Undone (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

Prologue

Bath

The room above the milliner's shop was let by the week and always paid for in coin. One of her footmen had taken it in his own name, though that name meant nothing and would not be used again. By the time anyone thought to ask who had occupied the room, no one would remember.

She sat in one of the two chairs that occupied the sparsely furnished room, her gaze returning again and again to the door before dropping to the little watch in her hand.

She had half expected the girl not to come.

It had been chance, or near enough to it, that had brought the story to her at all — a footman's idle gossip, overheard in a Bath drawing room she had visited only briefly and had no particular cause to revisit.

She had returned to London the following week and thought of it again only once her man had spent some months quietly confirming that the story was true, and longer still watching the young woman at its center before he judged her worth an approach.

The correspondence between them had been arranged so that her correspondent could not have traced her, had she wished it.

Three one-sided letters had passed between them, none of them written in her own hand.

The first two were little more than vague overtures from an unnamed stranger.

The third invited a meeting, should the proposal interest her.

Most young women of sense would have consigned the letters to the fire and thought no more of them.

Yet, as the clock below struck the hour, measured footsteps sounded upon the narrow stair, unhurried and precise, and before the door had even opened, the widow found herself obliged to revise her opinion of her unseen correspondent.

The young woman who entered was about seven-and-twenty, composed in a manner that owed nothing to her circumstances.

She stopped just inside the door, and for the first time since climbing the stair, something like uncertainty crossed her face.

She had come, perhaps, expecting to receive another letter. Not meet a person.

The young woman regarded her in thoughtful silence. "You are not what I expected."

"Few people are, once met." The widow did not rise. "Sit."

The young woman sat, though slowly, her eyes moving once about the bare little room before returning to her hostess.

"You will forgive me if I ask your name."

"I shall not offer my name, nor need you offer yours.

I already know it." The widow folded her hands upon her lap.

"Should you ever speak of this meeting, I shall deny it utterly, and no one will question my word.

Yours, I fear, would fare rather differently.

I trust you will bear that in mind before deciding what manner of woman I am. "

"That sounds very like a threat." Something in the young woman's expression sharpened, wary now rather than merely uncertain.

"It is an assurance. There is a difference, though I grant you it is not always an easy one to feel.

" The widow tilted her head slightly. "I know a great deal about you already.

Where you were before this spring. Why you are not there now.

I do not intend to trouble you by naming it aloud, since I imagine you have gone to some trouble to put it behind you.

But I would have you understand that I know it, so that we need not waste the afternoon pretending otherwise. "

Colour rose briefly in the younger lady's cheeks. "I do not know what you imagine you know."

The widow regarded her steadily.

"As I said, I know a great deal about you," she said at last. "What you hoped buried, careful inquiries have uncovered. You were once employed in a respectable household. You left it under circumstances no one cared to discuss openly."

The younger woman's fingers tightened ever so slightly upon the handle of her reticule.

"The gentleman concerned appears to have suffered very little for whatever passed between you. Such injustices are hardly uncommon."

A silence settled between them.

"What interested me was what followed," the widow continued. "Some months later, a most advantageous engagement belonging to that same gentleman came quietly to nothing. There was no scandal. No public quarrel. The families simply concluded the match ought not to proceed."

The younger lady held her gaze but offered no reply.

"The two events were connected, that much I know," the widow said. "You chose your moment carefully, struck only once, and then disappeared. That is not the work of an impulsive woman."

"You presume a great deal," the younger lady said.

"Perhaps." The widow smiled faintly. "Or perhaps I merely recognize patience when I encounter it."

The young woman had gone very still, a faint crease settling between her brows. "You will not find anyone to confirm any part of that," she said at last.

"No," the widow agreed calmly. "Not directly. Truth is rarely handed to one so conveniently. It is assembled, piece by piece, by those willing to spend the time and the money required."

The younger woman did not answer.

"I have no interest in what can be proved in a court," the widow continued.

"I am interested in what a determined woman can accomplish when no one thinks to watch her.

What you did was considered. Deliberate.

You left only enough for someone as patient as I am to understand what had happened.

" She regarded the younger woman steadily.

"Patient women are exceedingly difficult to find.

I have searched for one for a very long time. "

The young woman said nothing for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice had lost its edge, though not its caution. "What is it you want of me?"

"Discretion. The kind that holds for years, if years are what it takes, without growing careless or sentimental. Are you such a woman?"

"I have never yet grown sentimental over anything I could not sell," the younger woman said.

"Good. I have no use for sentiment. I have considerable use for patience."

The younger woman narrowed her eyes slightly. "You have been at this a long while, then. Whatever this is."

"I have learned what qualities are worth cultivating," the widow replied evenly. "The rest is none of your concern for now."

"And what, precisely, do you expect of me, if I am told nothing?"

"One day you will be required to enter a particular household.

In what capacity remains to be seen. Circumstances have a way of opening doors for those prepared to walk through them, and I am very good at arranging circumstances.

" The widow paused only a moment. "It may be a year before I send for you, or five.

When I do, you will enter that household and remain there until I tell you otherwise. "

"For what purpose?"

"That is not yet your concern."

"You ask a great deal of trust from a stranger."

"I ask nothing of the kind. I intend only to pay you well enough that trust need not enter into it." The widow drew a small leather purse from her reticule and set it upon the table between them. It landed with a soft, unmistakable weight.

"There are one hundred pounds in gold before you.

They are yours upon your acceptance of the engagement, whether or not you are ever called upon to act.

Fifty pounds each year thereafter, for so long as you remain available to me.

And five hundred pounds more, the day the work is done to my satisfaction. "

The young woman looked at the purse for a long moment before she reached for it. When at last she loosened the drawstring, the gleam of gold answered her. Her fingers did not tremble, though they moved with more haste than her composure had shown until then.

"That is a very great deal of money for a woman who has told me nothing."

"It is a very great deal of money for what I shall require of you."

A stretch of silence passed between them. The younger woman's hand remained upon the purse. Whatever questions remained were plainly outweighed by its weight.

"There is a young man," the widow said at length.

"Whom I have observed for some years. He possesses charm enough to be useful and vanity enough to require careful handling.

In time I may ask you to make his acquaintance and judge whether he is equal to the purpose I have in mind.

Until then, forget that I have mentioned him. "

"Purpose?"

"Whether his loyalty lies where he imagines it does." The widow waved a hand dismissively. "You need not concern yourself with him yet."

The young woman drew the purse towards her and rose to take her leave.

"I do not know your purpose," she said, "but I will do whatever you ask of me."

"Good," the widow said. "I was hoping you would say so. Now that you have been paid, do not think you may reconsider this agreement."

She rose, standing only a few inches above the younger woman, and let the silence linger a moment before she spoke again. "I do not care to be deceived. Should you ever decide to betray my confidence, I would advise you to be very certain you have succeeded."

The younger woman swallowed, plainly weighing the threat and finding it entirely credible. "I do not intend to discover the extent of your displeasure, ma'am."

"Good." The widow allowed herself a brief smile. "I shall be in touch. Good day."

The young woman left the way she had come, unhurried, and did not look back.

Alone, the widow drew a small portrait from the pocket of her gown. The gilt frame had worn thin at one corner, rubbed smooth by years of handling. She did not look at it long. She never did.

It had been a long time coming, she thought. A very long time. And not once, in all of it, had she been careless.