Page 22 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

As he waited, and waited, and then waited yet more, George Wickham’s sanguine and pleased mood transmuted itself into a roiling, buzzing thick cloud of flies. Like turning gold into lead.

That damned kissing Lydia slut.

Slut. Slut. Slut. Slut!

Fucking fuck her.

He’d rip her fingers out once they had married. He’d pull her hair out, one small clump at a time. He’d kick her, punch her, beat her and — damn .

It was an hour past the appointed meeting time with Lydia Bennet.

He was on the verge of tears from frustration, anger, and disappointment. Couldn’t he once , for once , just once enjoy a little of the good fortune that fell on others in bounds?

Wickham clenched his teeth together so hard that they cracked and ached.

She wasn’t coming.

There had been a blessed time in Wickham’s life when he believed in happy fates, fairies, fairness, and that the world was a just and goodplace. That time was long past. He knew now that one always must pay attention to the reality of the situation, and not simply imagine things were the way they wished them to be.

She wasn’t coming. Even if she was late, an hour past the appointment was too much.

Had the stupid, indiscreet, stupidity of the bitch slut revealed her plan of laughingly fleeing to her family? He would either find himself challenged to a duel, or his position staying in the town and regiment would be made very difficult. Maybe the slatternly creature had just turned skittish.

She’d wanted his manly device. But the girl was still a virgin, and virgins often turned skittish and needed to be handled like unruly dogs when the point of climax came.

Maybe heiresses on the verge of elopement were like virgins, except he couldn’t be in their room, holding them, fixing their bodies in the right way, whispering to them to make them fulfill with their bodies the promise they had made with their sidelong glances and pleased flushes.

The curricle he’d rented — Cash Out Wickham, hahahaha — was slightly hidden behind a tall hedge in the small park of one of the notables. The scent of jasmine and rose filled the air, and bees buzzed pleasantly around. There was a soft breeze and pleasantly chilled morning air. The pleasant sound of attractive voices and footsteps sounded from the other side of the hedge.

They’d set the time for noon, and the traffic was in full flow.

“ Fuck ! Fuck! Fuck!”

With the horsewhip he systematically wrecked every flower that he could reach. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

It did not make him feel better.

Then he looked up from his destruction, and there she was.

Lydia Bennet stood there, pale, lips pressed together, arms pressed protectively over her chest, pretty blue bonnet fringed with pink.

He hurried over to her.

She shook her head as he approached. “George, I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t — didn’t sleep. Not a wink or a minute. It wouldn’t be right to Papa, or Mama, or my sisters, or—”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the carriage.

“George! Listen to me.” She tried to jerk her arm away from him, but he was stronger. “Lord! I can’t go with you.”

He sneered at her.

She really was just like a virgin in this matter. All smiles, touches, bumps and eagerness. Then once they were together in the bed, “No, no, no. I can’t.”

Wickham felt himself go hard. She’d be hesitant like that also when they reached the inn tonight, and he finally took her. He hadn’t had a woman for three weeks, and he hadn’t had a virgin for more than a year.

“George.” She writhed and wriggled harder. Pulling and shoving at him to try to get away when he pulled her next to the carriage.

“If you did not want to come with me, why did you come at all?”

“I couldn’t just leave you standing here, when I’d promised to meet.” She gasped. “That would have been awful, as though you were a joke. You aren’t, but—”

“Get in.”

She shook her head.

He pushed her up to the carriage.

But the girl refused to move.

Lydia was a tall, vigorous young woman, used to running, dancing, archery, and occasionally wrestling with the other girls from her school when they annoyed her. She angrily pushed Wickham away from her, and writhed her way out of his grasp.

After backing away several steps while staring at him, she angrily shouted, “I’d have not come, if I’d known you’d be a brute, George.”

“Fuck you, bitch.”

Wickham leapt on her. He grabbed the arm of her dress, and she desperately shoved and punched and kneed him. She tried to hit him with her head.

Wickham however was a man well used to dealing with the ineffectual struggles of women, and he knew that in general, once the matter was settled and beyond recovery, they were as eager as he to hide what happened from the world.

After two minutes of effort he had Lydia tangled together in his arms in a way where she could no longer strike effectively at him with any part of her body. He then dragged her towards the carriage, preparing to shove her up into the cart.

“I’ll scream,” she said.

“You won’t,” he replied with certainty. “It would ruin your reputation as thoroughly as mine.”

She screamed, and he punched her in the face to cut off the sound.

“Damn, damn girl! What is wrong with you?”

She cracked him in the head with her head again, and in the daze she leaped out of his grip, and began to scamper away.

Wickham was beginning to hate Lydia Bennet more than he’d ever hated any other woman, and he’d hated many women.

He barely managed to grab her by her boots and pull her to the ground.

She instantly flipped back over, and pulled in a breath, preparing to kick him in the face and scream bloody murder once more.

And he pulled his revolver from his coat pocket.

Miss Lydia Bennet was not in fact immune to fear.

She went white and stared at the metal weapon, her eyes wide and wobbly.

“George, you—”

“Get in the carriage.”

She kept staring at the gun.

“Or I’ll shoot you. I’ll shoot you dead. I’ll shoot you right through the brains.” And George Wickham knew he would. He would not let a second heiress escape from him. Lydia would marry him, or he would kill her. “Splatter, splatter.”

She seemed to understand his seriousness, for this time Lydia stood up, and without brushing or dusting herself off, she walked as unsteadily as a drunk in a burning brothel to the gig, and pulled herself up and into the seat. Without putting the revolver away, Wickham climbed up beside her.

They’d established the meeting point far enough away from Longbourn, and on the opposite direction from Meryton so that there was unlikely to be much traffic on the road who could recognize his companion as the daughter of one of the chief gentlemen of the town.

But now Wickham was worried that they would attract attention for a different reason.

A big purple bruise was growing on Lydia’s face and the sleeve of her dress was obviously torn.

Nothing to do for it, but smile at everyone he passed, and pretend nothing was of the matter.

They’d traveled two miles further on when a woman on horseback coming up the crossroad turned to stare widely at the carriage. She then broke into a gallop to reach them, and Wickham cursed as the woman closed the distance quickly.

As she came closer, Wickham recognized her as Caroline Bingley.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

She had certainly recognized Lydia in the carriage, and she would ride back quickly to town and raise the alarm, or at least inform Mr. Bennet, and the pursuit would be at most an hour behind him. There would be no way for him to get far enough ahead of them to escape on the Great Northern Road, and he wouldn’t have enough time in an inn before they caught up to have much certainty of completing his conquest of Lydia and forcing them to make her marry him.

Especially not with how recalcitrant the girl had turned out to be.

For all the bravado he’d felt an hour ago, he would not be able to shoot her when the result would be his certain capture and hanging. Shoot the girl, if he might escape and never be identified as the murderer, certainly.

But shoot her now ?

No.

Wickham shook out the reins, and snapped at the horses with the whip to encourage them to go faster.

The wind blew in their faces, knocking Lydia’s bonnet back. The wheels crunched over the dirt road, and they bounced up and down heavily.

And Caroline Bingley galloped behind them, quickly catching up.

Damn that bitch.

Wickham had no particular dislike for her, other than that she was a woman, and he had never really liked women. She had made Darcy an object of derision and mockery, and that was a mark in her favor.

She caught up and then passed them, and shouted at them from in front, “Stop, stop this carriage!”

The stupid bint meant to stop them herself?

Wickham pulled sharply on the reins, and then as he went for his revolver to threaten her, Lydia shouted in a panicked scream, “He’s got a gun! A gun!”

And like with Lydia, just the lovely magical sight of a pocket piece was sufficient to quiet down a raging woman. If only he’d known before the lovely salutary effect that sincere threats of murder tended to have on women, he’d have used them more often.

Miss Bingley stared at the weapon that Wickham pointed at her heart. She was pale. And then she looked up at him, with a sort of serious, almost accepting frown. “Let Miss Lydia go.”

What could he do.

Shoot her?

A gunshot was not an unknown sound on any country field. Men would often shoot at birds, or rats, or just for the fun of it. But it was noticeable, especially when one was not in the hunting grounds of some gentleman. Others might come.

But the real reason not to shoot her was much simpler.

Wickham did not want to be hung. Despite his disappointments, he loved his life, and he was in no mood to throw it away.

There was a near certainty that even if he later killed Lydia, that he’d be identified as the murderer. And even if he got to Gretna Green and forced Lydia to mouth the ceremonial words, or just convinced a witness to sign the register without her saying them, there would be no way that he could enjoy access to her fortune if he was a hunted murderer.

But Miss Bingley did not know that.

The afternoon sun beat down on them. Wickham kept his gun steady, unwavering. Something happy inside him craved the chance to pull the trigger like he craved for women’s bodies.

He hated them all.

“You should let Miss Lydia go,” the woman repeated. She breathed shallowly as she stared at the gun. “It is clear that she does not wish to be in your company.”

“She’s mine! My money! I’m not going to let her go without twenty thousand pounds! Get off your damn horse.”

Miss Bingley looked back at his face and then back at his gun. She seemed frozen like a mouse that was about to be viciously torn apart by a cat.

Wickham viciously gestured with his gun. “Off the horse, or I’ll fucking shoot you. Don’t doubt that I will. Fucking off. Now .”

Without any further words Miss Bingley dismounted. She was pale, and her hand trembled.

Wickham shouted at her horse, “Go! Go! Get away.”

The horse did not move.

“Send it away! Make it run away.”

Miss Bingley stared at his gun, and then she forced her eyes towards him. They were large and scared. She took a deep breath, looked at the gun again, and then looked down at the roadway. He could barely hear her mumbled voice. “You ought to take me with you instead of Lydia.”

“What?”

Miss Bingley walked up to the gig. She stared at the gun unblinkingly as she moved closer.

“You would…” There was a tremor in her voice. She swallowed, muttered something under her breath that sounded like a desperate prayer, a Dear God, help me. “My fortune is as great as Lydia’s, and I have full and immediate control over it.”

She stared at the big wheel of the gig. When Wickham didn’t reply immediately, she added, “Your chief aim must be Lydia’s dowry. As an intimate of the family I am aware of the arrangements set up for how it will be dispersed, and while the funds are settled to be given to Lydia following Mr. Bennet’s death, her access to them, and even the payment of the income can be controlled by Mr. Bennet during his life.”

“He won’t leave his daughter to starve, or—”

“He’ll ensure that you never have any chance to touch the principle, and that the bulk of the income is pin money for Lydia. You’d be left your entire life begging a wife who you’ve taught today to despise you for money, and there would be nothing for you at all should she die.”

Wickham ground his teeth. “He’ll do better by me, or I’ll fucking kill his daughter.” While he didn’t look away from Miss Bingley, so he could keep his revolver pointed at her, he stomped hard on Lydia’s foot that sat next to his on the carriage floor, so she screeched in pain.

Something changed in Miss Bingley’s face. She took another deep breath, and her expression became almost serene. “It would be greatly to your benefit if you forced me to marry you instead. As soon as the marriage ceremony is complete, my entire fortune would without delay legally become your property. And I am of age, there is no need to elope to Scotland, any parish in England would do.”

Wickham both felt severely tempted and as though it must be some sort of trap. “Why are you suggesting this?”

“If one of us deserves to suffer under an awful fate, it ought to be me.” She spoke clearly and now calmly at him, seemingly ignoring the pistol that he kept aimed at her chest. She was so close now that there was no way he could miss if he pulled the trigger. “Lydia, do get out of this carriage. You are occupying my position.”

“But—” Lydia looked between the gun, Miss Bingley, and Wickham. She got out without further words. As soon as she did, Miss Bingley climbed up next to him. The only sign of her tension was that her hand trembled on the carriage seat.

Wickham looked between the two girls.

Lydia Bennet stared up at them wide eyed.

Wickham exclaimed, “Oh, fine!”

He grabbed Miss Bingley’s thigh and squeezed hard. “You’re a prettier slut, even if you already let Darcy fuck you. Never thought I’d be taking his leftovers, not even for twenty thousand cash. But if I have no choice, I’ll do what I need to.”

She flinched at his touch. Stared at the gun. And then pressed herself as far away from him in the seat as she could. That serenity was falling away from her.

Wickham cruelly laughed at her terror, and he whipped the horses into motion.

They left Lydia Bennet standing next to Caroline Bingley’s saddled horse on the empty rural road.