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But that door had been unlocked, swung wide open, with the hated recollections swarming her at every turn, interrupting her sleep with terrible dreams.

She had met George Wickham on one of her visits to Pemberley, oh, years before she had almost run away with him. What had she been…fifteen? Sixteen years? Something like that. When no one was about, he had flirted with her. She had been so stupid then, so young and naïve and stupid, she had not even realised it was flirtation. She ought to have turned away from him the very first time he had found her alone in Pemberley’s gardens, alone with her fantasies of handsome royalty proposing marriage. Yet, he had seemed to fit into those dreams; only a year or two older than herself, he had been…chivalrous. Attractive, certainly. And knowing, knowing and wiser, far wiser than her young, stupid self.

Still, she had not thought about him as anything or anyone except a steward’s son—a fine-looking young man, to be sure, but a servant’s son, even so. She had not reconsidered him until after she had experienced three failed Seasons—long, agonising months of endless balls and parties without attracting a single suitor, despite her wealth, months of hopeless waiting amongst the other wallflowers, waiting to be noticed, hoping to break free of the misery and despair and her mother’s overpowering worry and attention.

On her first visit to Pemberley after her third disastrous Season, George’s seeming consideration, his flattery, his hints of romance, started to mean much more. She began to spin fancies of him, hanging about in the most secluded parts of the garden whenever possible so that he would find her alone. Now, she could admit that she had utterly reinvented him, taking him from ‘the steward’s son’ to ‘charming prince disguised as a steward’s son’. Her dreams had flourished along with the romance.

Foolish, foolish girl.

“We should elope,” he had said. She had been shocked to her core, appalled, even. He had laughed it off, laughed at her distress, her shock.

“It was a joke,” he had said, “born of my hopeless enthralment with your beauty.”

Over time, though, his pretended yearning for marriage began to seem right, a part of her living, wondrous fairy tale.

“I am miserable whenever you are not beside me, when you are not in my arms,” he had crooned. “I can think of nothing else except how I might keep you there.” His ‘nothing else’ became an elaborate plan, at which point she succumbed fully to her imagination.

Her uncle, Mr Darcy, was returning soon to town; Anne was to accompany him as far as London, from whence she would be returned to her mother and Rosings Park. Instead, the plan was for Anne to write to her mother that they had decided to remain at Pemberley for another two weeks. Then Anne would arrange the hire of an acceptable coach and footman to take her away from the town house and deliver her to an inn of George’s choosing. From there, they would flee to Gretna Green.

It had sounded simple, even tender and sweet when George had described it. Mama would surely accept him as her son eventually, afterwards proceeding directly to the happily-ever-after.

As one might expect, Anne had never in her life arranged a single thing. She had no idea how much it would cost or how to hire a coach suitable to pass muster under the Darcy servants’ eyes, let alone to take them to Gretna Green instead of Kent. She had simply taken what considerable sum she possessed and entrusted her long-time maid, Doris, with managing the arrangements. The coach, complete with a coachman and a kindly looking footman, had appeared at the Darcy town house as expected, when expected, and she and Doris had escaped in it. That much went according to plan.

At the inn where she was to meet George, the tender, sweet plan had fallen into ashes.

Doris had left the carriage ostensibly to find him. After several minutes, the coachman had bluntly, impatiently told her to quit the carriage; it turned out he had only been hired to take her from the town house to this inn. Her trunk had been unloaded, and the kindly footman had made off with it. Doris did not return.

When George appeared, at first he had behaved as the knight in shining armour she had wanted him to be. He said they would have to delay going to Scotland, while he ‘earned’ the money they would need. He had taken her to a different, shabbier inn, in another part of town, a part that was uglier and stenchy. There, he had taken—no, she had given him—her maidenhood. It had not been pleasant, the linens dirty and threadbare. He had left her there while he gambled away the money he received from pawning her earbobs.

When he returned, inebriated, he was anything but gentle and tender. He blamed her for his losses at the gaming den. He blamed her for trusting Doris. He blamed her for not having more jewellery he could pawn. In the morning, he resumed the part of an affectionate lover, apologising for his ill mood of the night before. Relieved, she had apologised for disappointing him. It had gone on that way for the next week, until she had found herself in a back alley in Shoe Lane, terrified, wearing a filthy dress that only that morning, George had threatened to pawn, leaving her naked.

“Do you yearn for me, my sweet little heiress?” His cruel voice rang forever in her head.

Everyone she had trusted thus far had betrayed her. She had been too frightened to move, to scream, to do anything except stand like a ninny and shiver.

The appearance of Miss Bennet in the alley had been so very surprising. She had been too young to help, to know what to do, to be competent and unafraid of taking charge in a fraught situation, although her very youth had lessened Anne’s instinctive fright. But there had been an older matron in that warehouse, standing several feet away, dressed respectably, who had glanced her way with what seemed like sympathy.

Somehow, in Anne’s mind, she had decided that the matron must be the ‘Elizabeth Bennet’ the young girl mentioned; surely, she must be her rescuer, not this big-eyed child, who probably was the daughter of one of the shopkeepers.

Anne had been so ashamed, so mortified. It had seemed, to her, as if she was not worthy to go home, even should she find a way. George had made her believe, somehow, that she deserved the slaps, the scathing remarks, and that returning home was impossible. But whatever punishments it held for her, nothing could be worse than this. She had clutched desperately at the lifeline offered.

When she had reached Uncle Darcy’s house, he had just been going out. She had held out to him all the coins Miss Bennet had given her; he or his footman must have paid the coachman, because Uncle had returned the money to her later. He had taken one look at her and hurried her inside, holding her while she sobbed uncontrollably for what seemed like hours.

Uncle Darcy had fixed everything he could, but he had never been able to find Elizabeth Bennet. When he told her later that summer that he was dying, she somehow felt as though his death was her fault as well. He had promised to have his son, Fitzwilliam, continue the search. It was not her cousin’s fault that he could not find the matron. She certainly did not blame Fitzwilliam for being unwilling to marry her, since he knew her secrets. At least he kept them.

When she had first come back to Rosings, she had been so relieved. She had not even minded any longer Lady Catherine’s cloying cosseting. Anne had wanted to stay here and never leave again; largely, that was what she had done.

Why, then, did it suddenly seem like a luxurious prison, instead of her sanctuary?

“Elizabeth Bennet, why have you come?” she said aloud to her empty sitting room. “My sins lie in wait for me at a parsonage in Hunsford. Oh, why now? Have I not suffered enough?”

CHAPTER FIVE

A CONFESSION OF SCRUPLES

Elizabeth could not decide whether Miss de Bourgh was truly ill or had simply latched onto the excuse to avoid certain visitors to Rosings—mostly, her own self. Her inclination was to believe the latter. Still, the lady had not appeared overly vigorous—possibly seeing Elizabeth after all this time had weakened an already sickly disposition?

Be that as it may, the Hunsford party was not invited back to Lady Catherine’s domain. Mr Collins was summoned weekly as usual, to bring his reports upon his parishioners so that her ladyship might resolve their troubles. This gave him the opportunity to learn the latest news on Miss de Bourgh’s ‘nervous complaint’—which term Elizabeth believed most apothecaries used when they had no idea what else to call an ailment. Since Mrs Bennet was treated for the same illness regularly, perhaps it was not surprising that Elizabeth believed the disorder had more to do with her own presence than any true infirmity.