A/N: Once again I thank you for the tremendous response. I had a contest for the 500th review and the 600th. Now it's time for the 700th, so hurry along. Best get right to it (yes, yes, I know. American slang from 50 years later).

You get a twofer today because… well, mainly because I don't have a filter. I just write it and throw it out there. I won't do a spoiler, but you can probably tell we're closer to the end than to the beginning. Had enough manly-man talk last chapter? Here's some girl-talk for you, and another piece to the puzzle. Wade

I have to say I love Lizzy's impertinent nature. I of course also loved that she was strong as an ox and stubborn as a mule, which meant she fit in well with Mother. She had only been awake a couple of weeks when she was tramping up and down the stairs of Rosings, anxious to get outside. Well, perhaps not up and down the stairs so much as down the hall or at least she could get to the door of her room unassisted. She was already both showing herself to be naturally resilient and recovering nicely; and disinclined to accept my supposed sloth.

We were sitting around at a table in her room; with we being the group she affectionately called 'the broken sisters'. It was hard to say which of us were more broken, but we were all at the very least tested. Lizzy's tests were now known to all of us, although Mother and I suspected there was something she had not told us. None of us had the courage to broach the subject though. Something Fitzwilliam had said before he left, made me think he knew more than he let on, but we were not to know until we saw him at Easter; if he managed to keep his impatience in check, which seemed unlikely.

Mother's status in the group was now generally known by the four of us, and we had no idea if the rest of the Bennet sisters knew. Nobody thought any of them would think less of her for it, but it was not a topic of discussion. For myself, since I had been sick most of my life and recovered just in time for a madman to try to kill me, my membership in the group seemed reasonable. I imagine learning my father was the cause of my mother's membership in the group should have distressed me immensely, but since I could not even remember him, I was curiously disinclined to worry about it. I was just happy to have my mother back.

The last member of our erstwhile group was naturally Charlotte, whose membership was fairly obvious. Discussion started with me asking a quite harmless question.

"Mother, do you suppose Lizzy and I could go for a ride in my Phaeton."

Mother was far more amiable now after her transformation, or really since the Bennet sisters had joined our lives, but she was still master of the house.

"Yes, or course Anne. You can both ride the phaeton all day if you like… as soon as you walk downstairs and climb onto it."

She may as well have suggested we could ride as soon as we walked to town to pick it up, but I was not to be so easily dissuaded.

"How about just a half-hour and I will not drive. You can have one of the grooms just ride the pony or even just lead it around. Please, Mother."

Mother and I were just trying to determine how to live together in the same house. We had a long history of either ignoring each other or talking over each other, so these little steps seemed an important part of establishing our equanimity.

Mother looked at Lizzy who would not press her, but looked like I was suggesting the best idea she had ever heard of, so finally she relented.

"If you manage to get yourself down there with only your sister's assistance, then you may ride out for a half hour. You will bundle up, and I will have Smith leading the pony. No riding, just leading."

We were both very agreeable to the plan. Lizzy looked like she was going to suggest the curricle so the other sisters could go, but mother insisted, "Just the three of you. Your other sisters may have the pleasure of your company another day. You should go Saturday after luncheon."

Charlotte did not look as interested in the excursion as we were, but agreed anyway.

With easy topics out of the way, Elizabeth brought up a painful one. I was surprised she would bring it up with the group and not with Charlotte alone, but she probably had her reasons… or perhaps she did not. She was clever and we all loved her, but she did ridiculous things as often as any of the rest of us.

"Charlotte, I am wondering if you will allow our apparently adopted brother, Mr. Fitzwilliam a chance to come to know you."

It was not until that moment that I realized Lizzy had met the lunkhead precisely once, and had said half a dozen words to him at best. Naturally, they were a bit of an impertinent setdown at that. Mother had packed him off with Fitzwilliam before Lizzy woke up. We had all become so accustomed to each other that it was astounding to think of some of the intervals of acquaintance. Fitzwilliam and Lizzy seemed just about made for each other, but they had been in company for six weeks a year prior, and then less than a week at the time of the attack. I was not at all certain she even liked him, but she was mightily impressed by what he had done in her absence. She had met myself and Mother for a grand total of about two hours before she woke up in my old room next to Mother and apparently adopted her immediately.

Charlotte had known my cousin for a couple of hours, but had an aversion to him bordering on outright disgust. Charlotte never really minced words, much like someone else I know.

"I do not know, Lizzy. I know he is close to all of you, and I owe him at least more civility than I have so far, but it will be… difficult. Very difficult. I know it is monstrously unfair, but… but… but… he makes me very uncomfortable."

Thus far, we all had our suppositions, but nobody was willing to ask Charlotte directly… well, almost nobody. Elizabeth surprised me by saying, "He is not Wickham, Charlotte."

Charlotte's head snapped up to lock on Lizzy's eyes, as if it had never occurred to her that someone may ascertain her secret. She stared at Elizabeth for a moment in alarm, and then her expression cleared, but not to one of comfort, but to an indifferent mask.

"I know not what you are talking about, Lizzy."

Elizabeth was not one to be daunted, and she relentlessly answered, "If it was not him, who was it Charlotte? You do know, do you not?"

Charlotte was not one for tears, but if she was, they would be spilled now. She stared at Elizabeth for quite some time, before she began speaking almost in a whisper.

"Colonel Miller whipped him within an inch of his life, and sent him to die in France. I watched it Lizzy. Eight and twenty lashes to the back, and one on each cheek. I watched each lash of the whip and felt nothing. Nothing at all… or at least I convinced myself of that. It was the only way I could prevent myself from keening in despair, or the desire to take my father's rifle and kill him right on the pillory."

Elizabeth was sitting next to her and just took her hands, but said nothing while Charlotte worked through it in her mind. At length, Charlotte continued.

"Do you know he escaped? He managed to leave the cart somewhere before the ship and disappeared into the slums of London. He is out there, Lizzy. He is doing the same thing to another woman… or perhaps to me again."

As you would expect, we all gasped and cringed at the very idea that he was still loose in the world, and I saw Mother start rethinking our security.

Once the dam broke on Charlotte's words, they came rushing out in a torrent.

"He had a hood on. He had just attacked Becky and I sent Maria for help when he came at me from behind. He would have gotten away with it easily, but I managed to nearly scratch his eyeballs out. That was how the colonel found him. So you see…"

She looked at us all with a hard stare, and said, "He is alive somewhere in the world, and if he ever finds me, he will probably want revenge. A man like that will believe I have ruined his life."

Now mother looked positively worried, and I knew steps would be taken before the day was out to safeguard our girls. You might argue Charlotte could have told us sooner, but nobody would chastise her. We now knew we had an enemy in the world, a man with no conscience whatsoever, who knew Rosings and its environs well. I had no doubt Darcy had a swarm of men looking for him, and they would be tripping over Mother's men before the week was out.

We were all just absorbing this when Charlotte said yet another very distressing thing.

"I am not stupid. I know I am being entirely unreasonable… and unfair… and mean… and silly and… well, everything else that is terrible… but… every time I see the colonel, I see a combination of Wickham who took everything from me, and Colonel Miller who failed to tame him or protect Betsy and I. Colonel Miller probably turned a man who would have forgotten us entirely into a man who hates me to my very soul."

At this point, her reserve had completely cracked, and the tears I had been expecting finally arrived.

"I know your cousin is probably a good man despite his annoying tendencies, and I know he believes he esteems me. I am neither naïve nor deaf. But how can you possibly build a friendship from that? I know I owe him much better than I have given him, but… I do not know if I ever can, or even where to start."

We all just took in the enormity of what she said; myself in some shock; Mother with obvious calculation as to how to take care of her charge, and Charlotte just sitting there nearly spent.

Lizzy slid her chair around the small table to where she was practically sitting in Charlotte's lap, and started talking directly to her in a whisper we could barely hear.

"Charlotte, do you know what I thought of Fitzwilliam four days before the attack?"

Lizzy's attack seemed to work, as she said, "Can I guess it had not improved since the previous year."

Lizzy gave a grim chuckle, and said, "Quite the contrary. At that point, the initial assembly was the high point of our acquaintance."

Charlotte actually chuckled at that, but it was a grim sort of chuckle. Mother and I had no idea what she was talking about, but would be asking forthwith.

Lizzy continued, "I will tell you a secret…"

With that she eyeballed Mother and I and said, "Which shall remain as such?"

We just nodded, and Lizzy continued.

"He lost a horseshoe and was walking near the parsonage when he overheard a conversation between myself and Bennet… of which you will not be privy. He stopped and listened… eavesdropped really… to the whole thing… all of it."

We all gasped at the idea that the ever fastidious Darcy would stoop so low.

Elizabeth continued, "At that point, he would have had to improve considerably to get to the point he was at when he left Meryton."

Aunt asked, "What was that point."

Elizabeth just said, "I disliked him intensely. He…he…"

At that point, I could see there was much more of a story, and that I would have to drag it out of Darcy, as she was not going to finish.

"That was Friday. He approached me again on Monday and continued to dig a hole for himself. I went from merely disliking him to nearly hating him then, but he just kept at it. He was practically suicidal…"

We all knew about the knife at that point, and wondered if she was talking suicidal literally or figuratively. I believed from some clues that she may have been near a breaking point back then. We all waited in breathless anticipation for her to continue.

"Somehow in the next three days he became my confidant, and to this day, I have no idea why or how… just that it happened. He learned all my secrets that had not been exposed by his ungentlemanly eavesdropping, and we became… almost… well, not friends I supposed. More and less at the same time, but I know not what."

None of us wanted to point out the obvious to her.

She said to Charlotte, "I did not just have an aversion to his manners Charlotte. I nearly hated him. I told him… well, I cannot go into it, but suffice it to say I nearly flayed him alive with censure more than once."

We all watched her in fascination, but then she looked at Charlotte.

"I still did not like him the night of the attack, and when I see him, I may love him or hate him on sight, but he is far, far from the man I thought he was."

Now she was crying a bit herself, but she finished.

"Give the man a chance Charlotte. Let him earn your love… or your hate… or your indifference; but do not charge his accounts with another's debts. If you do not, you will spend the rest of your live looking over your shoulder, and no man will ever be good enough. All will be discarded without cause. Give him a chance, Charlotte. That is all I ask."

Charlotte was quite done with crying by now, and she stared at Elizabeth, saying, "I will Lizzy. Will you?"

We had all been acting as if her husband was dead already, and he would be soon enough even if one of us had to hurry him along; but that was not the only thing between Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam. I doubted any of us would ever know the true story, but we could at least hope.

Elizabeth managed to nod, which was all any of us could hope for.