Page 92 of In Want of a Suspect

“No,” she whispered.

“We are leaving,” Mr. Hughes told Josette. “We sail for France this evening.”

“No!” Josette seemed horrified at the prospect. “I’ll not go back there!”

“Too bad,” he said. “I can’t speak French, so you’ll have to come along.”

Josette struggled to pull out of Mr. Hughes’s grasp, and Lizzie felt torn between rushing after her and running to Darcy. “Will that be far enough?” Lizzie called out, remembering Tomlinson’s words in the storehouse.You’ll have far bigger worries if you displease her yet again.Perhaps whoever this woman was, reminding Hughes of her would stop him. “Or will the lady that Tomlinson reports to come after you, even in France?”

Hughes stopped dragging Josette toward a side door long enough to look back at Lizzie. He wore a mocking smile. “Don’t worry, Miss Bennet—I think that she will be far more interested inyouthan in me. Lady Catherine de Bourgh doesn’t forget those who cross her, and this will be your second time, won’t it?”

Lizzie could do nothing but stand in numb shock.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh was the head of Tomlinson’s smuggling operation?

So great was her astonishment that she didn’t realize that Josette was shouting, that Darcy was speaking urgently, that the clergyman was trying to intercede, or that Josette’s maid was weeping in terror. She didn’t hear a thing, until Hughes said, “Shoot them as soon as we’re gone.”

Josette’s cries escalated in a crescendo, and Lizzie knew that she ought to be horrified to hear their deaths ordered so casually. She ought to be putting her mind to work, strategizing her way out of this. Trying to reason with Winston, at the very least.

Instead, she looked to Darcy and Darcy looked at her, and she had the most insane thought that if this was how she was to die, then at least Darcy was by her side.

And then she decided that she would rather like to live.

Without allowing herself time to think, she slammed her body into Winston, striking his arm holding the pistol so that it jolted up, and then she was falling right on top of him. The pistol went off with a tremendous bang, and gunpowder filled her nose, making her cough and her eyes water. The sound was so much louder than the shot back at the storehouse had been, and louder than the shot that had killed Wickham. Those pistols had been fired from a distance, and this one had discharged right above her right ear. For a moment, she couldn’t make sense of what followed because of the ringing in her ears and stinging in her eyes. But Winston was scrambling to get out from under her, and she elbowed him hard in the gut. He groaned, and then there seemed to be shouts all around, from every corner of the church. Or perhaps that was just the echo?

Lizzie decided she was most certainly dazed.

Then, through the gun smoke and commotion, there was Darcy leaning over her, wild with worry. His hands pressed against her cheeks and hair, and then they made their way across her body checking for injury. She groaned.

“Lizzie, oh God, Lizzie. What a bloody foolish thing to do, you lovely, stubborn, headstrong girl!”

She smiled through the pain. “I think you forgot obstinate.”

“I was working my way up to it,” he said.

He helped her sit up, and Lizzie was rather alarmed to see that the church, which had been mostly empty mere moments ago, was now swarming with men. Men in dark jackets and laborer’s caps, all wielding pistols. Fear hammered in her throat once more, but it didn’t seem as though they were interested in Lizzie and Darcy. Instead, the closest man had restrained Winston, and beyond that, as the ringing in her ears dulled, she could hear Hughes strenuously objecting to being detained.

“Josette?” Lizzie asked.

“Fine, I think,” Darcy said, allowing only a quick glance in the direction of the rectory.

“Darcy, I know that I have been through quite a lot and suffered a number of injuries, but I didn’t think any were quite so serious as to incite hallucinations.”

“Are you seeing things?” he asked. “Someone call a doctor!”

“Are all these men real?” she whispered, looking around. “They’re not a delusion?”

“They are real,” Darcy confirmed. He slumped with relief. “Good heavens, Lizzie, you scared me.”

“And did Mr. Hughes say that Lady Catherine was responsible for the smuggling?”

“He did.”

She sank back into his arms. “How? I thought the navy caught her.”

“I don’t know. But one problem at a time, love. Can you stand?”