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“You seem to do better than I thought you would, though that bruise looks atrocious. You would tell me if you were suffering too badly, right Lizzie?” Cupping her daughter’s unharmed cheek, Mrs. Bennet looked into her eyes.

The bruise on Elizabeth’s face was ugly, turning green around the edges and purple at the center.

Holding her Mama’s hand to her good cheek, Elizabeth tried to reassure her.

“I am all right, Mama; my arm is much better than it was, and Jane’s tea is helping.

Mostly I am just frustrated. I cannot do everything like I always do.

Jane and the maids have to help me get dressed.

I cannot even cut my food.” She grumbled and then blushed slightly, remembering how Mr. Darcy had seen her dilemma and reached around her to cut her ham and eggs for her.

Fanny Bennet grinned at her flustered daughter. “That blush is new. Are you neglecting to tell your mother something?” She often regretted that her daughters had such solemn lives; they rarely flirted and enjoyed themselves as she had done as a girl.

Unable to meet her mother’s eyes, Elizabeth looked down, studying the sling that she still wore.

She tried to speak as if the words she spoke were not so very monumental.

“Mr. Darcy spoke with me this morning and we have come to an understanding. He has asked for a formal courtship. I think he would be happy to have proposed, but we both seem to have family issues we are concerned about. He asked me to call him by his Christian name.” She ended her comment in a whisper, slightly embarrassed to disclose this to her mother.

“I think that is rational. There is no need to rush. You have plenty of time. I am happy for you, my dear. He seems like a wonderful man. I will still ask your uncle to look into him, though.” Mrs. Bennet hoped the first of her daughters had found her way into a happy future.

“We are both worried about Father. How do you think he will take it? Mr. Darcy wants to ask Father for his permission to court me.” Elizabeth was becoming more determined to stop her father’s reign of terror.

“He will not take it well. I know that much. I fear he may focus his anger on you. It might be best to speak with him now. Maybe he will have cooled off by the time you return home. He may even become distracted by new events. He does not know, but Mr. Collins has proposed to Charlotte, and she has accepted. I have cautioned him not to let Mr. Bennet know, so the only way he’ll find out is when the banns are read aloud in church on Sunday.

If your Mr. Darcy is bold enough to ask your father about it today or tomorrow, his focus will not stay on him for long.

I cannot promise he will respond positively either way.

” Mrs. Bennet was interested to see what her husband’s reaction would be.

He was too used to wielding his power and had not felt the pressure of a challenge in far too long. He would grossly misjudge Mr. Darcy.

“Do you think your aunt will be here soon?” Darcy questioned Bingley.

“Within a day or two, I think. Caroline has broken almost everything in her room. I have asked her maid to keep a tally of it all and I will subtract the cost from what is left of her pin money for the year. She is getting her meals brought up on trays. I let her know I have not confined her to her room. She can walk in the garden or even spend time with all of us, but she must be polite to everyone. She has stayed in her room.” Bingley sighed.

He loved his sister, but she drove him crazy.

“I do not know what is worse—dealing with a spoiled brat or a stubborn ignoramus,” Theodore growled.

“Is the colonel causing more issues?” Darcy guessed.

Theodore hated to see such inept behavior when he knew what needed to be done.

He grumbled under his breath momentarily before responding.

“Though he is now admitting that Wickham is not the upstanding fellow he had assumed, I find his idea of what makes up a search ineffective in the extreme.” Rolling his eyes, Theodore tapped his foot rapidly in frustration, his annoyance bordering on anger.

“What is he doing that is so wrong? How complicated can a search be?” Bingley questioned.

“He has confined his search to checking all of Wickham’s likely escape routes from the region and preventing him from leaving.

He is coordinating with the stage and the hostler about refusing Wickham any means of transportation.

I asked the townspeople to inform him if they came across him, after they tell me, of course.

” Theodore’s tactician’s mind saw all the holes in Forester’s plan.

“I know you are not resting on your laurels because someone else is a fool. What have you been working on?” Darcy asked.

Theodore smiled knowingly at his cousin.

Sometimes they could almost read each other with no conversation.

“I have not been idle like some others who have spent the morning with their lady loves. I have been speaking with various estate owners and Hugh has been reaching out to the tenants, putting out the word of Wickham’s dealings.

If anyone sees something odd, they know to come to me and let me know. ”

“Do you think he is still in the area, or has he escaped and gone to ground again?” Bingley spoke while looking through the papers he had brought from his study.

“I think he is hiding, probably in an unused hunting cabin somewhere. It is like knowing a poisonous snake is living in the tall grass. He is going to come out and bite you at some point, but you cannot tell when.” Theodore felt the need to deal with this snake sooner rather than later.

Bingley had never considered what it would take to search for someone.

It involved more than he had imagined. “I can see how we do not have the manpower to search all the abandoned buildings in the area. He could even camp out in the woods, though he has never struck me as that kind of fellow,” he asserted.

“If he rears his head long enough, we will be there to lop the snake’s head off. Hopefully, it is simply a matter of time.” Theodore grinned at the imagery.

“We may have two snakes to deal with.” Darcy hoped they would help him come up with a plan to assist the Bennet ladies.

“I thought you were wooing this morning, not finding new enemies,” Theodore ribbed his normally reserved cousin.

Darcy tapped his fingers against each other, trying to focus and devise a plan of attack.

The anger he felt would not help him right now.

“I spent a lovely interval with Miss Elizabeth. While I was concerned about how she would take to the madness of the ton and Aunt Catherine, she was concerned with her father. Though we are both happy to be in an official courtship, it is not quite official until her father approves.” He practically growled the word “father.” That man did not deserve the term.

“I have never spoken with the gentleman. Come to think of it, we have been to their home several times. We really should have met him by now.” Bingley realized the oddity of the situation.

“He is angry over inheriting the estate and in an act of petty revenge, he is trying to drive it into the ground. He pays no attention to any issues, and he remains in his study, reading and consuming port, ruminating on his own superiority. People have long known of his cruelty to the ladies. Even though she was only a little girl, the memory of the injury he caused her still lingers in Miss Kitty’s mind.

Elizabeth said it affects her to this day.

Elizabeth seems to fear he will retaliate against her sisters and mother, as he does not want them to have the chance of being contented. ” Such behavior confounded Darcy.

Bingley had no notion that things had been bad for Miss Bennet.

Then again, he knew she took a lot on to herself.

“You are right about him being a snake. That is despicable. Now we have two snakes to behead.” Bingley wanted to rush in to help save the day, but did Miss Bennet want him to save her? She surprised him often.

“I am afraid that this snake will be more difficult to behead. It is one of the many things that my brother has tried to bring up in Parliament. Women have no power to protect themselves from ill-intentioned male relatives. If we are to take him on, we will need more information. Do you think you will ask him soon?” Theodore’s older brother, the current earl, had told him occasionally of the issues he was trying to bring up and how things kept getting moved to the side because of the war.

It was one thing to hear that a girl he did not know was being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous family.

It was another thing to know her and see the damage being caused.

“Elizabeth is speaking with her mother now to see if she has had a suggestion of how soon it might work.” Darcy hoped the conversation was going well.

Theodore started thinking of some scenarios his brother had brought to his attention in the past. It was possible that one of them could help with one of the two snakes they were facing.

“I would suggest that you learn as much as possible about him. We might have a few options if we know what he wants more than port and being a contemptible fool.” Whatever happened, he had a feeling that Mr. Bennet would regret it if he pushed Darcy.

Despite his unease in large groups, Darcy was undeterred and fiercely protective of those he cared for.