“Precisely!” Dr. Keckilpenny began brightly. “And all that’s left to make it paradise is a suitable playm—”

The heart for quips left him before he could even finish the word, and he sighed and slumped and said, “Oh, it’s hopeless, isn’t it?”

“You look for hope in the wrong place. Both of you,” Elizabeth said. She felt spent now, empty. “What each of you lacks I cannot give you . . . and would not if I could.”

She turned and started down the stairs, hoping she’d reach the bottom before the tears came.

She did.

After a long, still moment, Master Hawksworth left the attic, as well. It was obvious he wasn’t going after Elizabeth, however. He simply had no choice but to follow in her footsteps.

“Buh ruhz,” groaned Mr. Smith. “Buuuuuh ruhhhhhhzzzzzzzzz.”

Dr. Keckilpenny slouched over and slumped back atop his chest, which was now rattling so fiercely it was scratching the floorboards.

“No, Smithy. Not ‘buuuuh ruhhhhzzz,’” he said. “The word is damn.”

“ELIZABETH.”

At the sound of her name, she left the blackness. She’d been sleeping but not dreaming, as with the dead—the restful dead, anyway.

She saw her haggard father kneeling beside her, sucked in a lungful of the malodorous air, heard the banging and scraping on the window boards and the raspy, incoherent cries outside. And she longed for oblivion again as memory returned.

She’d spent hours—it seemed like days—fighting back one breakthrough after another. Sometimes with her father, sometimes with her sisters, sometimes with soldiers or servants or men from the village. Never with Master Hawksworth. Whatever battles he was or wasn’t fighting, he was facing them without her.

She couldn’t remember falling asleep, nor did she recall crawling under the dining room table with the mothers nestling sleeping or weeping children. Yet here she was.

“Come with me,” her father said softly. “It begins soon.”

Elizabeth was too groggy to even ask what “it” was. She simply got up and followed.

Lydia and Kitty, she found, were passed out together atop the table, while Mary was slumped, drooling on herself prodigiously, against a grandfather clock in the hallway.

“Papa?” Elizabeth said.

Mr. Bennet just put a finger to his lips and shook his head. He was letting her sisters sleep. But why not her?

The soldiers were gone from their positions along the hall, and when Elizabeth and her father reached the foyer, she saw why. The whole company was packed in there together, bayonets affixed to their Brown Besses. Ensign Pratt was at the back, his cherubic face as round and pale as a full moon. In front, by the door, was Capt. Cannon in his wheelbarrow, turned to face his men.

“. . . been telling yourselves you’re not ready for all this,” he was saying. “Because you lack training. Because you lack experience. Poppycock! What does that count against what you are. Englishmen! And not just that. Londoners! Young, tough ones who’ve already faced on the streets of Spitalfields and Camden and Limehouse foes more implacable, more cunning, more tenacious than any mere shambling rotter! Footpads, sneak thieves, pimps, degenerates—now those are fiends to fear! So you’re not good at marching. So you don’t know a field marshal from a major general from the company cook. I don’t care, and neither should you. Because by God, you boys already know how to fight! And mark my words: This day, you shall!”

The soldiers were cheering as Elizabeth and her father started up the stairs. When the Bennets were about halfway up, the captain noticed them and said something to his Limbs, who stood beside him looking weary and grim.

Right Limb looked up at Mr. Bennet and saluted.

Elizabeth’s father nodded solemnly as he carried on up the staircase.

“Papa, what is going on?” Elizabeth asked.

“You will soon see, my dear. I have arranged for box seats.”

The rooms on the second floor were overflowing with huddled guests from the ball, all still in their mussed finery. Though Elizabeth didn’t see her mother, she knew she was among them somewhere. Mrs. Bennet’s snores were quite distinctive.

Up ahead, toward the end of the hall, Elizabeth saw Lt. Tindall speaking earnestly to her sister Jane.

“. . . honor-bound to do all I can to protect your person . . . and your purity,” Elizabeth heard him say as she and her father walked up. His back was to them, and so absorbed was he in his own words that he didn’t notice their approach.

Jane was blushing and looking away.

Mr. Bennet cleared his throat.

The lieutenant turned around.

“Oh. Is it time?”

“I believe so,” Mr. Bennet said. “Good luck, Lieutenant.”

“We have daylight, we have muskets, we have the element of surprise. We won’t need luck.”

The young officer offered Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth a bow, turned back to Jane and boldly kissed her hand, then pivoted and marched off toward the staircase.

“There goes a brave man,” Mr. Bennet said to Jane, and he continued watching her for a long moment even after she’d replied with a simple “Yes.”

“Is His Lordship ready?” he finally said.

“He should be. He asked if I could come in and help him with his stockings perhaps half an hour ago. He was almost fully dressed then.”

Mr. Bennet cocked his right eyebrow. “Almost?”

Elizabeth cocked her left. “Help him with his stockings?”

“Yes. His dressers are all downstairs guarding the . . .” Jane flushed pink again. “I said no!”

“Of course, you did,” Mr. Bennet said. “Now, perhaps we should—”

The nearest door swung open.

“Would you have a look at these breeches, Miss Bennet?” Lord Lumpley said, his attention fixated (as usual) on his own nether regions. “They seem puffy in all the wrong . . . oh. Good morning, Mr. Bennet. Miss Bennet. I didn’t realize the moment had arrived.”

“It has,” Mr. Bennet said.

“I see. You may as well step in, then. We wouldn’t want to miss it, would we?”

The baron moved back to let the Bennets into his large—and, to Elizabeth, sickeningly empty—bedchamber. Every other part of the house was packed near to bursting, yet His Lordship had been allowed to keep an entire room to himself. Elizabeth knew there was good reason: The night before, he’d complained more about the invasion of the lower classes than the damned, and concessions had to be made. Yet it still rankled that his room was now filled with nothing more than some furniture, scattered clothes, and a few poorly concealed bottles of gin.

“I drew these back a crack to have some light to see by,” the baron said, walking over to a set of long, emerald green drapes. “I wasn’t up to taking a good look out, though. Not before I’d had my morning tea and toast.”

“I’m afraid we ran out of water for tea some time ago,” Mr. Bennet said. “The food’s all gone, as well.”

“Oh?” Lord Lumpley pouted, then shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing to hold us back then, is there?”

He drew the curtains aside, revealing a pair of glass doors. Just beyond was a shallow balcony and, beyond that, Netherfield’s long front lawn bathed in the crimson light of dawn. When the baron opened the doors, a sound like a thousand moans or the lowing of a vast herd of cattle swept into the room.

The four of them stepped onto the balcony.

Scattered here and there over the grounds were dozens of ragged, staggering figures—easily two hundred in all, if not three. It was easy to tell the first wave of sorry stricken from their victim recruits. Half the dreadfuls looked moldy and rotten, and they hobbled on legs that had barely enough flesh to hold the bones together. The other half one could have almost taken for living, so natural was the pallor of their skin. Their faces were slack and often blood smeared, however, and many had gaping cavities where their organs had once been.