Page 78 of Elizabeth and Caroline

She smiled. “Well, for your sake, I hope so. For your sake, I hope you find some way to put your talents to good use, really. Otherwise,someoneis going to kill you, and you won’t be able to talk yourself out of it. You and I both know it’s true.”

“I’m not going to become a solicitor just because you toldme to do it, you know.”

“Of course not,” she said with a shrug. “Well, God have mercy on your soul, Mr. Wickham. You really are a tragic waste of good talents.” She shrugged, sniffing dramatically, and then she walked off.

The next morning, Mr. Wickham was gone, having somehow convinced the servants to let him go free.

Mr. Darcy gave chase, but Elizabeth thought his heart might not be in it.

When she got a letter from Caroline sometime in the midst of December which happened to mention offhand that Mr. Wickham had set up shop as a solicitor in London and that Colonel Fitzwilliam was waiting for the man to make one false move and he would end him, Elizabeth couldn’t stop herself from throwing back her head and letting out a long and happy laugh.

Soon enough, she would need to convince her husband that they must all go back to London.

She had given up matchmaking as a serious undertaking, it was true, but her sister-in-law was in need of a good match, and perhaps she and Caroline might take some time away from their new baby daughters to see to the happiness of Georgiana Darcy.

It wasn’t always a terrible thing to be a bit manipulative, she thought, not if one’s manipulation encouraged the good in a person.

She had seen too much darkness in herself, but her husband had seen her light. If she could see the light in someone like Mr. Wickham, well, that must mean there was light in truly everyone.

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