A Most Respectable Elopement, Part Thirty

Lydia Bennet and George Wickham are finally married, but their plans for marital bliss are already in peril as our intrepid pair find themselves at he mercy of Lieutenant Bell, a man with murder on his mind. Can the Wickhams save the day?

Catherine Curzon and Nicole Clarkston

Catch up on previous adventures here! One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve,Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty One, Twenty Two,Twenty Three, Twenty Four, Twenty Five, Twenty Six, Twenty Seven, Twenty Eight, Twenty Nine.

Lydia kissed her husband one last time as he slipped through the window, timing each movement to coincide precisely with the rocking of their driver’s descent from the box. Bell was in little enough hurry, likely assuming that his captives were either too diverted by one another to notice a deviation in their travel plans, or too helpless to fight back in any case. He held entirely the advantage.

But he had not counted on the Wickhams.

Lydia’s ears were trained sharply on the steps of each man as they maneuvered about– one perfectly conscious of the other, one perfectly unaware. She slipped her little blade up the sleeve of her wedding gown and smiled.

The door to the carriage jerked open, and Lydia had no intention of inviting any guest but her husband inside with her. She fell upon him at once, affecting sobs and weeping as her weight tumbled against Bell’s and he stumbled backward in shock. “Oh, thank goodness someone found me! He ran away, the scoundrel! To think of it, abandoned on my wedding day, just minutes from the church!”

“Abandoning a girl once he’s got the dowry, a cheat indeed!” Bell laughed bitterly and pushed Lydia back into the carriage. He stepped back and looked around, peering this way and that for any sign of the fleeing George Wickham, the man who seemed to have escaped his wrath once again, and left his new wife to whatever fate might be waiting. “In another world, he and I might’ve been friends!”

There was the faintest scraping over their heads, and Lydia saw Bell’s attention almost turn to it, so she set about his beleaguered ears with another mournful wail. “Oh, my dearest George, how could you leave me? Oh, Driver, you must take me to my home, for I am sure he is bound there to see my Papa.”

“You see, you and I… we’ve got a problem.” Bell stooped down to peer under the carriage before he straightened and leaned one elbow on the open door. “Because he had us both fooled. Here’s me, a wanted man, turned in by my so-called mates, a government looking to hang me, and all because of your husband. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get my hands on this carriage, how long I’ve chased the damned pair of you just to get my hands around his bloody rotten neck?”

“He is the most odious man!” Lydia agreed heatedly. “I don’t care if you strangle him still in that new wedding suit, for I have quite done with him. You would be doing me a service, freeing me from such a rat.”

“Here’s me thinking, a hostage, no man leaves his wife, and leave you is exactly what the villain’s done.” Bell laughed again, a cloud of whiskey and tobacco belching out into the air. “Let this be a lesson to you, young miss; no man sticks around the brothel once he’s had his turn on a whore.”

Lydia hissed in anger, all pretense at delay gone now at his slurs against her dignity. In a trice, she had whipped the short little blade from her sleeve and was pointing it at Bell’s nose, enjoying not a little how his eyes crossed to look at it. “I will have your honour for such an insult, sir!”

“With that piffling little blade?” He took a few steps back though, just to put some distance between them. “I’ll take the wedding ring, it’ll fetch a pretty penny. Probably worth more than your reputation, eh, harlot that you are!”

“Don’t you know?” she smiled a little wickedly. “These sorts of rings are far too dear for one such as you. They given by men who have earned the right to them.” Not allowing him chance to clarify her meaning, she lunged with her knife. She did not expect to reach him, really, and certainly not to do any damage, but his reaction was precisely what she had hoped. He charged toward her.

Lydia backed away, noting with satisfaction that the carriage was rocking too wildly for Bell, or anyone else for that matter, to know what was causing all the motion. She kicked half-heartedly with her feet, but she did not want to discourage him too much. So long as he was close, but not fully upon her, she could manage. He reached for her, growling an oath that turned into a howl of surprise as George Wickham plummeted from the carriage’s roof to land on Bell’s broad back with enough force to knock the wind from both of them. Bell’s legs shot out from beneath him and he pitched forward, his skull slamming into the carriage step with a sickening thud.

“Mrs Wickham!”  Wickham gasped as he scrambled to his knees in the dust beside the apparently unconscious Lieutenant Bell. He leaned closer and lifted one eyelid with his thumb, clearly satisfied that this wasn’t another trick. “You are a marvel amongst women! What do we have that might bind a fellow and hold him tight?”

“My darling, do you not recall those beautiful new ribbons you bought me only last week?” She pulled one from a knot on her bonnet and fluttered it into her husband’s grasp. “I have dozens more in my trunk! Although I shall think it a very hard thing if I must use my blue satin for the likes of him.”

“Look at that.” Wickham drew the ribbon taut and looked up her, his expression too angelic to be anything other than utterly indecent. Then he quirked one eyebrow and asked Lydia, “Am I alone in suddenly realising how useful these ribbons might be for other purposes beyond bonnets?”

She raised an answering brow, then her brown eyes swept up and down his person with delighted appraisal. Then she tossed her head and retorted saucily, “I do not need such fripperies to bind you helpless at my disposal. I believe I have a better way of achieving that.”

“Never say never, Mrs W.” Then her husband set to his business, pulling his prisoner’s arms behind his back and winding the ribbon around his wrists. “I’ll need some more of these, soldier, but keep the blue satin for us?”

She was at the boot by now by now, tugging free another nest of the lovely bows from her collection, but she pointedly held back the blue, tucking it very safely back into the trunk. “Those are just for you, my love.”

“Us, my darling Mrs Wickham,” he beamed. “Come and help me fasten him, he’ll be the most colourful prisoner the Old Bailey has ever seen.”

To be continued…