Page 48 of The Countess and Her Sister

Rebecca snapped her head that way, furrowing her brow for a moment before giving her brother a tense nod.

Elizabeth eased backward, linking her arm through Lady Susan’s.

She had heard all of her brother and sister’s infamous and exaggerated antics, and knew what was coming.

And then, two great commotions broke out at once.

Lady Gardiner burst through the door, colliding with Mr. Darcy, who cried out and rubbed at the back of his head.

Lady Gardiner hastily apologized, tears pouring down her face as she and her husband hurried toward one another.

Clutching Sir Edward’s hands, Lady Gardiner looked around in panic as she said, “I asked little Thomas where he had been, and he was very drowsy, almost as if he had been given a sleeping draught.”

Mr. Bingley looked down at his nearly empty teacup and frowned. “What did he tell you?”

“That he woke up and saw the boy who gives him big spins – I believe the kitchen boy likes to seek Thomas out, to spoil him with treats and spin him about. He said the boy with was with a pretty girl, who must undoubtedly be the maid Lydia told us of. He said that the lad carried Thomas on his shoulders down to the kitchen, where he and the girl gave him cake and special milk tea , but it tasted funny.” Lady Gardiner’s jaw clenched as she concluded, “And then he woke up, and Mrs. Bennet was carrying him away.”

Most of their companions listened in silent horror, but Mrs. Bennet had taken flight the moment Lady Gardiner began to speak.

She cried out to Mr. Darcy as if only fretting over the bump to his head, which certainly seemed to vex him.

But she did not make it far before Rebecca blocked her path.

Rebecca pushed forward, bodily shoving Mrs. Bennet backward until she stumbled into a finely upholstered wooden armchair.

Meanwhile, Richard and Mr. Bingley dashed toward the windows and divested the drapes of the long cords that pulled them back.

Lady Rebecca sat indecorously on the shrieking Mrs. Bennet’s lap as the two men tied her wrists to the arms of the chair and then went back for more cords to bind her waist and feet.

She fought them, but Rebecca held her roughly in place.

Lady Gardiner watched this with a strange calm about her as she spoke, and at the end of her explanation, she stepped toward Mrs. Bennet.

“Was your maid here by chance? Did you discover Thomas by chance? Or did you… did you perhaps arrange to find him, to come to the rescue and ingratiate yourself with your daughters?”

“Moreover,” Sir Edward thundered, “Where is Jane? I think we should call the magistrate, Lady Augusta. Madeline, we must send someone to keep watch over Thomas tonight.”

“I already summoned his governess. She always dines with the servants, after the family, but she has returned now to her post.”

Mr. Darcy stepped out into the corridor, where two footmen were already eavesdropping. He ordered them to fetch the magistrate at once and returned to the room with a look of violence about him.

At Elizabeth’s side, Lady Susan murmured, “This is bad. Lady Catherine, perhaps?”

“Somehow, it must be,” Elizabeth said through her clenched jaw. And then she exploded. She strode over to her mother, fairly shoving Rebecca out of the way. “Where is Jane, you horrid old witch, and what have you done to her?”

“Let me go! I have nothing to say to you, Lizzy,” Mrs. Bennet screeched. “Lydia, Kitty, come and untie me at once! We shall leave this house and never return!”

“Move an inch, either of you, and you shall never be welcome at Matlock again,” Elizabeth hissed.

But when she glanced over at the girls, Lydia shook her head, her palms outstretched as if she did not know why Elizabeth supposed she would comply.

She and Kitty appeared to be rather enjoying their mother’s calamity.

“Tell me you had nothing to do with this,” she said to them, her voice menacingly even.

“We swear it,” Kitty cried. “Maybe Hannah, but not us!”

“Mary?” Elizabeth flickered her gaze to her other sister, who also looked mildly affronted at the accusation.

She nodded at the small mercy that her sisters had not been complicit, and then looked up at Mr. Darcy.

“Perhaps see if Hannah is still in the house, or bring the cook’s boy, the magistrate will want to speak with them. ”

As Mr. Darcy slipped out of the room, Elizabeth rounded on her mother, her ire nowhere near spent.

She had not wished Mr. Darcy to see her in such a state, but in his absence, she spoke just as Mrs. Bennet deserved.

“I will have it out of you! Nobody has seen Jane in above two hours, because Thomas’s disappearance and miraculous recovery was all a distraction, was it not?

What have you done with Jane? Have you not ruined her life enough? ”

“Ruined her life? She lives in luxury and does as she pleases, and cares nothing for her real family! I only wanted to see my grandson!” Mrs. Bennet wailed and struggled against her makeshift tethers. She glanced over her shoulder at the fire again, and her resistance intensified.

Elizabeth let out a shrill laugh, her voice not her own she pressed against Mrs. Bennet’s shoulders, looming over the woman.

“He struck her! From the very beginning, and when she was with child. He mocked and berated her! He brought his paramours into the house; he brought the sickness into their house, and she nearly died of it!”

She kept shoving Mrs. Bennet, who was savagely trying to kick at her as Elizabeth shoved harder, pushing the chair toward the fireplace until it was within inches of the blaze. Mrs. Bennet leaned forward and bit Elizabeth on the shoulder and she recoiled, cursing wildly.

Richard lunged forward and pulled the chair away from the fire as Mrs. Bennet hissed and swore at him.

Mr. Bingley came up behind Elizabeth and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her own arms at her sides as he pulled her several steps backward.

“Please, Lizzy, no more of this. Jane would not like it,” he whispered, giving her an apologetic look as she arched her head around to grimace at him. She nodded, and he released her.

Richard opened his coat and reached into the pocket, producing a small pistol.

“Oops,” he said with a feckless laugh before slamming it loudly down on the mantle above the fireplace.

Mrs. Bennet flinched. Richard reached into a pocket on the other side of his coat and retrieved his flask.

He took a quick swig of it and then offered it to Mrs. Bennet, who could scarcely move her hands at all.

She leaned her face forward and opened her mouth.

“Oh, right,” Richard said with another irreverent chuckle.

He brought the flask to Mrs. Bennet’s lips and gave her a long draught of his fine whiskey, making a show of wiping it off before putting the cap back on and pocketing it again.

He leaned against the mantle in a jaunty pose, his hand resting inches from the pistol.

“Now, Madam, we have a very interesting situation here, do we not? The magistrate may come and question you at length, and I daresay it will be the work of a moment for your maid and the kitchen boy to confess. Jane will be recovered, but you will face grave consequences for whatever it is you have done with my sister the countess. Once the magistrate gets involved, it will no longer be one of those sordid matters that gets hushed up in great families. But we will know what happened to Jane, do you understand?” He looked completely causal as he threatened the woman; he even yawned.

Mrs. Bennet had gone white as a sheet, and her eyes flicked to the fire again before she looked up at him and nodded at him. “If I tell you, you will not involve the magistrate? It is Lady Catherine he ought to arrest, it was all her notion!”

“Naturally,” Richard agreed. Mrs. Bennet looked about in panic at the dozen other people staring in silent contempt at her, her gaze lingering last on Mr. Tilney, who had reclined comfortably in a chaise and looked as if he would begin to doze. Rebecca nudged him, and he sat up in confusion.

Richard drew Mrs. Bennet’s gaze back to himself. “Lady Catherine asked you to create a diversion so Jane could be taken, is that what you are afraid to tell me?”

“Oh, it is true,” Mrs. Bennet wailed. “She is determined to have Jane wed to Mr. Darcy! She wants him to become the earl, she said they have the connections to manage it!”

“So why take Jane? Your previous ploy worked well enough to compromise her,” Richard said with a weary shake of his head.

Elizabeth moved forward again, dodging Mr. Bingley’s fumbling attempt to restrain her.

“You said that Lady Catherine asked you to compromise me with the captain. Of course you were lying! You knew that we would suspect you, and you had to pretend that you refused to collude with her! But what am I saying – it was all Lady Catherine’s scheme, for you are too foolish for such nuance, and would ever take the easy path to slake your avarice. What are you getting out of this?”

“She promised to help my girls,” Mrs. Bennet cried.

“I cannot trust you to do it, when you think only of yourself! And Jane would make Kitty and Lydia wait to come out, when they are already perfectly fit for society, as if I have not taught them well enough! Lady Catherine will find them husbands, and Jane will be a countess again, not just the mother of one. And Lydia shall have the captain, for she thought him so handsome!”

Lydia let out a high-pitched shriek. “You hurt Jane for this? I am sure I could get any handsome man on my own, Mamma, and I am going to learn how to play and sing and be perfectly clever and charming!”

“She cares nothing for her children’s worth,” Elizabeth spat, giving her mother a hateful look.

“It has always been about what we can do for you. You tell yourself Jane has had a life of luxury because that is what you thought you would get out of her marriage, but none of us shall keep you in comfort now. I shall make sure you pay for this. Where is Jane?”

Mrs. Bennet glanced over at the fireplace, her gaze calculating.

Then she looked around the room. Richard sank into a chair and leaned back with a heavy sigh, as Lady Susan perched on the arm of it, giving him soothing reassurance.

Georgiana huddled in the corner with the younger Bennet sisters, looking frightened out of her wits, and Elizabeth was sorry she had shown the girl her temper.

Bingley had ceased his attempts to retrain Elizabeth, and staggered backward onto a sofa, sitting down heavily beside Lady Augusta and Lady Gardiner, who were clinging to one another.

Sir Edward stood beside his wife, leaning against the sofa as he stared sadly at his sister.

Rebecca was again obliged to rouse Mr. Tilney as he began to doze, and then reached down and lifted the hem of her skirt a few inches, pulling a small dagger out of her boot.

She righted herself and began to pick under her fingernails with the tip of the dagger in an effectively ominous fashion, for one grin from her had Mrs. Bennet struggling against her bonds again.

And then Mr. Darcy returned to the room, his gaze shifting from Elizabeth’s menacing pose in front of her mother to the pistol on the mantle, and then to Rebecca brandishing her dagger.

“The maid and the cook’s boy are nowhere to be found, but the cook is in the study with the housekeeper, who said that she saw a carriage depart the house two hours ago. ”

Mrs. Bennet smiled coldly at Mr. Darcy. “That was Captain Tilney’s carriage, bound for Gretna Green. You are going to have to go after Jane, Mr. Darcy, and marry her yourself. None of the other gentlemen will be able to assist you, because I have drugged their tea.”