Chapter Six
D arcy stepped onto the road and turned towards Rosings before stopping. His conversation with Miss Elizabeth had been upsetting, her words striking his conscience rather hard. Perhaps if he explained more fully about Bingley’s tendency to fall in and out of love?
He sighed and, without thinking, turned back toward the hill. Through the colonnade, he could make out a figure on the stone bench, absorbed in what appeared to be a letter. He frowned; Miss Elizabeth had said she disliked the folly, so he had not thought to warn her against it. Should he return, despite her clear desire for solitude? She was angry with him, but at the very least, he ought to warn her against reading her letters there.
But would she listen? No one else did.
As Darcy considered what was best to be done, he studied the folly, the bane of his every sojourn to Kent. He rubbed the back of his neck and tipped his head slightly to one side. Had that column always leaned quite so far to the left? And the stand of trees that abutted the structure—were they slumping towards the stone structure? They had not been before the latest storm—at least, he did not believe so.
A rumbling, lower and softer than thunder, sent his heart racing. Yes, there was a definite list to the entire structure that had not been present before. A fault in the foundation? Soil loosened by the rains?
It no longer mattered.
It took him several minutes to reach her, even at a run. “Miss Bennet,” he called, a little breathless and his voice sharper than he intended. “Please, I must ask you to step outside.”
She looked up, her expression guarded. “I believe we have concluded our conversation, Mr. Darcy.”
“This is not about—” He broke off as small stones skittered from the roof, bouncing against the floor. Her eyes narrowed. He stiffened. “Miss Bennet, please. The structure is not safe.”
“How curious that you should suddenly show such concern for me,” she replied, though she did fold her letter, tuck it into her pocket, and stand. “When did this great revelation about the folly’s instability occur to you? Before or after our discussion about your disdain for my family?” She began to walk towards him, her temper giving her speed.
He did not care that she was angry with him, only that she was moving towards him and safety.
She was halfway to him when he heard another deep, resonant groan, as though the earth itself had sighed in warning. The sound reverberated against the stone floor, pillars, and roof of the folly, and Darcy’s senses sharpened. Dust shivered down from the dome, and the very ground beneath his feet trembled. Miss Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and she cast a glance behind her, where he could see a fissure opening in the ground.
The folly was going to tip and slide into that hole. And it was unlikely to remain in one piece when it did.
“Do not stop!” Darcy ordered, and her gaze snapped back to his. No sooner had she taken another step when there was a roar—a thunderous, sickening rupture as the earth beneath the back side of the folly opened like the mouth of a leviathan.
Miss Elizabeth stumbled forward, landing on one knee and a hand, then pushed herself back up and shot forward, but the floor itself was lifting up from the earth before her. Darcy barely had time to register what was happening before he saw her slide backwards a few inches, then scrabble forward and slip backwards again. His heart seized with terror.
“Miss Elizabeth!”
With a surge of motion, he flung himself forward, the ground beneath him still steady for now. The jagged remnants of the rising floor formed an unstable obstacle between them, the angle near impassable, but he grasped the stone of the floor that was now at the level of his waist and hoisted himself atop to straddle it.
There she was, struggling, grasping at loose stones, her fingers scrabbling against the dust-slicked surface.
Darcy did not think—he acted.
He stretched himself out, prone along the ridge of the floor, securing himself with one arm and leg. Above him, the domed roof was tipping, sliding, before it rode the tops of the tipping columns back towards the woods, flying away from them and into the trees, instantly crushing the entire grove to kindling in an ear-splitting explosion of splintering branches.
He stretched his free arm out, reaching for the woman who was struggling to find purchase. “Take my hand!”
Her breath came in ragged gasps, her dark eyes filled with terror, yet she did not scream. She reached for him, but her footing crumbled beneath her, and she slid further.
“Miss Elizabeth, jump—now!”
With a final, desperate lunge, her fingers brushed his, and he bent farther than he ought to catch her wrist, his grip closing around it like a manacle. He clenched his jaw, every muscle in his arm straining as he clung to the remains of the floor, fighting against gravity. Miss Elizabeth clung to him with both hands now, her own grasp fierce, her feet still attempting to find purchase along the stone. He tried to straighten and pull her up with him. One inch. Another. Her hand slipped and he leaned down again to strengthen his grip.
The folly’s stones ground together. The fractured floor shifted, dropped a bit. Stone grated against stone, the grinding sound filling his ears.
He grunted, pulled—she was reaching out one hand to grasp the edge of the stone he was still lying across. As the tips of her fingers curled over the edge, a crack appeared at the part of the floor furthest from them. Everything seemed to slow as it continued to travel across the stone. Straight towards them.
Straight for Miss Elizabeth.
Somehow, she seemed to hear it coming for her. She met his eyes, and he could see from the sorrow and the resolution in her expression that she knew what was about to happen. She grabbed at the top of the stone, and he grasped her gown at the back, tried to pull her up into his arms and throw them both backwards and to safety—but the crack reached them first.
He grasped her to him just as the world turned sideways.
He attempted to hold on as they slid wildly down one side of the breaking floor and then were tossed into the darkened pit below.
Something hard struck the side of his head, and he lost his hold on her.
Darcy hit the ground hard. The breath was driven from his lungs, his body jolted by the impact. For a heartbeat, there was only silence, save for the settling of loose stones. He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again and took a wheezing breath, the air was thick with dust. For a moment, Darcy could not discern if he yet lived, for his body behaved in a manner most unnatural, and his senses reeled, overwhelmed by the tumult of their fall. One leg was dangling over a precipice, while the rest of him was laid flat on his back on a small outcropping that protruded from the side of a cavern.
Then he heard a breath, shallow and pained, unmistakably near.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he rasped, the sound barely carrying in the eerie silence. The sound hurt his head. He forced himself to move, to pull himself back from the edge, though each motion sent a fresh wave of pain through his ribs. His back throbbed from the force of their descent, and when he attempted to brace himself upon his arm, his head swam. Yet he must move—he must see her.
Once he had hauled himself back as well as he could, he saw a dim sort of light filtering through the ruined folly above, parts of the fractured remains of the floor now forming an uneven cover some twenty feet above their heads. Loose stone littered the earth, but the larger pieces of the floor had not crushed them—though they were embedded in the soil, and Darcy could not trust the earth to remain solid beneath them.
He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. He could just make out a form. It was only a few feet away but was half obscured by dust and darkness. It stirred. She stirred. A sharp pang of relief coursed through him, though it did little to ease the pain in his head.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he tried again, reaching for her though his shoulder protested. “Are you injured?”
Foolish question. He ought to have asked how badly.
She drew a breath, then coughed, pressing a hand to her chest as she attempted to rise. The effort cost her—he could see it in the way she braced herself against the uneven ground, the fine tremble in her limbs. She was able to sit up but no more.
“I am—” She faltered, swallowing thickly before attempting again. “I am not so injured as I might have been.”
Darcy exhaled, unsteady with the force of his relief. “Thank God.”
She shifted once more, then gasped, her hand flying to her side. Even in the dim light, he could see the tension in her frame, the stiffness with which she held herself. He reached for her instinctively, his fingers brushing over the torn fabric of her sleeve, where a gash marked her arm.
“You are bleeding,” he said, his voice sharper than he intended. He had not meant to sound accusing, but the sight of her injury set his nerves alight with an urgency he could scarcely contain. Damn his aunt. Damn his family for ignoring his warnings. Damn this poorly conceived, poorly built folly.
“As are you,” she countered, her gaze flickering over him, lingering upon his own undoubtedly battered form.
Darcy lifted his hand to the side of his head, and it came away wet. He was of no mind to argue, though the pain in his ribs remained, irking him with each breath. He did not think they were broken, but they were surely bruised. It was nothing short of a miracle that neither had been knocked entirely senseless—or worse.
He forced himself upright, gritting his teeth against the protest of his head and back. His coat was torn, his breeches coated in dust and grime, but none of that mattered. Their peril had not yet passed.
He cast his gaze about their surroundings, assessing the stability of their position. They had landed upon a narrow peninsula of shifting rock and softened earth. Rubble had fallen in great heaps around them, some pieces large enough to crush a man outright. A scant few feet before them was the drop that Darcy had narrowly avoided, and perhaps twenty feet back and to the right side from where they sat, a great slab of the folly’s foundation had collapsed at a fortunate angle, forming a crude shelter against falling debris. He could see that it was settled against another large piece of stone.
“We cannot remain here,” he said grimly, glancing upwards at the jagged remnants of the folly above. More of the structure might yet collapse, and they were exposed.
She nodded, though she did not move immediately. He could see the way she held herself as though any motion would bring pain. Yet she would not complain. Of that he was certain.
With some effort, he shifted to his knees and crawled back in her direction. When he reached her, he extended his good arm. “Come. We must make our way to firmer ground.”
She hesitated only a moment before rolling to her knees. As she did so, she inhaled sharply. He steadied her as best he could, mindful of her injuries, though his own pain was difficult to manage.
Together, they inched their way towards the more stable shelf of dirt and rock closer to the side of the hole, then to the right towards the angled slab of stone. His head ached fiercely, but he cared not for his own discomfort, not when Miss Elizabeth was beside him, her own progress faltering, her breath uneven with pain.
At last, they crawled to the relative safety of the tilted slab, its sturdy presence offering some protection from further collapse. They settled at the very end of it in case it should move again. Darcy exhaled, the pain subsiding somewhat now that he was settled. He turned to Miss Elizabeth, his eyes, now adjusted to the dark, searching her face for any sign of worsening distress.
She met his gaze, her expression weary yet composed. “We are not yet free of our predicament,” she murmured.
“Indeed we are not,” he agreed. “But we are alive.”