Page 112 of Colour My World
Her father smirked. “Only a minor wager. Nothing you need concern yourself with.”
“About?”
He turned to Mrs Ecclestone. “Shall I tell her, or shall you?”
Mrs Ecclestone stirred her tea. “Oh, I think she already knows.”
Elizabeth turned to Jane. Herairewas white.Judas.
Mr Bingley’s words rang in her head.“I never imagined you the jealous sort.”
Elizabeth scowled. Jane smiled. Mr Bennet chuckled. Mrs Bennet clutched Mrs Ecclestone’s arm and giggled.Giggled!
Chapter 40
Netherfield Park, November 21, 1811
Barty hovered at the door.
Darcy looked up. “What is it?”
His valet stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and said quietly, “It is confirmed, sir. They are come.”
“Who?”
“Villiers. Reeves. Legget. They ride with the colonel.”
The heat from the hearth no longer reached him. He crossed to the fire and stared into it. “I had thought them still on the Continent.”
“Dispensation, they say. No one dares ask who signed it.”
“Armourers—here?”
“Aye.”
Villiers. Reeves. Legget. Fitzwilliam.
Conquest. War. Famine. Death.
The Four Horsemen rode, not for the peninsula, but for Meryton. Somewhere, the Earl of Matlock had broken the seals.
* * *
Meryton, November 23, 1811
George Wickham sat hunched in the dim corner of the Red Bull Inn, one booted foot stretched to the hearth and a dented tankard of ale in his hands. The common room reeked of pipe smoke and spilled ale. A guttering tallow candle lit the gnawed bone from his meagre supper.
Behind him, three militiamen he did not recognise spun tall tales.
“Ye sure o’ that?”
“Aye. It’s the fifteenth, no mistake.”
“Bloodthirsty lot, every man jack of ’em.”
“Their commander’s worst o’ the bunch.”
“For the Frogs. Can’t say I blame ’em.”
