Page 110 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
“Wickie?” I said, distaste curling my lip. Wickham gave an indulgent smile.
“You are so cross!” Lydia flounced to me and poked my chest with her finger.
There was talc on her face, and rouge on her cheeks to offset the pallor. That was odd. Lydia was proud of her natural complexion. Powder was an antiquated cosmetic of elderly ladies.
Under the chalk, spidery lines covered her forehead as though her veins had darkened.
Lydia’s fingertip still pressed me. I stepped out of reach. “How are you here? Mr. Wickham has a commission in Newcastle.”
Wickham rose, feline-deft, and slipped his arm around Lydia’s waist. She rested her head on his shoulder adoringly.
“I have found better opportunities,” he said. “The advantage of a paid commission is that it may be declined. There was even some return of funds.”
I had wondered if Mr. Darcy purchased Wickham’s commission. Men whodid not prove their merit in the militia had to pay for the security of an army officer’s rank. It would seem that Wickham’s merit remained obscure.
Thousands of pounds would have been paid to secure a respectable living for him and my sister. Without doubt, most of it was lost already.
“You kept the uniform,” I noted.
“My wyfe enjoys it,” he said with a roguish grin.
“It is very handsome,” Mamma added sincerely. I bit back a groan.
“Whyare you here?” Mary asked.
For all that Lydia accused me of being cross, Mary was openly hostile, her arms folded and her face like stone.
“Oh, Mary,” Lydia said in a pitying tone. “Whathashappened to your hair? And that dress is—” She stopped, her eyes narrowing, then her mouth opened in a furious O as she recognized the clothing under Mary’s stitched layers of black lace.
“Lydia,” I said to head off a shouting match. “Please tell us why you have come.”
With a spiteful glare at Mary, Lydia turned to me. “Well, Papa died…” she said vaguely, as if discussing the weather.
I waited. When nothing more came, I said dryly, “I am aware.”
“I wished to visit my new family,” Wickham inserted smoothly.
“For how long?” Mary shot in from across the room.
And then I knew why he had come. I even knew his answer before his lips moved.
“Oh, a week or so,” he said with a smile.
“Let us see the garden!” Lydia interrupted. She grabbed Wickham’s hand and dragged him toward the rear of the house. My mother hurried after them, leaving Mary and me alone.
I flexed tense fingers. “I do not like this.”
Mary’s reply was bitter. “Why dislike receiving the sister who killed Papa?”
“Mary! She did not intend such an outcome.” Mary stared, unbudging. “I admit Lydia’s lack of grief is shameful. But Wickham…”
“I never trusted Wickham, and Papa’s dislike was more adamant than mine. As for our ungrieving sister, in the last year, Lydia has become opaque to me. She was a selfish child, but this behavior is more than shameful. It is vile. Her indifference to Denny’s death was equally evil. As a woman, she has perfected self-absorption.”
That was a savage critique. I had always thought of Mary’s condemnationsas abstract and scholarly. Then I remembered her criticism of me at the ball. Perhaps I had learned to listen more closely.
“When did you last read the entailment?” I asked.
“Never,” Mary said. “The male heir inherits. What is there to read?”
