“No,” Bennet replied. “I am too old for that, my dear. But he is a young man and could use the exercise.”
“I would speak with you on another matter,” she said haltingly. “Though I would not wish to aggravate your feelings so soon after this morning’s conversation, I feel I must.” She glanced at Darcy.
“Miss Elizabeth confided this to me on our walk home,” Darcy added. “If you are willing, I think it is best to hear it now rather than waiting.”
“Darcy and I can wander down to the stables and offer Mr. Collins our guidance,” Fitzwilliam said.
“I do not mind if you remain, Mr. Fitzwilliam,” Miss Elizabeth said boldly. “Mr. Darcy already knows, after all, and I am at something of a loss myself.”
“My Lizzy at a loss?” Bennet inquired, straightening in his chair. “This is serious indeed.”
“Papa, please,” Miss Elizabeth pleaded. “Thisisserious. Or at least, I think it might become so, and I am unsure what to do.”
Bennet’s attention was now steadily upon his daughter. “Very well, my dear.”
Darcy glanced at Fitzwilliam, who lifted his brows. “Wickham,” he mouthed.
Fitzwilliam’s posture straightened and his expression hardened. His disfavour was a wicked thing; Darcy did not envy Wickham or the other officers.
Miss Elizabeth told her story, and Darcy added what he could.
Bennet stood at the end. “I thank you for bringing this to my attention, Lizzy. Am I right to suppose that you would have done so even without Mr. Darcy’s insistence?”
“My insistence was not required,” Darcy hastened to say. “She was very clear that she would relate the incident to you.”
“Unfortunately, you were already occupied,” Miss Elizabeth finished.
Bennet’s face clouded over and then cleared. “I thank you for your confidence in me, Lizzy, and I am pleased that Mr. Wickham and his fellow officers have given me a worthy object for all the anger I feel today. I must think on finding the man who hired Mr. Todd, but in the meantime . . .” He stood and reached for his hat. “I cannot imagine Mr. Collins being of much use on this mission, gentlemen, though I would appreciate the honour of your company.” His smile was brief and unconvincing. “That is, if you can bear to walk back to town again. It has been some months since you drilled regularly.”
Darcy snorted.
“You cannot leave Mr. Collins out there all day,” Miss Elizabeth interrupted to chide her father. “As much as I enjoy your creative measures in keeping him from the house, if you work him into illness, he will remain here much longer than he had planned—or we might wish.”
Bennet nodded. “Very well. Perhaps I can send him to see Sir William so he might come to know his neighbours, eh? They have already been introduced, and they both enjoy the sound of their own voices.”
“Perhaps a bath first?” Darcy asked. “We dolikethe Lucas family, do we not?”
Miss Elizabeth ducked her head to hide a smile. “A sound idea, sir.”
Bennet’s posture demonstrated all the quiet fire of Vesuvius before the eruption. His eyes bored into Colonel Forster’s, and the militia officer quailed, though he fought to hide it.
It was a mistake, for he could never hope to pass muster with men who had been officers themselves.
“You must understand that the officers in the militia are not soldiers in the same way that we are,” Forster explained, leaning back in his chair. “They are mostly second and third sons of landowners. They have been raised as gentlemen with certain social expectations, and those expectations do not disappear merely because they wear red coats.”
Fitzwilliam scoffed. “If they took the position, they are soldiers. To say otherwise is a blatant falsehood. That they are not competent might be closer to the truth.”
“You call them gentlemen?” Darcy inquired stonily, nearly before his cousin had done. “Gentlemen do not make a lady the object of their sport. They certainly do not wager upon one. Your argument does not hold in any particular.”
“It matters not,” Bennet said, his voice very low and, Darcy knew, very dangerous. “Now that I know what sort of men you have brought here among us and that your concern for their behaviour does not match our own, I shall begin by visiting the merchants. Tell your officers to be ready to settle their accounts, for few in Meryton will continue to offer credit if I instruct them that they ought to deal in coin.”
Forster’s temper flared. “Now see here, Mr. Bennet . . .”
Bennet waited. “Well? What is it you wish me to see, Colonel?”
Fitzwilliam snorted.
“You cannot go about spreading slander about my men.”