“Slander?” Bennet asked. “Precisely what part of my story is false? If your men have been prudent in their expenditures, they will not experience any difficulty settling their debts or going without until they are paid.” He regarded Forster with an icy gaze. “I came here to speak with you. I admit, I had hoped to find you more reasonable.”
“You might better just have Miss Elizabeth tell her friends what happened, Bennet,” Darcy told him. “She is quite exact about the details, and Miss Lucas was a witness to it all.”
“A young lady spurned by an officer and an old maid. Who would believe them?” Colonel Forster shook his head. “You had better go home, gentlemen.”
Darcy’s countenance flushed red with anger and Fitzwilliam made a warning sound deep in his throat, but Bennet just laughed.
“Ah, Colonel. I am tempted to do that. You would be justly served, for when you tell that lie about my Elizabeth, you would soon find your own credibility worth less than a farthing. In a scant few years, she has done a great deal of good for those who live here. She is well known and keenly admired. Your men are not. You are not.”
Forster frowned.
“I trust that you and your officers will have more time on your hands for drilling once your credit is rescinded and your invitations begin to fall off. If your men are not soldiers by the end of their stay here, we will all know who carries the blame for it.” Bennet took his hat and stood. “Come, Darcy, Fitzwilliam. We have a visit to make.”
“Good day, Mrs. Hobart,” Bennet said cheerfully as they entered. “I have a commission from one of my daughters.”
Mrs. Hobart, a bluff, hearty sort of woman, smiled. “I hope they are all well, sir?”
“All well, madam. I simply have determined to keep them home for a time. My daughter Mary has sent me for thread.”
Mrs. Hobart’s expression grew curious. “I hope there is no problem here in town, Mr. Bennet."
Darcy glanced around the shop, entirely out of his element in this bastion of feminine items. Thread, cloth, bonnets, ribbons, lace, ladies’ gloves . . . it was jarring. Fitzwilliam shifted from one foot to another, clearly just as unnerved.
“I am sorry to say that there may indeed be a problem, Mrs. Hobart,” Bennet was saying. “There are many officers here in town who have not been behaving as gentlemen should, and I would not wish my daughters exposed to them.”
“We do very little business with the officers here,” Mrs. Hobart said seriously, her full attention upon Bennet. “But they have run up a great deal of credit over at the shoemaker. His wife is anxious to be paid.”
Bennet nodded his head slowly. “She is right to be bothered, I am afraid. I doubt their pay will cover the quality of boots her husband sells, so she must hope they have other sources of income. Several of the officers have proven to be gamblers, and one in particular told a terrible lie—that Mr. Darcy’s uncle . . .” He turned to Darcy and Fitzwilliam, who stood uncomfortably near the entrance to the shop. “Great-uncle?”
Darcy nodded. “Mr. Wickham tried to say that my great-uncle, Horatio Darcy, had promised him a living when he died, but there was nothing about it in the will. He then asked to be compensated for his loss and produced a forged letter to press the matter.”
“Not a very good forgery,” Fitzwilliam grumbled.
“Not only that,” Bennet continued, “but Mr. Wickham, the same man who lied to Mr. Darcy? He then forced an introduction upon my Lizzy and Miss Lucas.”
“He never!” gasped Mrs. Hobart, one hand flying to her chest. “Those sweet girls?”
Bennet nodded solemnly. “My Lizzy was rather shaken by it, to own the truth.”
Mrs. Hobart placed her hands on her hips. “Well, of course she was! She is a proper lady and no doubt!”
“I thank you on my daughter’s behalf for your kind words, madam,” Bennet said. “It will please her to know you think so well of her. The girls have nothing but praise for you and your family, you know.”
The older lady’s round face beamed with the pleasure of the favourable report, as well as being so singled out by the master of Longbourn.
Clearly Miss Elizabeth’s reputation in town was all that Bennet had claimed. Darcy had never thought of Miss Elizabeth as a particularly sweet woman. That description seemed more suited for her eldest sister. Nor had she appeared in much distress after the incident with the officers, though she had been concerned enough to speak of it with him.
Yet when Mrs. Hobart had declared Miss Elizabeth “a proper lady,” he had to agree. For all her sharp wit and impetuousness, even foolhardiness, she was, at her heart, a kind and generous woman who worked diligently to see to the comfort of others less fortunate.
It pleased him no end that she had trusted him enough to make him her confidant.
“My goodness,” Mrs. Hobart was saying. “I had been lamenting that we sell mostly to ladies, for the other merchants have been kept quite busy with the officers’ custom, but now I see how it is. They are helping themselves to our goods with no intention of paying their debts.”
Bennet frowned. “I cannot make such a claim with certainty, Mrs. Hobart, but I fear you may be correct.”
He selected the thread he had come inside to purchase, tipped his hat, and walked outside.
Fitzwilliam nudged Darcy and they followed Bennet. “He is adept at employing the gossips on his behalf,” his cousin said in a low voice. “It really is something of a marvel.”