Chapter 24. Fancy Meeting You Here
Catherine de Bourgh realised that she had not been careful when she left the apartment but felt that the evasive manoeuvres she had taken since were more than adequate in the off chance that someone was following her.
She wished she had been able to contain her emotions better back at the apartment but hearing that her precious Georgiana had been Wickhams first target shocked her to her core. Georgiana with her musical talent should have been her daughter, Anne had no talents to speak of and had always been a great disappointment to her.
She could not remember the last time she had been so angry, probably when George Darcy proposed to her sister Anne instead of her. She could deal with Wickham stealing Anne Darcy's ring, that should have been her ring to begin with, and even him kidnapping her daughter with some insane idea of marrying her, after her fortune of course, no-one could actually love that insipid child. She was glad she spilled her tea on Annes new carpet, how dare she redecorate the apartment, she did not know that she actually owned it, Catherine had always led her daughter to believe that her father had willed everything to her mother and Anne could only inherit on her death. Which was so far from the true, at least a quarter of Catherines income came from rentals she collected from the vast property portfolio Annes father had left to Anne in his will under the curatorship of her mother, once Anne turned twenty one, Catherine had tricked Anne into signing a power of authority document giving her full carte blanch with those properties, Unfortunately due to the nature of the will Catherine could not sell a single one of those properties without Anne present at the signing of the sales documents and even her stupid daughter would realise something was wrong.
She was going to kill that little sleezy man, she had seen his previous victims and what he had done to them, no doubt he had put poor Georgiana through the same if not worse. His hate for William Darcy was legendary, and Catherine always kept Wickham on a short leash when it came to her family. Which is why she encouraged him to commit his misdeeds under the name of Charles Bingley, what her nephew saw in that new money wannabe she had no clue, and that vulgar sister of his, always hanging on William at every opportunity. Although Catherine did admire the girls tenacity, and wished Anne would be a bit more like that with William, they would be married in no time and she would have achieved her life goal to merge the Darcy and de Bourgh family totally and utterly. If only she, Catherine, were younger, she would have married William Darcy herself.
Catherine pulled up next to the safe house she had George Wickham sequestered in. She knew that he would not hear the car, luxury cars are notoriously silent, and he would be watching some depraved show on television. She made sure that her handgun was loaded, she was not going to play games with this situation, she could replace him in days, and no-one was going to miss him; she considered this a public service.
She was so focussed on the task she had set for herself, she did not notice that there were more cars than usual in the quiet street, or that there was a lot of public works going on, men on electricity poles, men at a manhole, men trimming trees; perhaps also because people like that were so beneath her and therefore not deserving of her notice.
She climbed out of the car and headed into the house, she did not close the gate as not to alert the little man in the house, nor did she knock, she just carefully inserted her key and quietly opened the door; she did not even think to close the door behind her, wanting to make as little noise as possible to alert the moron.
No sooner had Catherine de Bourgh disappeared into the house, all of the public works people stopped what they were doing, primed their weapons and assumed their positions around the house. With the precision of a water ballet team, they descended on the house, using the open front door as their primary entrance. In the first group to enter the house was William and Richard, Lucas William and lady Catherines brother, Earl Fitzwilliam.
A shot rang out followed by a high-pitched scream. The scene that greeted the first group was George Wickham rolling around holding his crotch area, with Catherine de Bourgh standing over him preparing to shoot again.
The team sprang into action, Earl Fitzwilliam and his team subdued Catherine de Bourgh disarming her and putting her into restraints. The other team with Richard set about restraining Wickham which thanks to Catherine de Bourgh was relatively easy. The man was in pain and demanding an ambulance and doctors. At the sight of his captors his eyes widened, and seeing Madame restrained even Wickham knew the game was up, and his best bet at survival was to tell all.
If looks could kill Catherine de Bourgh would have been successful in her mission to kill Wickham. As soon as he started singing like a canary, she lost all façade of class and started screaming at him to shut up (insert some choice curse words). Richard and William looked on in amazement hearing language like that coming out of their prim and proper aunts' mouth.
The ambulance arrived, and to Wickhams dismay it was a prison ambulance and not a local hospital one. With four armed guards on the ambulance and two cars with armed guards as escort, there would be no escape for Wickham.
Catherine de Bourgh demanded that she be remanded to her apartment until this whole situation was resolved. Unfortunately for her, Wickham had already revealed the location of all documentation relating to the operation, the house where other girls were being held, the names of the drug operatives that he knew of, along with other very pertinent information, Catherine de Bourgh was going straight into jail, and William Lucas was going to push for no bail as she was a flight risk, as well as getting all her assets seized, this might unfortunately affect her daughter but he reckoned that her uncle and cousin would look after her until such time as this whole mess was sorted out.