richard said. "I'm leaving in three hours, to catch tomorrow's sailing from Southampton. You can come with me, or you can do what you like, but I am leaving in three. Hours."

  Darcy barely stopped to stamp the dirt off his boots before rushing upstairs. Here was something he could put his mind to, and his energies towards – a mission, a calling, a way to use his personal talents and knowledge for a higher cause.

  It was nothing to do with Miss Bennet at all.

  Chapter 4.

  Elizabeth and Jane were up early the next morning. They were taking the carriage as far as the first staging post, then travelling post. They were up before dawn, with the servants, and the excitement of travel was in Elizabeth's head as she brushed her hair and dressed. The air in the household was still dark and had the flavour of the night before, and she and Jane crept downstairs so as not to wake anyone else in the family.

  Louise was looking forward to seeing her old employers,
who had been so kind to her, and checked and double-checked the girls' bags in the carriage.

  "And did you see no one who caught your fancy?" Jane said to Elizabeth, smiling and pouring a small cup of tea. "I saw you dance twice with one of the officers – has he any inclination?"

  "I do not recall," Elizabeth said, "and I do not care for him if he has. I do not understand why you are jumping down my throat about marriage as well, Jane, not everyone has the inclination to wed as soon as someone looks twice at us."

  Jane looked hurt, and Elizabeth realised too late that she had taken her words to be about Mr. Bingley, rather than their younger sisters, as she had meant. "I am sorry," she said immediately, but the damage was done; Jane looked out the window sulkily, or as sulky as Jane ever was, and Elizabeth folded her handkerchief and looked at her hands and added 'bad sister' to the list of her own faults, as well as 'bad-spirited' and 'judgmental'.

  The proposals of both Mr. Collins and Mr. Darcy had instilled a kind of aversion to marriage in her, where before she had only found the subject mildly amusing. If the only men who could offer for her were a fool and a pompous snob, surely it was better to remain single. Though her allowance was small, it was enough for – and here Lizzy's imagination stopped, because try as she might, she could not make the sums work out, and it only made her crosser.

  "Shall we be on the way?" she said, clapping her hands and trying to assume an air of freshness and pleasure.

  Jane assented, and with Louise across, Davey driving and the luggage securely tied, they were on their way south just as dawn broke.

  The post was just a half hour's journey, but the girls were barely settled in when their carriage was overtaken by a horse and rider, by the sound of it pelting at great haste. The horse's hooves clodded rapidly on the packed dirt, and Elizabeth looked at Jane with alarm. She pulled back the curtain just enough to see who the rider was.

  "It is Father!"

  When Mr. Bennet caught fully up with them, the carriage halted, and he leaned up to speak with Davey. An exchange of words Elizabeth could not hear took place. Davey dismounted, and handed the reins to Mr. Bennet with a quietly annoyed sniff – he was not dressed for riding, and expected to have the freedom of driving in the beautiful early-summer morning, rather than the more plodding task of walking Mr. Bennet's horse back to Longbourn. Elizabeth wondered who would drive; but Mr. Bennet himself took the reins, without speaking directly to either of his daughters, and lashed the horses on with rather more vigour than before.

  "What can the matter be?" Elizabeth said. A suspicion was beginning to work in her mind, about what she had overheard at the ball the night before; but she could not yet name it.

  Jane offered several suggestions: a late bank notice, a pressing need to advertise for more hands on the farm. But none of these had the ring of plausibility for their father's odd behaviour, and soon she fell silent.

  But after a few minutes of hard riding, their father eased off the whip; the horses slowed, and the carriage was moving hardly faster than if they had walked.

  At the first staging post, Mr. Bennet stalked off, leaving the girls to open the door themselves. Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and Elizabeth lifted the latch, pushed open the door and jumped to the ground, holding up her skirts to avoid catching them in the grass. Jane followed, and they went into the inn.

  Mr. Bennet was standing over a large glass of beer, staring at the back wall. He did not seem to acknowledge his daughters, but when they approached, he spoke suddenly.

  "Lydia has flown the hen coop," he said shortly. "Here – this will explain everything. Kitty had it from Lydia this morning. I had to pry it off her – " Elizabeth took the paper from his hand, and held it so she and Jane could both read.

  It was a letter from Lydia, coded in such a way that the message could not be exactly made out, but with enough information in it to confirm Elizabeth's suspicion: that their sister had behaved foolishly, possibly dangerously; in the best case, at the very least committed an indiscretion that, if it were known, would bring their family name into severe disrepute; in the worst, endangered her own life.

  "Mr. Wickham was seen with Lydia in a post chaise, towards London, last night," Mr. Bennet said with no emotion in his voice. Elizabeth's heart thudded as her father continued to unfold the story. She knew that Lydia was not likely to tempt a prospect such as Wickham, who enjoyed the company of young ladies of all worth and incomes, but had to make his own fortune by marrying. "From there he was lost; but Col. Forster has said a friend of his in the city sent him a letter by this morning's post, saying that they had been seen together in public, that they have been seen in such terms as leave no doubt as to their relationship, and that they said – they had an intention of going to France, and Mr. Wickham had been there before in the army and said the weather was very fine."

  "What lies!" Elizabeth said. "Wickham was never in the army, he told me so himself."

  "Do you think Lydia cares for that?" Mr. Bennet said.

  Jane, white-faced, had not spoken in the whole time, and Elizabeth felt with a piercing to the centre of her heart how deeply this would affect Jane's chances for happiness. She could not help expressing her sentiments towards their thoughtless sister, and the insidious Mr. Wickham, in strong terms that drew a shocked reply from Jane and a smile from their father.

  "Good girl, Lizzy," said Mr. Bennet, "and with that in mind I am speeding to London to try to patch up what can be done." He took another long drink of his beer.

  Elizabeth could not help but notice that her father was not, at that moment, speeding to London; that he was drinking a large glass of ale at the bar in an unhurried way.

  "I suppose Jane and I will continue with you, as the northbound mail coach has left and there is no other transport to Longbourn," Elizabeth prompted.

  "Certainly, do as you like," he said.

  "You will be wanting to speak to Mr. Gardiner straight away, no doubt, and so we should hurry to catch him before he leaves for his office for the afternoon, as he is expecting to meet us off the post coach at noon."

  "I expect so, yes."

  Jane and Louise exchanged a look.

  "And so we should return to the carriage," Elizabeth said, growing increasingly urgent, "as we are only at the first staging post to London, and have many miles to travel yet – and perhaps further then."

  "Lord! I am certainly not going to France," Mr. Bennet said, draining his beer. "If she is gone, she is gone. I cannot be wasting my time running after every silly girl who takes it in her head to chase after an officer."

  Elizabeth was feeling lightheaded. The air was closing in around her and her heart was jumping noisily in her chest.

  "But you must see what this means for all of us," she said desperately. "For the rest of the family – "

  "Aha," Mr. Bennet said, smiling. "You are worried about your own chances, I see. Well, put it behind you. Any man who would be put off by such an action is not worth having."

  Elizabeth, who strongly felt that quite the opposite was true, let out a strangled breath.

  Her father would be no use; but perhaps her uncle would help. And if not – they must at least be prepared…

  "Do as you like," her father said again, waving his hand in the air. "It is entirely of no consequence to me."

  Chapter 5.

  London was usually a place of pleasure for Elizabeth: seeing her favourite relatives, going to the theatre, calling on Mrs. Gardiner's friends and hearing amusing gossip. But this time she only saw how busy it was, how uncaring, how many people were going about their lives and how easy it was to be lost.

  Her anxieties proved true, and they did miss Mr. Gardiner, arriving a full two hours later than expected. The girls and Mr. Bennet proceeded to their relatives' home on Cheapside, where a servant welcomed them; they were expected, though the family was not at home.

  In the absence of a strong imperative to action from her father, E
lizabeth had put all her hopes in Mr. Gardiner, but he was caught up in a complex case, and arrived home very late.

  He and Mr. Bennet had a long argument behind a closed door, which ended in Mr. Bennet striding off swearing, and Mr. Gardiner reassuring Elizabeth that her father would of course accompany him to France to retrieve Lydia by whatever means necessary; that Mr. Bennet had seen his family duty; that Elizabeth need not worry, and furthermore if she and Jane liked, might even come along; many English holidaymakers were now making such a journey, and as the girls' stay in London had been diminished by the circumstances, they might enjoy a short visit abroad.

  Mr Gardiner said all these reassuring words with a distracted air that made Elizabeth more anxious than before. The girls were left alone to eat a small supper of cold meats, cheeses and the last of the morning bread rolls in the family dining room.

  "How can Father not see what great urgency there is?" Elizabeth cried.

  "He is thinking of the great expense of travelling," Louise said. "He is also thinking of the difficulty."

  "Father does like to be comfortable," Jane said. Mutinous, Elizabeth felt she could hear sympathy in Jane's voice. She felt abandoned – worse, she felt betrayed.

  "I shall out of question travel," Elizabeth said. She had the dim hope that if she could at least get her male relatives abroad, away from the comforts and distractions of their native England, they might handle the dire situation more ably. "I have two weeks' luggage and we are hardly unpacked."

  "And I also, ready to accompany Miss Elizabeth," Louise said.

  Her maid's voice made Elizabeth turn with surprise.

  "Louise," she said carefully, "I know that you've done our family great service." Louise, bright-eyed and alert, nodded.