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Caroline Bingley was sitting with Lady Elizabeth, Franny, and Mrs. Madeline Gardiner and Mrs. Gardiner was congratulating Caroline on being courted by Graham.

She loved her niece and nephew and believed that Caroline and her nephew would be very happy.

She was as excited from what she could see and the snippet of conversation that she had heard, she was reasonably sure that Franny would not be single for too much longer, so both of the Phillips children were finding their matches in the Bingley family.

Mrs. Gardiner could not believe that the woman sitting with her niece was the same person that she had met some years ago when Mr. Bingley, Charles’s father, had purchased a ten percent stake in Gardiner and Associates. She thought back to when she had first made their acquaintance.

Caroline Bingley had her nose in the air as if there was a bad smell in the room.

She had been very disappointed when her father had purchased a townhouse on Gracechurch Street not far from the Gardiner’s house as Caroline had felt that their house should be in Mayfair.

They were wealthy, after all, and as she let one and all know, she had a dowry of twenty thousand pounds.

Things had only gotten worse when the young lady joined her older sister at the pretentious Mrs. Havisham’s Seminary for Ladies.

Daughters of members of the Ton had looked down on and derided the Bingley sisters for their roots in trade.

The lesson that the older took away was that it was sad that some used standards other than one’s character to judge them, while Caroline tried to emulate them and started to treat people that she deemed below her worse and worse.

It became harder to bear the young lady’s company and pretentions for any length of time.

Louisa Bingley, now Mrs. Hurst, did not display the same airs and graces as her younger sister while the middle child, Charles, had always been affable and pleasant to be with.

Louisa had married Harold Hurst a month after the three siblings completed their mourning period.

The Bingley parents had died when tragedy struck, and their carriage overturned on the way back from Yorkshire four Christmases ago.

Hurst had a townhouse in London, not in the area that most members of the Ton resided, but closer than Gracechurch Street so Caroline, who had become Miss Bingley spent most of her time with the Hursts until her new brother restricted the amount of time that she could spend at his home.

No one was sure what happened, but the Miss Bingley who had invited herself to join her brother on a visit to the Darcy Estate in Derbyshire, Pemberley, was not the same one that returned to London.

She had changed, seemingly overnight to a pleasant young lady with impeccable manners with whom one wanted to be around.

There was never a mention of her dowry again and she no longer tried to hide her roots in trade from the world.

Madeline Gardiner, Aunt Maddie to the Bingley siblings, was brought out of her reverie by the young ladies laughing softly at something.

She decided that the mystery of what happened to change Caroline into the young woman that she had grown to love, almost like another daughter, would remain a mystery until and unless Caroline decided to reveal all to her.

She would not ask or try to force a confidence, and regardless of how it came about she loved the pleasant young lady that had emerged.

She held her in as much esteem as she did her nieces and nephews.

The fact that Miss Bingley had been accepted as a friend by the Bennets and her niece Lizzy, specifically spoke volumes to who Caroline was now.

“I am sorry, Caroline, what did you say? I was wool-gathering,” Mrs. Gardiner said a little chagrined that she had missed what was said to her.

“I was asking if you will return to Town before Jane and Marie’s wedding, or will you and Uncle Edward wait until after the wedding?” asked a smiling Caroline Bingley.

It had been a revelation for Elizabeth and the rest of the Bennets when they found out just how close the Bingleys were to the Gardiners.

That they were business associates was well known, but it was only when the Gardiners arrived to visit that the strength of the connection was revealed.

Elizabeth and the rest of her family were impressed that once the Bingleys had become aware of the familial connections that they had not tried to use their connection to the Gardiners in any way to their advantage.

“Edward needs to attend to business, so we will go to Town after the New Year and return some days before the wedding in time for the ball that your Mama,” she looked at Elizabeth, “informed us she is planning for two days prior to the nuptials.”

“Luckily, Madam Chambourg herself was in Meryton this last week to oversee my older sisters’ wedding gowns.

The final fittings will be after the New Year which leaves more than enough time for any adjustments to be made.

” Lady Elizabeth turned to Caroline, “I hear that you and Louisa are on her list of clients now. I wonder how that came about,” she teased her friend.

“You are excused from giving me a gift for the rest of my life, Lizzy. Not in my wildest imaginings did I ever think that Louisa and I would ever be added to her list of accepted clients,” Miss Bingley gushed.

“It was my pleasure, Caroline,” Elizabeth smiled playfully at her friend.

The local visitors left before supper, and it was a very contented group that found their way into their beds that Christmas night.

Lady Elizabeth Bennet did not understand why, but she felt pangs of regret that Mr. Darcy would not be attending her sisters’ weddings.

She did understand that why he had decided not to attend and wished that she had not been so harsh with him in the past.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Two days after Christmas, George Wickham was shown into the dingy office of the Spaniard, Juan Antonio álvarez.

álvarez had been in London for over twenty years.

He had left the ship on which he was a crewmember when he was two and twenty after the ship docked in Portsmouth.

With the help of José , a friend from his hometown, they had broken the lock on the strong box in the captain’s day cabin and made off with all of the ship’s funds, unconcerned that the money was meant to pay their fellow crewmates.

Showing the lack of loyalty, which was one his hallmark traits, when they were away from prying eyes, álvarez had requested that his friend check to see how much they made off with, and as soon as José turned his back, he had cut his friend’s throat in a way the murdering criminal liked to call ‘a permanent smile’.

álvarez disposed of his ‘friend’s’ body by pushing his mortal remains into a river.

José was the first victim he interred in a watery grave, but not the last, by any means.

His first destination was Leeds where he used the blood money to purchase a piece of property, he turned into a gambling hall.

He was smart enough to know that there was a lot of money to be made from those insensible enough to gamble away their fortunes.

After four years he owned three gambling houses and two houses of ill repute where tables were available for the ‘patrons’ to play games of chance.

He was ruthless, and it was not long before all who came in contact with him learnt not to cross the Spaniard.

By year eight he had doubled his empire and was raking in a very respectable profit, earned almost entirely from illegal and immoral means each year.

In his gaming houses he gave a new ‘client’ a taste of winning to suck them in and then would fleece them for as much as they wanted to lose.

If cheating was needed to increase his profits, so much the better.

By the tenth year he had sold his empire in Leeds for a very healthy profit and moved to London.

He bought a number of properties in St. Giles, Hackney, and Stepney, again opening gaming houses and houses of ill repute.

He had no interest in being in the areas that the Ton inhabited; he did not need or want the scrutiny.

No matter how much money he had, álvarez knew that as a foreigner of low bastard birth he would never be accepted in British society, so he contented himself building his London based empire.

George Wickham had come to his attention when he had started making large wagers in one of his gaming houses.

He had his man in charge check, and it was discovered that the man had between three and four thousand pounds and was a bad card player to boot.

The dealers were instructed to initially let him win a few hands, and then over a number of months they took it all.

It was not many months more before Wickham was deeply in debt to the Spaniard .

With the original amount, plus the compounded ‘fees’ and interest that had been added, the sum that was owed grew from the original five thousand pounds to now exceed ten thousand.

Wickham was unceremoniously shoved into álvarez’s office by Scarface. Neither man could believe that after evading them so effectively for so long that the idiot they were staring at walked into the lion’s den.

“Are you mad, Senior Jorge ?” álvarez asked in his heavy Spanish accent. “Do you ‘ave my money? If no, your life, she is over.”

“I do not have it today , but if you hear me out you will see that I will be able to get you double what I owe you if you help me attain my goal,” Wickham tried to convey confidence, but he was very worried that he may have erred. “Will you hear me out?”

“You are still alive, no?” álvarez stated with deceptive ease as he cleaned dirt from under his fingernails with a dagger.