different to the beaches in England. When she had visited the seaside with her family many years before, there had been a cold wind blowing and the other holiday-makers had gritted their teeth, determined to enjoy themselves. They had changed their clothes in bathing machines drawn up on the sand and then dipped themselves in the cold sea. Here there was no cold wind and the sea was warm. There were no bathing machines nor any sign of human endeavour, only the sand, the sea and the cliffs, and above them the sky.
The waves were small and playful, running in and rolling out with a swishing sound that mingled with the cry of the seagulls which wheeled overhead.
On a sudden impulse, she sat down and took off her shoes and stockings, then holding up her skirt she walked down to the water. The sand was hot and she hopped from foot to foot, sinking into the fine grains which enveloped her small white toes as she landed until she reached the firmer sand. It was dark and wet and better able to support her weight, and behind her she left perfect imprints of her well-shaped feet.
Her eyes wandered lazily over the pleasant landscape and followed a carriage that bowled along the wide road on top of the cliff. But when it stopped and turned down the narrow road that led down to the beach she began to feel apprehensive. She ran across the beach to take shelter in the lee of the cliffs and quickly dried her feet on her handkerchief then slipped them into her shoes. The noise of the carriage was growing louder, its wheels rasping and its horses whinnying, with every now and then an oath from the coachman as the way became more difficult for him to negotiate.
Then the noise stopped and she heard the sound of the carriage doors opening. She heard a voice she recognised and was startled to realise that it belonged to Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
‘Miss Bennet!’
Any attempt at concealment was useless. Lady Catherine had already seen her and so Elizabeth moved out of the shelter of the cliffs and faced Lady Catherine who, with Anne, was picking her way across the sand.
‘Miss Bennet! Where is my nephew? I must speak to him at once. It is a matter of great urgency. I have been to the lodge, but his servants were obstinate and they refused to tell me where he could be found.’
She was dressed, again, in black, as she had been in the Alps. Beside her, Anne was dressed in drab green, her pelisse hanging heavily around her thin form. They looked incongruous in such clothes on the beach.
‘He has gone out riding,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Do not prevaricate with me,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘Where is he?’
‘That I cannot say.’
‘You can say at least when you expect him back,’ returned Lady Catherine.
‘Indeed I cannot,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Headstrong, obstinate girl!’ said Lady Catherine in an angry tone. ‘You must tell me at once.’
‘You have been betrayed,’ said Anne, doing with a few quiet words what her mother could not do with her angry tirade, and winning Elizabeth’s attention. ‘By Wickham.’
‘Wickham!’ exclaimed Elizabeth in astonishment.
‘Yes. George Wickham. We have just come from Paris. Mama had a fancy to stay there for a while after we left you in the Alps and we met George there.’
‘He was in his cups,’ said Lady Catherine, determined to have her share of the conversation.
‘And he was frightened,’ said Anne.
‘With good reason,’ declared her mother.
‘If Darcy finds out what he has done—’ said Anne.
‘Wickham seems born to be a thorn in his side,’ said Lady Catherine to Anne. ‘First attempting to elope with Georgiana, then running away with Miss Bennet’s sister, and now this.’
‘This is the worst of all,’ said Anne.
Lady Catherine nodded in agreement.
‘He has betrayed you to an ancient evil,’ she said to Elizabeth, ‘a thing old beyond imagining, a monster, a—’
‘Vampyre?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘You know?’ said Lady Catherine in surprise.
‘Yes, I do. But I did not know that Wickham had anything to do with it,’ said Elizabeth with a frown.
‘He quickly tired of your sister and left her in England whilst he resumed his debaucheries in Paris,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘He indulged in drink and women and cards, and in sympathetic company he bemoaned his fate. But one was listening who should not have been there, who should have been dead. He heard Wickham saying that he had married Darcy’s sister-in-law and knew then that Darcy must have