Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
There were few travellers at night, and the mail coach had lamps illuminating the way.
Elizabeth supposed it was safe enough since they were on a familiar road, with a driver accustomed to the route who trusted his horses.
Had it been foggy or pouring rain, there would have been outriders with torches ahead of them.
She gave up looking at her watch, both because it was too dark and because she always wished more time had passed since she last looked.
There was no hint of dawn, but surely it was closer to morning than to midnight.
The guard kept them on time, of course, but it still felt like it was taking forever.
It was a snug fit inside the coach with four passengers.
Because they had boarded at the beginning of the route in London, she and Darcy had seats inside.
A man and a woman had joined them for a few stages, but at the last change of the horses, they left and two young men boarded in high spirits, talking about beating their friend home and going to the races tomorrow.
Darcy ignored them entirely, just as he had ignored her since they boarded.
He seemed determined to act as though they were not together, even sitting across from her rather than next to her.
She was not sure if he did not want anyone to assume there was an improper connexion between them, or if his own cares, which were admittedly great, preoccupied him.
Elizabeth yawned and leant against the window, trying to keep as far from the man next to her as she could.
He whispered and sniggered with his friend across from him, and she wished they would both just go to sleep.
She eventually grew accustomed to the sound of the horn announcing their arrival and to clear the roadway and the lads’ inane chatter.
Somewhere between sleeping and wakefulness, she felt her skirts by her ankle move, and she shifted her feet.
“No more,” a voice said. Muffled laughter followed. One of the irritating young men must have moved in the tight space and kicked at her skirts.
But after she closed her eyes and tried to resettle herself, it happened again.
Only this time, she could have sworn someone’s fingertips brushed along her ankle.
She started and drew in as close to herself as she could without stepping on Darcy’s feet.
His hat was low over his head and he leant against his window.
He must have fallen asleep sometime since they last stopped.
More stifled sniggers came from both men. “I can do it again,” the other man whispered. This was the man next to her. In her sleepy state, she wondered what he was about to do, but they were finally silent for so long that she closed her eyes as she crossed her arms around herself.
A finger stroking along her arm above her elbow, where she had folded them under her chest, startled her awake. There were soft cackles, and the man next to her whispered to his friend, “I missed.”
The other man made a hushing sound and murmured, “That is enough. She will wake.”
“No, no, next time.”
Elizabeth held herself still, now on alert for more unwelcomed advances.
These overgrown boys thought they had the right to fondle any woman who crossed their path.
There was no point in screaming because the coachman would not stop and the guard’s priority was delivering the mail on time.
She must manage them on her own, somehow.
The man next to her shifted and was about to touch her inappropriately again. Elizabeth stiffened. How many gropes and fondles would she have to endure before they departed?
The moment he reached out his open fingers, Elizabeth recoiled. “Stop it!” she hissed.
A hand shot out across the carriage and grabbed his menacing fingers. Darcy yanked the youth forward while bending back his hand as far as it would go. He would have fallen onto the floor had his friend not steadied him. He gave a howl and tried to pull back, but Darcy held him fast.
“Any part of you that touches her will be returned to you bleeding and broken,” Darcy said warningly.
The young man nodded and tried to pull away again with a wince.
“Say that you understand,” he growled.
“I understand!”
Darcy let go, and the vile man threw himself back in his seat with a scowl. His friend looked chastened, but the man who assaulted her was sullen. “All I did was touch her. She is all alone, is she not?”
Elizabeth never wanted to be on the receiving end of the look Darcy gave this dreadful man.
His silent, foreboding glare was a sight to behold, and the man next to her finally dropped his gaze.
Darcy had a great deal of presence, even when he was silent.
There was an authority to him she suspected few people questioned.
The coach was tense and absolutely silent for another hour until the guard blew the horn at the next stop. They had about five minutes to wait while the horses were changed before they would be on their way again.
“Get out,” Darcy said in a low voice.
The first youth scrambled out of the coach, but the one who assaulted her cried, “What! Why? We cannot be abandoned here.”
“Get out, or I will make you get out, and then I will tell your fathers what dishonourable men you are.”
The man looked ready enough to argue, but his friend called for him to get out and said he was not about to suffer his father’s wrath because he was a fool. Elizabeth heaved a sigh of relief when the door closed behind them.
Darcy seemed to settle as well, and he said, “We are not likely to pick up other travellers before daylight. However”—he shifted and moved to sit next to her—“I will not risk another confrontation with someone who thinks he can take advantage of you.”
She nodded, for some reason feeling tears in her eyes and a choking sensation in her throat. Nothing worse would have happened with Darcy here, and he threw them out of the mail coach. So why was she crying now? Fear and relief did strange things to people.
Wordlessly, he handed her a handkerchief. “I am sorry. I thought to give the impression we were not travelling together, so no one would remember a couple fleeing London. I never thought you would be assaulted in my presence.”
She was so eager to help Darcy the way he had been willing to help Lydia that she had not thought about what could happen on the journey.
If they were separated, she had little money and no one knew where she was.
She could not return home alone now, even if she changed her mind about helping Georgiana.
There were wretched men who would take advantage of her if they had the chance.
“I was hasty,” she realised.
“By yelling at him?” he said, turning to her in surprise. “You had every right to tell him to stop. You could not have known what he would do, either.”
“No, I was impulsive to go to Ramsgate. I did not even want to, but at the last thought to accompany Kitty, and she did not need me. I was impulsive to ask you to help me recover Lydia, because in a few hours she would have walked back in the door alone. And I was impulsive to join you and travel in this public way.”
Darcy tossed his hat to the empty seat across from them and stretched out his legs. “It is done now, Miss Bennet. Impulsivity seems to run in your family, but since your assistance will preserve my sister’s reputation, I must thank you for it.”
The warm feelings she had been having toward him for rescuing her faded. “I beg your pardon?” she intoned. “Are you talking about Lydia?”
“She ran off with a man she knew for but a few weeks,” Darcy said. “Not that she deserves to be married to a man like Wickham,” he insisted, “but she chose to run off with him, if only he had taken her.”
Elizabeth felt herself growing angrier every moment. “What about your family? You seem to be astute, but I would not say wise decision-making is a family trait.”
He gave her a look of haughty composure. “You mean my sister?” he said in surprise. “She is the victim of a blackguard!”
“Yes, she is, but, like Lydia, Georgiana also chose to run off with him.”
“It is hardly the same as the behaviour of your mother and sisters. Your family’s want of propriety showed me a disaster such as this was inevitable.”
He was afraid for Georgiana, and she had tried to sympathise with him, but now she lost all compassion in anger.
“My mother wants us wed before my father dies because she cannot take care of us and my father will leave us nothing. Lydia is thoughtless and idle and was ripe to be taken advantage of. But Georgiana has no excuse to run off with the first man to show her interest. She is wealthy and well-connected and, in time, could have any worthy man for a husband, but she seems exceedingly eager for a man’s attention. Why is that?”
She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued, “Georgiana must have been meeting with Wickham or writing to him secretly while you were with her in Ramsgate. She hid that from you, and she hid her intention to elope. You must have told her to avoid Wickham, but she met him despite your guidance. And she clearly did not care that eloping with anyone, let alone Wickham, would wound you.”
“You have said quite enough,” he said in a cool voice. “We can make it clear we are travelling together, but, for both our sakes, let us pretend we are so accustomed to one another’s company that we can have nothing further to say.”
“Gladly!”
He withdrew his eye, and she shifted away from him, but not before tossing his handkerchief in his direction before she looked to the window.
The impropriety of Lydia’s and her mother’s conduct must hurt her credit, but Darcy seemed to think he and Georgiana were without flaws. His sister had eloped too. He might have good principles, he might be handsome and clever, but Darcy was all pride and rudeness.