“That is as may be, yet it must be done,” Mr. Bennet replied. “And quickly, My Lord. Our time runs short. I do not know if word has reached you, but yesterday another unmentionable was found on the prowl not two miles from here. It nearly did in one of my own daughters.”
“Jane?”
“Elizabeth.”
“Oh.”
Even to Lord Lumpley’s ears, his “Oh” sounded a little too relieved—not that Elizabeth had lived, but that it had been she and not her elder sister who’d been attacked.
“I’m so happy to hear the young lady managed to escape,” he added quickly. And then he carried on just as fast, for he’d stumbled upon the path to take him where he all along intended to go. “I assume it was the training you’ve insisted on for your daughters that made the difference. That was quite a display they put on during the unpleasantness at the lake. Oh, I know some were scandalized by it. That tongues have been wagging from here to Wales. ‘Unladylike,’ ‘uncivilized,’ ‘un-English,’ they say. I’ve even heard that your Jane and Elizabeth have been asked not to attend the spring ball at Pulvis Lodge! But no such flighty flibbertigibbet am I. I’ve come to see the need for these special skills, barbarous though they are. During the hunt, you and your daughters spared me the need to wade in and do battle with that foul creature myself, as surely I would have done had you not been present. And imagine the tragic turmoil if a person of such far-ranging influence as I should fall victim to an unmentionable. Why, a man of my importance owes it to his countrymen to protect himself any way he can, wouldn’t you say?”
The baron pretended to muse a moment, tapping a finger against the uppermost of his chins.
“I say . . . I seem to have struck upon a notion there.”
“Oh?” Mr. Bennet said, and like the baron’s “Oh” of a moment before, it seemed to convey much for what’s basically one step up from a grunt. It was a wry and weary “Oh,” slightly sad and entirely unsurprised.
“Imagine, Mr. Bennet,” Lord Lumpley said, “what a boon it would be for your daughters—and all who might emulate them—should a person of standing be seen to take them to his bosom not in spite of their unconventional ways but because of them. Socially, they could be redeemed, and it would be all the easier for you to accomplish whatever you think necessary.”
Mr. Bennet sat stock still as he listened, and even when he spoke he somehow looked less like a flesh-and-blood man than a portrait of himself, the expression on his face painted after a particularly long day.
“And how would you propose to take them to your bosom, exactly?”
“Well, what if I were to accept the services of one of your daughters as a sort of . . .” The baron shook his head, laughing. “It sounds ridiculous saying it, but . . . as a bodyguard. It might add fuel to the flame of scandal, at first, yet with time it would be accepted. And, at any rate, perhaps a little tonguewagging’s just what we need to demonstrate the seriousness of the situation. ‘If even the baron of Lumpley is again embracing the old Orientalism that held such sway during The Troubles . . .!’ That sort of thing.”
“I see,” Mr. Bennet said, inflectionless. “And which of my daughters did you have in mind?”
“I suppose the eldest would make the most sense. Jane. Despite all the hysterics at the lake, she did slay a dreadful. And she’s already out, so it wouldn’t be that shocking for her to spend her days in the company of a gentleman. Of course, we couldn’t be alone together. That would never do! Fortunately, there is no lack of chaperones around Netherfield. Though I have no relations or guests with me, at the moment, there are always servants about . . . not to mention uninvited callers.”
“You ask for one of Mr. Bennet’s daughters as a bodyguard?” Capt. Cannon spluttered. “With your servants as chaperones?”
The man looked as though he’d never missed his arms more—for before him was a rascal in desperate need of thrashing, rank be damned.
Mr. Bennet grunted out a little cough and finally shifted in his seat. “Actually, Captain, I find the proposal rather appeals to me. Do I take it, My Lord, that—if I agree to the course you’ve put forth—you will do everything in your power to aid our friend here?”
He nodded at Capt. Cannon.
Lord Lumpley put on an expression suggesting mild indignation. “You make it sound like a quid pro quo, Mr. Bennet . . . although I certainly will feel safer remaining in Hertfordshire to assist the captain if some gesture is made toward ensuring my safety.”
“Everything in your power,” Mr. Bennet pressed. “Whatever the captain needs. On your word of honor.”
Damnable nerve, the baron thought.
“Of course,” he said.
Mr. Bennet nodded, then had the impudence—what reserves the man had!—to stand up first.
“Jane will be here tomorrow noon.”
“Excellent! I’ll have a room prepared for her in the south wing.”
“Yes, do. And you might want to alert your steward and groundskeeper and stable boys and all the rest, too.”
“Oh?” Lord Lumpley and Capt. Cannon said together, and this time the word’s meaning was as simple as its sound. Pure surprise, nothing more.
“I assume it would be your first request,” Mr. Bennet said to the captain, “that you be allowed to establish headquarters on good, defensible high ground, clear of any cover for an advancing enemy, close enough to town to defend it yet not so close as to draw unwanted attention, with plenty of ready shelter its master has, at present, no need for.”
“Yes, I suppose. . . .” Capt. Cannon finally caught on, and a huge grin pushed his white side-whiskers heavenward. “Netherfield Park would make the perfect base of operations. Limbs! To your posts! By jingo, if we move fast, we can break camp and be back this very day! I thank you, My Lord! The king thanks you! You are the very model of munificence, Sir!”
“Just a minute, now,” Lord Lumpley began limply, but in all the commotion of the Limbs quick-stepping in a pivot and wheeling the captain toward the library doors, nobody seemed to hear him.
“I daresay you were right about my daughter not wanting for chaperones,” Mr. Bennet said as he and the soldiers took their leave with jerky, hurried bows. “Before she even arrives, there will be all of a hundred of them billeted on your estate!”
CHAPTER 21
THERE HAD BEEN NO MORE late-night prowlings through the Bennet house since the girls had mistaken their mother for an unmentionable more than a week before. Whatever Mrs. Bennet had been after in Mr. Bennet’s room—and Elizabeth had worked very, very hard to convince herself she didn’t know what that was—she’d apparently given up hope of procuring it. So when Elizabeth once again heard shuffling steps and the creak of a floorboard outside her bedroom door, she stuffed her hand under her pillow and wrapped it around the hilt of a dirk.
It was the dead of night, yet her sleep had been light. Exhausted as her body was from another day of training, her mind remained restless, returning again and again to the same troubling thoughts. And feelings.
There was a light rap on her door, and it began to swing slowly open.
“Don’t shoot, Lizzy. It’s me.”
Elizabeth pushed herself up and smiled sleepily. “Oh, I wasn’t going to shoot you, Jane. I was about to stab you.”
Candlelight spread out into the room, and as Jane stepped in after it, Elizabeth could see her sister’s eyes glistening moistly in the dim flicker.
“I need help packing for Netherfield,” Jane said.
Elizabeth stood and started toward her. “But we finished that hours ago.”