Page 71 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
“Well, it’s too late, isn’t it?” said the colonel. “All we’re going to be able to do is to insist that he marries her.”
“We can do that?”
“That or shoot him,” said the colonel. “I wouldn’t mind shooting him.”
Elizabeth was a bit taken aback at that.
“I don’t know why I’m saying ‘we,’” said the colonel. “It’s not as if you can come along with me. You’re an unmarried woman. You’ll have to stay here. I shall go after him.”
Being an unmarried woman was dreadfully inconvenient, wasn’t it?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MR. CHARLES BINGLEYwas roused by a servant, who spoke and spoke, but Bingley comprehended none of it until he heard the name Bennet.
Then, he was wide awake.
Truly, if Caroline had been there, she likely would have scolded him for sleeping so late. It was late morning, late for lying in.
When he saw his unlikely guest, he thought she must have been lost on the streets of London for hours upon hours.
She was in the kitchens, bedraggled, dirty, shaking, clutching a cup of tea and looking too shocked to cry. “I am sorry. I should not have trespassed on your hospitality, but I have been walking a long time, and this place is closer than my aunt’s and uncle’s. If I’d had the presence of mind for it, I would have waited to get away from him, but I was an idiot.”
Jane Bennet. The elder sister.
He sat down across from her. She was pretty, wasn’t she? Maybe she was prettier when she was dirty than when she wasn’t? Or maybe he’d been sort of dazzled by the sister, by Elizabeth, and hadn’t taken the time to properly consider this one.
“No apologies, Miss Bennet,” he said. “You mustn’t be down here, at the servant’s entrance. You are our guest.”
“Oh, no, sir, I am ruined,” she said, making a face. “You will wish to deny that you let me inside your house, trust me. This way, you can tell the servants to put out that I was someone else, if anyone should inquire into the uprightness of the household.”
He regarded her, her appearance, what she’d just said, and something inside him turned inside out. He shot up from the table and began barking orders to the servants. Miss Bennet needed a blanket, and she needed something sweet to eat, and would someone, for the love of God, go to his study and fetch his whisky because she likely needed a strong drink and—
She was on her feet, eyes wide. “Stop. Have you not heard what I’ve just said?”
“Can you manage the stairs?” he said. “I should like to take you upstairs to somewhere more comfortable. Let me know if you’d like a bath, or simply to be alone, perhaps to rest on a bed—”
“I am not staying here,” she said. “I want nothing more than to rest here, inside, for a quarter hour, and then I shall be on my way to Gracechurch Street. I would not put you out in this manner, sir. I am ever so sorry. I had hoped that I would not disturb anyone. If I had not known this was your house because of the descriptions given in my sister’s letters, I would not have even thought to trespass. Truly, the fact I have, it must mean that my wits are addled. What am I thinking?” She shook, looking around, out of sorts. “All right, I shall go. I believe I can walk again, and—”
“No,” he said. He did something mad. He touched her. It wasn’t proper, and it likely wasn’t anything she welcomed after whatever horrific experience she’d been through, but she wasn’t thinking clearly and could not care for herself, so he must intervene. He put his hand against the small of her back and began to steer her toward the servants’ stairs. “We’re going up to the drawing room, Miss Bennet.”
She sputtered, trying to mount a protest, but he was guiding her now, and she seemed to give up and surrender.
Good.
He realized he should likely not saddle her with a number of choices. She was overwhelmed and frightened, and she would need him to steer the ship, as it were. He could ascertain what was needed for her well-being and he must do it, because she was in no state to do it for herself.
Soon, he had her upstairs in the drawing room, sitting in a comfortable, tufted chair, with a blanket wrapped around her, and the servants were setting out her tea from downstairs along with an assortment of sweetbread.
He shut them out as soon as all was prepared, telling them not to enter unless they were called for. He sincerely hoped they would not listen at doors.
He was having a full-body reaction that was puzzling to him, but he didn’t have time to think about it. He simply knew it was right and that he would act. He came back to sit opposite her. “I wish to kill him, whoever he is.”
She drew back, her face ashen. “What?”
“I should like him strung up. I think that would be best, really, and it could be done. But I also know that watching the spectacle of that might be worse for you than what you’ve already been through—”
“What do you think happened to me?”
