IMPORTANT: There were major developmental edits made on this story and there are many changes from beginning to end. You will now notice the "Chapters" are all out of order. To know if the full story has updated or not in Fanfiction's system, 37. should read Chapter 37. If it says that in the drop down box, all changes have pushed through.

The corrections made throughout include entirely new beginning, Jane in London from the beginning, more screen time between Jane and Richard, and about a paragraph or three added to many existing scenes. The scene at Longbourn is cut entirely (it was Chapter 7) .

Right now I am just trying to get everyone the chapters in the correct order. Everything up to this point is with the editor as I am about a week behind now on my publication schedule, but will still make the preorder date of December 31, 2016. Thank you so much everyone for your preorders and reviews. Starting around the 15th of December completely polished ready for publication chapters will start going up on my website. :)

Let the countdown BEGIN!

XOXOXO
Elizabeth Ann West

As the afternoon brought more soldiers to far edge of Old Pye Street, Sally Younge peeked through her curtains to take a new count. That morning there'd only been the two who watched her every move, but now there were suddenly five that she could see. Something had to have changed for the response. The soldiers believed they would find George Wickham, the deserter, at her home.

"Your stew is growing cold. They will keep sending soldiers to find that Wickham man whether you stand at the window or not." Gaston, Sally's hired man and sometimes paramour, took a swig of ale as he scowled at Mrs. Younge.

"Makes me less nervous is all. To count them, to know. Eventually, they're going to start interrogating and they're going to start interrogating with the hides of you and me if we don't do something about this." Mrs. Younge came to the table and tried to ignore her misguided heart still carried hope for George Wickham. By rights, she owed that man nothing. He had abandoned her at Ramsgate, ruined their plot then. And when he showed up with that mouse of a girl on her doorstep thinking she would hold here, Sally Younge gave him another thing coming. Sally was the one who had sent him to Lady Bowman's to sell that bit of muslin and come back and split the coin with her.

Of course George being George, Sally never saw him again. With coins in his pocket, the only place to find George Wickham was the nearest gambling hall and it did not suit Sally Younge to go chasing after the unreliable man all over London.

"You're coming up with a scheme. I can see it. You frown like that when you're thinking hard." Gaston slurped his stew noisily, willing to push the boundary of social niceties with his lover, but not naïve enough to think she wouldn't turn off her purse strings if he truly vexed her. It was not much, but the widow of Patrick Younge enjoyed a small income from her marriage settlement. Enough to keep a roof over their heads and three meals a day which was more than Gaston had enjoyed in France before he fled.

"I am reflecting on how to doublecross a doublecrosser." Sally Young clicked her nails on the modest table and continued to work out the particulars in her mind.

"Ah, the slippery fella, the one they're looking for."

"Aye."

"You sure you want to get mixed up with him again? Sounds like both times he got the best of you." Gaston shrugged as he helped himself to more of his supper, a meal he was not accustomed to eating so early, but doing so provided in economy with the candles. It was not his house, he could hardly argue about the timing of meals.

"Do not act so smug. His loss is your gain, you would do well to remember that." Sally Younge pulled a chunk off the soda bread and drank her own ale. She scrunched her nose up at the stew and wondered how old the meat was that her part-time Cook could find this late in the season. The fancy folk had begun their flight and the small remainders of prime cuts were harder and harder to come by for reasonable price.

"I don't see why you are protecting him." Gaston slurped the last remaining bit of his stew from his trench and burped for good measure. But his declaration added another layer to Mrs. Younge's plan.

"Are you a fool? Go ahead, walk right out there. Tell the nearest soldier you know where George Wickham is holed up. See how fast you're thrown in irons as an accomplice."

Though he was a man of broad shoulders and nearly six feet tall in stature, Gaston duLac trembled at the mention of being arrested and clapped in irons. Starvation in France had run him from his homeland, and it was by sheer luck he escaped the Law's long arm and crossed the channel.

Sally Younge picked small bits off her piece of bread and flicked them into her stew. She watched as the liquid soaked into each piece causing it to sink below the surface of the gravy and miscellaneous pieces of meat and vegetable, disappearing, never to be seen again. Finally feeling she had played all of the possibilities in her mind, she told Gaston to fetch her writing things. She had an errand for him. Gaston grumbled at the order, but rose from the chair to answer his lady's call.

A half hour later, she had a letter written and carefully coded should it fall into the wrong hands. She gave Gaston clear instructions to take a pub crawl. He was to visit four different pubs with the White Stag being the third so the soldiers would believe George Wickham to be at the last. He was to give the letter to the barkeep and tell him it was for a friend of Patrick Younge. Using her dead husband's name had always been the way Sally Young sent communication to George Wickham in the past and she hoped he kept the channel open. No one asked after a dead man, so it was an easy way for Wickham to filter messages for all sorts who might be trying to find compensation for to pay a bill he left behind.

"But what if the soldiers arrest me! I can go to no English jail." To be truthful, Gaston duLac did not want to go to any jail, English or French. But especially English. In France, at least the priests came by to give bread and water to the condemned.

"Sssh, the soldiers will not arrest you, they think I'm going to go warn George. You are just my footman. But, do this and we will have more money then you could ever dream about. Wickham had the girl, and I'm not certain how, but that rich man, Mr. Darcy, is involved somehow. Either Wickham finds a way to pay me what he promised or it will be his neck they stretch."

Left without a choice, Gaston the footman donned his livery that made him feel absolutely ridiculous and left the house like a proper servant on an errand for their employer. Just as his Sally girl told him, the soldiers paid him no mind as they stood on the corner swapping war stories and keeping an eye out for the movements of Mrs. Younge.

He slipped right by them and began whistling a tune as he headed to the first pub Mrs. Younge told him to patron. The coin she gave him made him wish he might spend the money on something else, but her instructions had been clear. Perhaps, if he had a few pennies left he would pick up a bit of chocolate for him and his lady to celebrate the plan two blackmail George Wickham. And if the tall bloke without even the courage to wear his country's regimentals came looking for violence instead of paying up? Although Mrs. Younge would be disappointed, the Frenchman would find himself mighty satisfied to pay him a pummeling.

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Tomorrow is another 5:30 AM morning, but the good news is I get to write all new material after working all weekend on rewrites, fixes, and redoing the wonky system here to put the chapters in order. WOOHOO! See you all in the Janeside on Facebook at the butt crack of dawn! CHEERS!