Page 33

J ane heard the key turn in the lock. She felt hope rise in her breast that her ordeal was over. A huge footman stood in the doorframe.

“Follow me. Don’ think of escaping,” Biggs commanded.

It was not hard for Jane to realise that she was not being freed.

She was led up from the cellar to a drawing room where several people were seated; none of them looked upon her with a friendly eye.

The Duke sat next to Lizzy; her hand was in his!

What had occurred while she had been locked up in the cellar?

Jane looked around the room and noted that both sets of aunts and uncles were present, as were Mary, Charlotte, and Mr Barrington.

The huge footman stood between her and the door while she saw another equally enormous footman right behind the Duke and her half-sister.

“Your fate is already decided, but tell us a lie, and it will go far worse for you,” the Duke barked. Then he added, “Be candid and honest, and things may improve.”

A cold shiver traversed Jane’s spine. In the faces of those staring back at her she could see there would be no mercy. She had no choice but to answer the questions truthfully. “I will reply honestly,” she vowed.

“Why Jane? Why attempt to harm me when you had a good life? Until we discovered you had been meeting with Mrs Bennet, you said you had seen the error of your ways and how wrong all her pronouncements were?” Elizabeth demanded.

“Although I did not trust you completely, I have never done anything to harm you.”

“You have the name I wanted, that my mother promised to me,” Jane blurted out.

“Surely you are not so deficient as to not understand that my sister could not promise you that which she had no power to grant? Mr Bennet denied repeated petitions to adopt you and give you his name,” Gardiner quizzed.

“How can you expect something that was never granted to you, and how is that related to Lizzy? She is in fact the first-born daughter of Thomas Bennet, hence until she marries her fiancé and resigns the name, she is, and since birth has been, Miss Bennet. When she becomes the Duchess of Hertfordshire, Mary will have the moniker of Miss Bennet. Even had your dastardly plan succeeded, it would not have given you the name you seem to covet.”

“ SHE IS TO BE A DUCHESS !” the normally placid Jane screamed.

“Yes, Miss Millar, that is the normal course of things when one marries a duke,” Elizabeth responded sarcastically.

“Do you think my betrothed is so inconsistent that if your, and I suspect Mrs Bennet’s, plan had worked, and I had been severely hurt or worse, he would have turned his attention to you? ”

“Tell me, Miss Millar, how did it work for you when you attempted your brand of flirting with me?” Hertfordshire added. “And for that matter, how much success did you have when you tried to turn my nephew from his now fiancée to yourself?”

“B-but I-I c-could n-n-not b-be s-s-s-so b-beautiful for n-nothing,” Jane stammered out.

“That is my sister’s oft repeated nonsense, which has never been true, not about herself, and not about you,” Gardiner stated harshly.

“Before Lizzy was ever in the neighbourhood, when she was living with us thanks to your mother’s wrongheaded ideas and cruelty, how many men in the area ever approached you to court you, or get to know you? ”

“Mama said that was because they associated me with Lizzy,” Jane replied with her head hung. As she said it, she knew it was a lie.

“That is because Fanny Bennet can never accept that her bad behaviour has consequences, and she chose Lizzy as her primary, convenient, whipping boy to explain away all of her own faults. To a lesser extent, her three youngest daughters were used for that purpose as well,” Hattie Phillips said.

“Do you know that the woman you have been trying to emulate was known as an incorrigible flirt and light skirt? You have tried the former, but so far you have not been called the latter. As my brother pointed out, no one wanted anything to do with you because of your and your mother’s characters.

It had nothing to do with Lizzy or her sisters.

“Something my sister never learnt is that although men will take what they are freely given, just like your late father did, any man of character has no interest in one whose facade may be pleasant but is an empty vessel with no character, education, or accomplishments.”

Jane was reeling. She was aware there would be no sympathy here, but the truth hit her like a blacksmith’s hammer, over and over and over again. “I only followed what my mother taught me,” she attempted to excuse herself weakly.

“Tell me, Miss Millar, how old are you?” Phillips demanded.

“I was nineteen in February. What has that to do with anything?” Jane asked in her reply.

“Just this, Miss Millar. You are no longer a little girl in leading strings, and unless you are deaf, dumb, and blind, once you were old enough to think for yourself, you would have known your mother was wrong in all of her assertions. For a brief moment when you went to Mr Bennet after your mother was banished from Longbourn, you allowed good sense to rule. Then as soon as your eyes turned green when you saw what Lizzy and her sisters have that you do not, you reverted back to who you were. That, Miss Millar, was a choice you made, so you, and you alone are responsible for your actions,” Hertfordshire bit out.

Everyone else in the room, other than Miss Millar, nodded their agreement.

“Now it is time to cease excuses and tell the truth,” Phillips instructed.

“Did you decide to attempt to harm Lizzy on your own and make the plan yourself, or did your mother instigate and plan this?” Phillips paused as he looked at his disgraced niece with disdain in his eyes.

“If you lie and take this on yourself, you will be tried, and hung, for the crime of attempted murder.”

Even though she had not been invited to sit, Jane felt her legs grow weak.

The footman behind her stopped her from falling.

Her mother had assured her that there would be no consequences for either of them.

Jane finally admitted to herself that against her better judgement, she had accepted her mother’s assurances without question.

She had no illusion that she would be pardoned and set free, but she remembered the Duke’s words at the outset.

She had to tell the truth, or it would not be good for her, much worse in fact.

“Once I allowed my envy to get the better of me, I began meeting with my mother. The day I saw the affection between His Grace and Lizzy…” Jane began with bowed head and stopped speaking when Lizzy interjected.

“That is Miss Bennet to you, Miss Millar. Only my friends and family call me Lizzy, and you madam, are neither,” Elizabeth interpolated frostily.

“I understand. Seeing that His Grace favoured Miss Bennet and looked right through me stoked the fires of jealousy and hate. I went to see my mother, who I began to call on after the first visit the previous year. There, I poured out my perceived ill-usage to her. She urged me to remove, in her words, the unnatural, demon child , and I would have all I desired. I wanted to believe her, even though deep down I knew it was not true,” Jane admitted.

“What you told us now only proves how demented your mother is,” Anthony bit out. “Lizzy was born of her body. If she is anything your mother claims, what does that make her?”

Jane gasped. She had never considered that before. “Now that I have told the truth, what will happen to me?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

The Duke spoke softly to Elizabeth so only she could hear.

“With my Lizzy’s agreement, instead of swinging at the end of the hangman’s noose or transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, you will go into service at my estate in Ireland.

If the reports we receive show genuine contrition and adjustment to your character, we will revisit your future,” Hertfordshire announced as his fiancée nodded her agreement.

“Before we spoke, you were, along with that horrendous woman who claims to be a mother, to be transported. Your mother will be branded, and serve fourteen years of hard labour, and if she survives the voyage and her punishment, she will remain in Van Diemen’s Land for the rest of her days.

The alternative is for her to be tried and then executed. ”

As she fought to keep from casting up her accounts, Jane realised she had escaped a many month voyage across the oceans and a permanent removal from England. Her lot would not be easy, but she at least had the chance for a certain level of redemption.

Orders were issued for Biggs, Johns, and some of the other men to go to Sir William, the local magistrate, and then to arrest Mrs Bennet.

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

Fanny heard her doorbell jangle. Of course, thanks to the demon child’s influence, she had no housekeeper, so she was forced to open the door herself like a peasant. She was ready to chastise Jane for taking so long to come back to report on her success and for not just entering the cottage.

She was in great anticipation of the good news Jane was about to deliver. So when she opened the door and there stood Sir William Lucas with some enormous men behind him, she was somewhat shocked.

“Where is Jane?” Fanny demanded.

“She has been arrested, just as is about to happen to you,” Sir William barked at the shocked woman.

Her first instinct was to try closing and locking the door so the problem would go away.

She had hardly pushed it, when a huge hand stopped the forward motion and pushed back, causing Fanny to fall back onto the stone floor as the door was pushed open with force, causing it to hit the wall with a bang.

She sat there blinking, staring up at the unsympathetic eyes of the men arrayed before her.

“For what reason am I to be arrested?” Fanny blustered as she managed to stand again. “I have not left my house today.”