A/N: It's all a bit grim oot there, so here's a new chapter that I hope will take your minds off things for a wee while. I'm now working from home for the foreseeable future. I hope you are all keeping well. The next chapter is already written. I'll post it in a couple or three days.

17th December

Colonel Forster greeted the Bennets, Mr Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam as they were shown into his office.

'All is prepared. The windows have been shuttered and you will need to sit in darkness to avoid any shadows passing the listening ports we have created. I trust that will be satisfactory?'

Mr Bennet looked at his daughters and then nodded. 'It will. Girls, there will be no talking once we are settled next door. Not even a whisper – is that clear?'

'But I want to see my Wickham!'

'You can see him after Mr Darcy has spoken with him. I want you to listen closely to what they say to each other. If, after all you have heard, you still wish to marry Mr Wickham, then I will allow it. But let this be rightly understood – you will receive only your dowry after your mother's death. No other incentive will be offered – not from me, your uncles, or your brothers to be.'

Kitty scowled and crossed her arms across her chest. 'Very well, but you will see. It will not matter to him.'

'Yes, we will see,' Mr Bennet replied, 'but you must promise not to make a sound or do anything to let him know we are listening, or we will go home and you will never see him again.'

She huffed, then said, 'Very well. I promise.'

Mr Bennet eyed her for a long moment, then nodded and turned to the gentlemen. 'I think we are ready.'

'Then follow me.'

Colonel Forster left his office through the only door it had and took them around the building via a long corridor with a couple of right angle turns, and past several other doors, to a small shuttered room with a single candle left on a table to illuminate it.

'Despite the length of the corridor you have just traversed, this room is adjacent to my office. If you look to this wall,' he indicated where he meant, 'you will see several clusters of small holes drilled at ear level, should you sit in the chairs provided. These holes are disguised behind items in my office, such as the plant on the table, but you can clearly hear what is said. Give them a try.'

Mr Bennet and Jane moved to the walls, seated themselves and pressed their ears to the holes.

'They work well, Colonel, I am impressed. Kitty, sit here between your sister and me.'

'My office has been arranged so that Mr Wickham will sit with his back to this wall, so you should be able to hear what he has to say very clearly. Once you are settled, I will take the candle and the holes will be obvious only to you.'

Mr Bennet nodded his agreement, the Colonel took up his candle and left the room, closing the door behind him.

'Now we wait,' murmured Mr Bennet. 'Remember your promise, Kitty.'

Once the Bennets had gone with Colonel Forster, Colonel Fitzwilliam explained that Mr Darcy would be left alone with Mr Wickham on a pretext that Colonel Forster needed him elsewhere. This would give him time to allow Wickham to try to explain his actions.

'You need to prod his anger enough to make him become indiscrete. It is not difficult to do, as we both know.'

'I do indeed.'

The Colonel moved toward the adjoining wall and sat in the chair designated for Wickham and spoke quietly. 'Can you hear us clearly, Mr Bennet, ladies?'

'We can,' a voice softly replied.

'Excellent. Let us begin.' Colonel Fitzwilliam said, as Colonel Forster returned. 'We are ready.'

Colonel Forster moved around his desk and sat. 'Lieutenant Wickham is on the way. Take your places, gentlemen.'

Mr Collins, red faced and perspiring, peered up the drive toward Longbourn. Aside from a gardener raking the gravel, there was no one else in sight.

Smoothing his clothing and hair, he dabbed his face with a handkerchief and waited for his breathing to slow before beginning the walk up the drive to the house.

The gardener eyed him but said nothing as he passed, much to his relief. He'd not seen the man around before which was lucky. Now he just had to get inside the house without rousing any suspicions.

Pianoforte music drifted from an open window from one side of the house. On the other side, the curtains to one room were drawn, and the window open a crack, but no faces peered from any windows to see him as he reached the front door.

He lifted a hand and pretended to knock, then waited. Peering over his shoulder, he glanced about. The gardener's back was to the house, so Mr Collins tried the door. It opened, allowing him to slip inside the house unseen and close the door quietly behind himself.

Where first?

Mr Bennet's study for that damned contract. Maybe he could find it and destroy it, putting all to rights with regards to his inheritance. He moved as quietly as he could down the passage and entered the study.

Sitting behind the desk he basked, for a moment, in the thought that all this could one day be his, and this his rightful seat. But only if he could destroy the contract.

He shuffled through the paperwork on the top of the desk, with no luck. Trying the drawers, he found a small amount of money in a pouch, and a gold watch and fob. He pocketed both items and continued the search, but no contract came to light. Had that damned attorney, Phillips, taken it into his keeping?

He looked around the study and found the safe, but being unable to open it left him even more frustrated and growing angry.

What next? He racked his brains, until he remembered something from soon after he first arrived, when Mr Bennet had given him a tour of the main rooms. The collection of snuff boxes. They must be worth something, surely, and they were small enough for his pockets. As they were originally gathered by Mr Bennet's grandfather they belonged to the estate. They would have been a part of his inheritance had he not been swindled out of it, so he had no compunction about taking them.

Now, in which room did he see them?

After Colonel Fitzwilliam made his excuses and left with Colonel Forster on some pretext, Mr Darcy was finally left alone with Mr Wickham.

The two old friends regarded each other warily then, to avoid Mr Darcy's gaze, Mr Wickham nonchalantly settled into the only spare chair, and leaned back, crossing one leg over his knee and looking about the room with feigned interest.

The silence would not last long, as Darcy knew from experience that Wickham had not the capacity for quiet; he liked the sound of his own voice too much for that. He was proven right after a short time when Wickham spoke.

'Darcy, I am surprised to see you here.'

Darcy regarded him steadily for a moment, then replied, 'I would much rather be elsewhere, believe me, but Fitzwilliam had business with Colonel Forster, so I am left to keep the… ah—dregs company for the moment.'

Mr Wickham tensed at the last comment. 'Dregs is it? How gentlemanly of you. However, I will disregard the slur for the moment. I don't suppose you know what Forster wants with me now, do you?'

'I expect it is to inform you of when your trial will be.'

'My trial?' A slight hysterical tone appeared in his voice before he managed to control it again. 'I have done nothing to warrant that.'

'Come on now, Wickham. You cannot fool someone who knows you so well as I. You were caught with stolen goods and about to flee the regiment. Stealing is as much of an offence as desertion, you know.'

'I can explain…'

'It is not me you have to convince, and I can tell you now that Colonel Forster is not one for poor excuses.'

'You should have given me the living your father wanted me to have when I asked for it, then I would not need to scrape by the best I can.'

Mr Darcy sighed. 'You refer to the living for which you signed away your interest, and were compensated for with a lump sum of three thousand pounds?'

'Well… I…'

'I did refuse you the living, but only after you returned with your hands outstretched, having wasted all of your inheritance. How did the Law work out for you Wickham? I remember that was your original plan after you gave away all rights to the living.'

'Ah, well, it turned out to be a most unprofitable business, as I believe I mentioned.'

'Really? From what I understand, had you followed the usual route into the Law, you should have worked as a clerk while studying to further your career. How far along were you in your studies?'

Mr Wickham coughed, and bit his lips. 'I… It was… My studies were not the difficulty. I was unable to find suitable work to fund my studies.'

Mr Darcy frowned in displeasure. 'Was the interest from four thousand pounds not sufficient for a single man, such as yourself, to live on? Many others manage on much less of such an annual sum.'

'Obviously it was not sufficient!' Mr Wickham shot back, his calm demeanour slipping. Wrestling himself back under control, he added. 'I had some unexpected expenses that exceeded that income.'

'Gambling debts? I remember you never were very good at cards. Whores? Or perhaps unpaid bills? I have purchased quite a collection of your unpaid bills over the years. Would you like to know their total?'

Wickham paled and leaned forward, with his hands on the arms of his chair, as if he were about to stand. 'I will not stay here to be insulted.'

'You are going nowhere.' Mr Darcy eyed his old friend, letting a long silence build, leaving Mr Wickham shuffling in his seat uncomfortable with the situation, before suddenly changing he subject.

'I spoke with Mr Bennet yesterday. You know of him, I am sure. One of his daughters had an accident a day or so ago.'

Mr Wickham seemed confused and said nothing.

Good, keep him off balance. 'She fell down the stairs in the night. Do you not find that strange?'

Wickham cleared his throat, his shoulders drawing upward a little, as they tensed. 'He has several daughters, I believe. I am only acquainted with one or two of them though.'

'He has five daughters. It was the second eldest who fell.'

Wickham's shoulders relaxed ever so slightly until Mr Darcy's next words.

'She fell, or, more correctly, was pushed, while stopping the second youngest from eloping. Do you find THAT strange?'

Wickham froze for a moment, muttered to himself, said, 'I suppose, as we're alone….' Then he smirked and relaxed, leaning back in his chair. Shrugging he said, 'Not at all. The silly chit was my latest conquest, although I do not think I want her now. She seems unable to complete the simplest of tasks without causing an uproar.'

'She was to meet you?'

The smirk grew, and Mr Darcy clenched his fists behind his back, in a bid to prevent Wickham from realising his building anger.

'Of course, she was,' crowed Mr Wickham. 'She was going to make my fortune, one way or another. As you are to marry her sister, I figured you would pay handsomely to keep the scandal quiet. But she messed it up for me.'

'Then you planned to extort money from me to marry her?'

'Marry?' Wickham threw his head back and laughed. 'The devil, I would. Until you coughed up the readies, she would have kept my bed warm. After that? Well, I had no more use for her.'

'You would then have returned her to her family?'

'I would have been on my way to the colonies. As for the chit? Well, I have… friends… who always have need of new blood. I am sure they would have welcomed her with open arms… as long as she opened her legs for them. Providing them with a young gentlewoman would have made me a tidy sum too. I would get more were she untouched, but… well… I have my needs, and I prefer to bed maidens.' He shrugged again with an insolent grin. 'They're so eager to please. I have to say, I envy you your Miss Bennet. If she is anything like Miss Kitty and her very eager lips—' As he spoke, he gestured to the drop of his breeches with a lecherous grin.

Disgusted and hoping that at least one of the ladies listening in the other room did not understand the reference to her younger sister's lips, Mr Darcy interrupted. 'Can I assume that these "friends" of yours, the ones you planned to sell her to, run a brothel?'

'How well you know me. Still, it all came to nothing this time. First your sister, then your sister-by-law. I get a little further with them on each attempt. Maybe next time I'll have bedded your wife before you even realise.'

Mr Darcy, with great difficulty, refrained from punching Mr Wickham and instead forced a smile. He then had the great satisfaction of seeing Mr Wickham, who had been laughing, lose his cheer and his expression change to one of confusion.

After a long moment, Mr Darcy said, 'I think we have all the information we need, do you not agree Mr Bennet.'

A muffled reply that seemed to come out of the air said, 'I believe so.' The words were followed by a muffled feminine sob.

Mr Wickham's face turned white.