Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
In Which Lizzie and Darcy Pursue Lady Catherine, with Unlikely Help
Lizzie screamed and ran to Charlotte. Darcy was certain she was dead.
Lizzie managed to roll Charlotte over to her back and began shaking her friend. “Charlotte, no, no, no! Charlotte!”
His mouth was still dry from the gag, and his head pounded from the blow that wretched Agnes had landed on him the night before.
But that was nothing to the emptiness he felt in that moment, watching as Lizzie shook a lifeless Charlotte.
“Lizzie?” came a hoarse whisper.
“Charlotte!” she cried, and Darcy dropped to his knees next to Lizzie. “Charlotte, are you all right?”
Guy pressed into Darcy’s side and whined. He placed a hand on the small dog’s head, and with his other hand he helped Charlotte
sit up. She winced at the motion. “She got away, Lizzie. I’m so sorry.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“We didn’t tie her feet, and she ran for the horse,” Charlotte said. “I hesitated—I didn’t want to shoot the horse—and she swung up on his back. She kicked me as she went by, and everything went black.”
“And the pistol?” Lizzie asked.
“I don’t know,” Charlotte moaned.
“I don’t see it anywhere,” Georgiana said, searching the nearby underbrush.
“Never mind that,” Darcy said. His thoughts had felt as though they were all underwater, but they were becoming sharper now.
“Where’s Travers?”
“He left me and Sally and Clara in the parlor,” Charlotte said, rubbing her temples. “There was some sort of commotion at
the front of the house, and we took the opportunity to slip out the back, in case you needed help.”
Darcy swallowed as he helped Lizzie get Charlotte to her feet. “She might have created a diversion out front. We need to—”
Charlotte swayed a bit but waved them off. “I’m all right.”
“Georgie?” Darcy said, and she came over instantly, slipping Charlotte’s arm over her shoulder.
“Go,” she said.
Lizzie and Darcy ran back through the trees toward the grotto. Sally and Miss Jeffries were still in front of the grotto,
Sally wielding the knife Agnes had threatened Georgiana with. “Is everything all right?” Miss Jeffries shouted.
“She escaped!” Lizzie shouted. “Stay put, we’re going for help.”
Darcy reached out and grabbed Lizzie’s hand, pulling her toward the house. “She has the horse, so she must be headed to the main gate. If we’re lucky, one of the gatekeepers has a horse tied out front.”
Darcy didn’t waste any more breath on talking. They ran toward the house as quickly as the injuries they’d sustained and Lizzie’s
long skirts would allow. They entered through a back door and Darcy steered them through the gallery, shouting for help. His
voice echoed off the walls, but he saw no sign of any servants—where were they? He reached the front hall and spun in a circle,
trying to decide what to do next. Lizzie was wild-eyed beside him, and he knew what she must be thinking—they could not let
Lady Catherine slip from their grasp again. They might not survive it.
“Out the front,” Darcy decided. “I’ll run to the gatehouse if I have to.”
He ran out the front door, Lizzie on his heels. But when they spilled out onto the gravel drive, Darcy was confronted by a
sobering sight:
Lady Catherine.
She stood before the house, a valise slung over her shoulder and her hair a disheveled mess. Her head had been tilted back,
but when she saw Darcy and Lizzie spill out the front door, she turned and her expression darkened.
“Stop!” Darcy shouted.
Lady Catherine, unsurprisingly, did not. Faster than Darcy could have thought possible, she raised one arm, and they all saw
what her valise had concealed: The pistol.
“Get down!” Lizzie shouted, and he heard a shot ring out as he fell to the ground, Lizzie tumbling down beside him.
I’ve been shot, he thought. For it seemed to be the only explanation for why his shoulder was on fire, and why he was suddenly flat on his
back.
“Darcy!” Someone pushed him onto his back, and he saw Lizzie before him. Felt her hands running up and down his body searching
for wounds. “You’re not shot. You’re all right!”
“No, I heard it,” he mumbled. “A pistol shot—did you not hear it?”
“I heard it,” she confirmed. He hissed in pain as her hands felt his shoulder. “I’m sorry! You landed on your shoulder when
I pulled you down.”
His shoulder screamed in protest as he struggled to sit up. Once upright, he saw that Lady Catherine herself was on the ground
just as they were. Her valise had fallen, and spilling out of it were dozens of diamonds, glinting brilliantly in the sun.
Lizzie helped him to his feet, and together they limped toward her prone form, but cautiously. Lady Catherine was on her back.
She panted heavily and groaned as she tried to sit up but couldn’t quite manage it, for her left arm was clasping her right
shoulder—from which a great deal of blood flowed.
A tall figure stalked over to her and kicked her fallen pistol away, out of Lady Catherine’s reach. He made no motion to reach
down and assist the injured lady but regarded her for a few moments. Then, he slipped his own pistol into its holster and
turned his glower onto Lizzie and Darcy.
“Father,” Darcy said, gasping in pain. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Fitzwilliam. Do you care to tell me why your sister’s lady’s companion just tried to shoot you?”
“For the record, I never liked her,” Georgiana said from the end of the settee, sipping daintily at her tea. “I told you as
much in all my letters, too, so there’s a record.”
Darcy smiled, then grimaced at the pain in his head. His entire body felt as though he’d been run over by a horse, but he
was alive. And so was Lizzie, who sat in the closest chair to him, her hand cradling his, and Georgiana, who’d suffered little
more than a scrape at the base of her throat from Agnes’s blade.
Charlotte was also all right, although bruised and shaken. She sat in a chair with a blanket bundled around her, despite the
summer heat. Mrs. Reynolds had tucked her in, telling Charlotte it was the perfect antidote to the shock she’d suffered, and
then shoved tea into all their hands. Sally and Miss Jeffries—“Please, call me Clara at this point,” she’d insisted—were completely
unharmed. They were all gathered in the family parlor as Mrs. Reynolds fussed over them, even Guy, who was curled up on the
settee next to Darcy.
“You never would have liked any lady’s companion Father hired,” Darcy told Georgiana.
“Well, at least any other lady’s companion wouldn’t have been a career criminal bent on exacting revenge against Lizzie.”
“I would be worried if there were more than one,” Lizzie said.
Darcy placed a hand over his face, then winced as the movement exacerbated the pain in his shoulder. “I can’t believe she
was here the entire time.”
Mrs. Reynolds must have heard his hiss of pain, because she gently moved his hands aside and placed a cold cloth on his head,
like she used to do when he was a boy. “You stay still now, sir.”
“Don’t worry,” Lizzie said, taking his other hand. “I’ll make sure he rests.”
“Lizzie, I’m so sorry.” He almost couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Her cheek was puffy from Lady Catherine’s blow, the
cut still angry and the skin starting to bruise, although Mrs. Reynolds had helped her clean up the blood. “I thought bringing
you here would keep you safe.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“This is the perfect hiding place,” Charlotte said. “When you think about, it’s very audacious.”
“The last place you’d look,” Georgiana added.
“Downright devious if you ask me,” Sally muttered.
“Thank you,” Darcy said to the ladies surrounding him. “If not for you . . .”
“You’re welcome,” Georgiana said.
“It’s the least I owe you and Miss Bennet,” Sally said stiffly.
“Please, call me Lizzie.”
“And we are sorry about accusing you of stealing,” Clara added.
Sally nodded. “Although we will need the diamonds back.”
“Diamonds?” Darcy asked.
“I’ll explain later,” Lizzie reassured him.
Just then, the door opened, revealing his father. Darcy was unsurprised to find his father’s expression pinched and disapproving.
In the months he’d spent abroad, his once-black hair had turned mostly gray, and the lines in his face were deeper. Darcy
could scarcely believe he was here.
“I’d like to speak with my son,” he said.
Mrs. Reynolds dipped a curtsy and hurried out of the room, and Sally, Clara, and Charlotte followed. Georgiana stood but she
lingered. “Papa, I—”
“Not now, Georgiana.”
“No,” Darcy said, sitting up slowly. “Let her stay. She’s the one who’s been living with a criminal for nearly a year.”
His father didn’t have an answer to that, because Darcy’s movement had displaced Guy, who hopped to the floor and trotted
over the older Mr. Darcy to sniff his feet. The man scowled and stepped back. “What is this creature doing inside the house?”
“That’s Guy,” Darcy said. “He’s my dog. Well, mine and Lizzie’s. We both take care of him.”
At the informal mention of Lizzie’s name, his father looked her up and down. Lizzie stood and made a proper curtsy. “Miss
Elizabeth Bennet, sir. I am sorry to be meeting you under these less-than-ideal circumstances.”
“So you’re the lady who fancies herself a solicitor, then?”
“No,” Darcy said, clearing his throat. “She is a solicitor. With Longbourn and Sons.”
His father ignored that. “Miss Bennet, I should like to have a private word with my children.”
“No,” Darcy said, taking Lizzie’s hand in his once more and pulling her onto the settee next to him. “Whatever you say, you
can say in front of Lizzie.” His father glared, but Darcy didn’t look away. “There are things you don’t know because you’ve
been gone so long, and I intend to give you a full accounting of my behavior and decisions. Once you hear the truth from me,
then you can decide whether you approve. But Lizzie must remain here to be a part of the telling.”
Beside him, Lizzie squeezed his hand. He clung to her.
“Fine.” His father sat down in the chair across from him. “Begin.”
It took nearly an hour for Darcy and Lizzie to reconstruct the entire tale, stretching all the way back to the day he and
Lizzie met, working on Bingley’s case, and encompassing the case of the Mullins Brothers and Mr. Tomlinson’s deception. Some
of this his father had known, thanks to the letters Darcy had sent abroad and the news his father had received from other
solicitors at Pemberley & Associates, but there was a great deal of misinformation that Tomlinson had fed the senior Mr. Darcy
over the past months. Darcy’s voice gained strength the longer he spoke, and at first Lizzie was deferential to his explanation
of matters, stepping in only to clarify. But by the time they were halfway through, she was speaking as often as he. And the
entire time, his father just stared.
Darcy couldn’t tell what his father thought—whether he believed him or thought him mad or was angry with him or disappointed.
When they concluded, Darcy’s father regarded them for a long moment.
Finally, he shifted his gaze to Lizzie, and to their tightly clasped hands.
“It seems that I owe you a debt of gratitude today, Miss Bennet.”
“No,” Lizzie said. “I did what anyone would have done.”
“No, you did not. Clearly not everyone would have put their own lives at risk for two people not related to them.”
“Maybe not,” Lizzie allowed, “but I think that most people would risk their lives for someone they love.”
Love for Lizzie and all her bravery swelled within Darcy, and he squeezed her hand, scarcely willing to breathe in anticipation
of his father’s response.
“Love? You profess to love my son?”
“I do, very much.” Lizzie’s head was held high. “And I love Georgiana like a sister.”
“And we love her!” Georgiana declared.
“Is that so?” Mr. Darcy asked.
“Yes,” Darcy said, sitting up even straighter. “I love her.”
“God help me,” his father muttered. But they were saved from further declarations of any sort by a knock on the door. “Enter.”
Charleston stepped in and bowed slightly to the elder Mr. Darcy. “Excuse me, sir, but there is a regiment at the front gates,
requesting entry. They’re led by a Colonel Graves, who said he has business with you.”
“Business?” his father sputtered. “I don’t know what he’s—”
“Graves!” Darcy explained. “He’s the man who has been looking for Lady Catherine—Charleston, allow him entry. Tell him we have her.”
Charleston looked to his father for confirmation, and his father nodded. “Very good, sir.”
Darcy’s father stood. “I suppose I shall go see what the man has to say. We’re not done discussing this, Fitzwilliam.”
He turned to march out the door, but Darcy got to his feet. “Actually, Father, there’s one more thing.”
He turned, annoyed. “What?”
“I love Miss Bennet, and as soon as she is prepared to say yes, I intend to ask her to marry me. And there is nothing you
nor anyone else can do to persuade me otherwise.”
He heard Lizzie gasp beside him, but he kept his gaze trained on his father. In the end, the man merely shook his head and
said, “We’ll continue to discuss this,” before leaving, slamming the door behind him.
Darcy slumped back down in his seat. “Well, that went well.”
“That went so well!” Georgiana cried, jumping up to hug them both.
“It did?” Lizzie asked. “I couldn’t tell.”
“I’m going to leave you for a moment,” Georgiana said, releasing them. “But if you need me for any reason, I’ll be just outside.”
Then she winked at him.
“Oh dear, I think your sister believes that you intend to propose this very minute.”
Darcy reached out to grab Lizzie’s hand once more. “And would you say yes?”
She pursed her lips, and Darcy could see that she was mulling it over.
Her hair was a mess, and her cheek was now starting to turn from a dark red to a deep plum shade.
There was dirt on her nose and her gown was grass-stained and torn, in addition to the bloody slit in her dress where Agnes’s knife had grazed her.
She had never been so beautiful to him as she was in this moment.
“Not yet,” she said softly. “But I think I’ll be ready very soon.”
“I can live with very soon,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.
He felt her smile beneath his lips, and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him tight. “Good,” she whispered. “Because
now that Lady Catherine is taken care of, we shall have all the time in the world.”