Chapter 25 Lost Among the Crowd
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LOST AMONG THE CROWD
“Anne?” She looked about her uncertainly as her heart began to patter quickly in her chest. She made sure she was in the correct box and then stood for a moment, not knowing what she should do.
Leaving the supper boxes, she first took a few steps in one direction and then a few in the opposite. The trio she had left behind her was nowhere in sight. Elizabeth inhaled deeply, counselled herself to remain sedate, and began to move down the path.
What followed seemed interminable. Elizabeth moved through the crowd, down path after path, praying she would find Anne, or Mrs Jenkinson, or anyone else she recognised.
The strung lights which had so enraptured her now seemed ominous, casting lurking shadows across the crowded walks, and making the faces of the strangers near her seem dangerous.
She pressed forwards through cluster after cluster of revellers, craning her neck to search for the silver-blue of Anne’s pelisse or the shock of Lord Rawlings’s red hair.
It seemed that her chest tightened with each passing moment that failed to reveal them.
Her throat grew tight with unshed tears, but she refused to give in to them, doing all she could to remain calm.
A gentleman jostled past her without apology, and she stumbled against the edge of the path, vexation mixing with fear.
She was vexed they had left the box without her but more vexed with herself for going off without her party.
A woman alone in London was never the done thing and for good reason. Too much danger.
Elizabeth blinked rapidly against the sting in her eyes.
“Foolish, foolish girl,” she whispered to herself, hurrying down another darkened walk.
The crowd thinned somewhat as she ventured towards the more shadowed paths, and she paused beneath a lantern, pressing trembling fingers to her temples.
Where could they have gone? It was disheartening knowing the plenitude of places, sights they might have gone to see.
They might be in the crowd by the orchestra or perhaps sampling arrack punch at the rotunda.
They might, even now, be circling back to the supper boxes in search of her.
They might, all of them, be unknowingly chasing one another round and round, never quite meeting.
A tear escaped despite her efforts, tracking hot down her cheek.
She dashed it away impatiently, but another followed.
This was ridiculous. She could not afford the luxury of tears, but they came regardless, blurring the lantern-light into watery stars.
She pressed back into the path, hoping the darkness would cover her distress while she tried to think of what to do.
“Miss L?”
Whirling round, she let out a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. “A dark, shadowy walk. I ought to have known I would find you.”
He looked down at her, concerned. “What is the matter? Are you unwell?”
She shook her head, her true state revealed, however, by the tears which came more determinedly at the relief of seeing someone familiar to her. “I—forgive me. Yes, I am well.” She attempted to compose herself, though her voice wavered traitorously.
He regarded her silently, the lanterns casting shadows over his handsome countenance. “Why are you alone? You are crying—are you injured?”
“No, no. Only I became separated from my party,” she said with a little hiccupping sob. “I cannot find hide nor hair of them.”
“They left you alone?”
After a moment, in which she used her gloved hand to try to wipe away her tears, she admitted, “It was my own fault. I…I wanted to see the Cascade, and the others wanted to remain in the supper box. I thought I would be back before anyone really noticed I was gone.”
He produced a handkerchief and offered it to her. “Take this, and then we shall search together. Two sets of eyes are better than one, particularly in this crush.”
Elizabeth paused. Was this it, then, the end of their game? He could not find someone without knowing whom he sought, and if he was, indeed, Mr Darcy, asking him to find Anne…
She dabbed at her eyes, sniffling as she did. “You are very kind, but I could not impose—”
“Miss L,” he said with quiet insistence.
She saw it then, that Mr D was the sort of man accustomed to taking charge.
The sort of man who did not quail in an emergency, who did what needed to be done.
“You are not imposing, and I am not merely offering; I am insisting. No gentleman with any sense of honour would leave you alone in this crowd.”
“I thought,” she said with a watery little laugh, “that I was meant to believe you were the valet, or the stableman.”
He chuckled at this remembrance of their little farce. “Very well. I shall confess to you that I am a gentleman and as such refuse to leave your side until you are reunited with your party. Who are they?”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together, considering. Ought she to simply tell him everything? It seemed the game was through.
“The lady is small, about my height, with hair…lighter than mine. She was wearing a poke bonnet and a pale blue pelisse over a similarly coloured gown. She moves with her head raised, a little stiffly but quick.” Elizabeth paused, then added, “Perhaps you have met her before. Her name is Miss de Bourgh, and she is accompanied by her betrothed, a Lord Rawlings who—”
“Jolly, yes, I know him well.” He nodded once. “I suggest we begin with the supper boxes—they are well-lit and easily surveyed. After that, the rotunda, and then the more retired walks if necessary.”
Elizabeth pressed his handkerchief briefly to her eyes once more before returning it to him.
What she would do, what she would say if they found Anne…
She did not know. She supposed it must depend on his reaction.
She thought it telling that he did not own either to knowing Anne, or to not knowing her.
Perhaps his pleas for them to be acquainted were ended.
Perhaps he did not wish for their game to end, similar to herself.
They moved through the crowds with greater efficiency now.
He was tall and larger than she and proved adept at creating a path where none existed.
People seemed instinctively to part before him with murmured apologies, and he seemed to expect it.
Elizabeth found herself studying his profile surreptitiously—the strong line of his jaw, the slight furrow between his brows that spoke of concentration.
He carried himself with the assurance of one who had never doubted his place in the world, and yet there was nothing of the supercilious about him.
His concern for her distress had been genuine.
“The supper boxes appear largely occupied by dining parties,” he observed as they surveyed the lamp-lit area. “I fear I do not see her, do you?”
Elizabeth scanned the faces anxiously but at length shook her head.
“Then onwards to the rotunda.”
They moved in near silence, Elizabeth’s anxiety again mounting. Both their progress and her dismay were disrupted by the appearance of none other than Lord Saye.