Chapter Twenty-One
The tollbar at Biggleswade dropped behind them and the coach moved on. Darcy sat forward, eyes on the glass. The laudanum had robbed him of the first miles; he meant to lose no more.
It was not only time the drug had stolen, but his ability to command his own thoughts, and his mind was flooded with memories he usually kept under strict regulation: Elizabeth’s voice appealing to him as a gentleman, Elizabeth’s eyes as she had turned from him, Elizabeth’s gentle touch as she tended his wound.
She did not put on airs. She did not soften her opinions when honesty was required. She was not impressed by titles; she had treated her own supposed consequence as an inconvenience. There was a nobility in her that required no embellishment and would be in no way improved by the title of princess.
So why should she, of all women, be persuaded that she was one?
Darcy could not reconcile it. He did not believe she was a princess; he did not believe it for a moment.
The story was absurd on its face, and yet it had been made plausible enough to bind her to Sir Reginald’s party with the fetters she would never recognise as fetters: duty, obligation, the idea of doing good for those she loved.
That was the only explanation that did not insult her intelligence.
Not vanity. Not ambition. Not a foolish hunger for finery.
Something sharper and more dangerous. Sir Reginald had turned her virtues against her.
They had spoken to her of family, of responsibility, of sacrifice, until she could not tell where kindness ended and coercion began.
Love was a word he did not use readily, and he could not admit to it—not now, not even to himself—until she was safe.
Until he had her, living and breathing, in his arms and could hear her say some sharp, practical thing that proved she had not been broken by fear or by falsehood. Until then, it must be action.
He grunted. His concern was useful. It sharpened his sight, tightened his focus, made him constantly aware of the passing time.
But if he permitted his confusion over her situation or his fear for her safety to overcome him, then it would do what the laudanum could not; it would make him reckless.
He could not afford to be reckless, not when Elizabeth was in a blackguard’s coach.
He would think on his feelings later. He would untangle them later. He would set them before her and tear them to pieces with her, sentence by sentence, until it all made sense. Later.
First, he must find her.
Darcy turned his eyes to the window. Between the gate at Biggleswade, which they had just passed, and the next at Baldock, he noted every turning that might take a full coach: one that slipped left under a pollard willow into sheltered ground; another half-swallowed by hazel and thorn; a broader road signed for a market town; and, last of all, a rougher track along the higher rise.
The horses’ pace altered. The road rose a little, and over the lift of land Darcy saw the Baldock tollbar. As they drew up, the tollkeeper appeared from his door.
“Good day to you,” he called. “I am Mr. Darcy of Pemberley. I seek news of a particular coach that may have passed this way this morning.” He described Sir Reginald’s equipage. “Three passengers inside, two ladies and a gentleman. It would have been only an hour or two past.”
The gatekeeper consulted his book. “No black coach with three passengers.”
“You are certain?”
“Coaches are my living, sir. I should not forget one,” the man said, with a touch of offence.
“Very well,” Darcy said. “You have been of real service. We shall be turning back but will pay you your fee.” As the tollkeeper wrote “coach and four,” Darcy stepped aside and called Anders down from the box, grateful that there were no other carriages waiting just now.
“They have not passed,” he said, when his coachman stood before him.
”No, sir,” Anders answered.
”Then they have left the road.”
”Yes, sir.”
Four lanes; one carriage. That was some direction at least. And Anders knew every turning of the great road within a day of London.
Darcy briefly described what he had seen.
“The willow lane is lonely,” Anders said in reply.
“It comes out by a posting inn where the north road joins. It’s a rough place, though.
The hedged lane passes cottages and ends at a beer house.
It’s tight turns for a coach, but it could be done.
The broad road stretches to Little Highland, a market town where there is a posting house and a good deal of business.
The high track runs to farms. If they’ve friends there, they could be sheltering. ”
Darcy would have said more, but another set of carriage wheels sounded from the London side. A coach swung into view and drew up as the tollkeeper hurried over.
The door of the new coach flew open before the horses had settled. A large gentleman at least twenty years older than Darcy sprang out, then grimaced and rubbed one knee before he straightened.
“My good man,” he cried to the tollkeeper, “I am Sir William Lucas, of Lucas Lodge. We have pressing business.”
“Sir William,” came a dry voice from within, “allow the man to name his fee, if you please.” A second man emerged, neat despite his journey.
His coat was that of a modest gentleman, his dark hair grey at the temples, his gaze shrewd and observant.
“We have no time to wait should he call the magistrate upon you.” He turned to the gate keeper.
“I am Mr. Bennet,” he said. “What is your toll?”
Bennet. Could he be any relation to Elizabeth?
A third man, younger, light-haired, well-dressed and of quieter manner, now descended from the carriage.
Sir William leaned in closer and spoke low. “We are in search of a scoundrel. They are traveling in a black carriage, an older couple and a young woman.”
The toll-collector looked from Darcy to Sir William to Mr. Bennet and then to the unnamed third man.
“I have not seen such a carriage today, sir, but if the scoundrel is in a dark coach,” he said cautiously, “then you may all be upon the same hunt. This gentleman”—he nodded towards Darcy— “was asking about such a carriage not three minutes since.”
“Then you are either our villain or our ally,” he exclaimed. “Which, sir? Declare yourself.”
Anders and Johnson were glancing between him and the bluff, blustery Sir William with their mouths agape. Darcy mastered the urge to point out that the carriages might not be related at all and to ask whether Sir William commonly greeted strangers with accusations of villainy.
“I am Mr. Darcy,” he said plainly, then addressed himself to the other two men. “If you seek a coach with a Miss Bennet inside it, then I am very much at your service and not at all your enemy.”
Sir William’s face lit up. “My dear Bennet, we have cavalry after all.”
Mr. Bennet stepped forward. His eyes, though tired, were keen.
“You have seen this coach, Mr. Darcy?” he said. “It does not sound like the same carriage my daughter was in when she left my home.”
“Their first was damaged in the storm.”
The third gentleman, younger than the others and more fashionably attired, approached with a civil inclination of his head.
“Mr. Gardiner, of Gracechurch Street in London. Mrs. Bennet is my sister. My niece is . . .” He glanced at Sir William and paused, as if he had approached a word and thought better of it.
“In a situation which makes our presence in this business necessary. I must say we expected her party to be farther north.”
Gracechurch Street. Darcy’s mind supplied, out of long habit, a dozen associations with the street near Cheapside: warehouses, counting houses, the smell of tar and spice.
Princes and princesses might, on rare occasions, traverse Gracechurch Street.
In his experience, however, they did not keep uncles there.
Whatever wild story Miss Bennet had been told, her relations at least appeared unconscious of having produced a Thurnian princess.
He did not mention it. For some reason, he did not wish to embarrass her.
She would tell them the story in her own way once they recovered her.
And he was impatient to be off upon that errand.
“I happened across Miss Bennet and her companion Mrs. Hobart at an inn near Derbyshire,” he said, the words clipped, rushed. “They had been separated from Sir Reginald by the snow, and their carriage required repair.”
There was a great deal more to that story, but they had no time for it just now.
Mr. Bennet paused. It was not the pause of a man deciding what to do but what to believe. The man’s gaze moved over Darcy with a precision that made Sir William’s dramatic postures seem even more childish by comparison.
Darcy went on. “I met them just south of Stamford when the storm hit. Afterward, the road north of that point was impassable, and they had no escort and a damaged carriage. I had men, horses, and room to spare. It appeared to me that the safest course was for Miss Bennet and Mrs. Hobart to return to London under my escort, rather than attempt to rejoin Sir Reginald upon a road that had already proved treacherous. I offered to see them as far as town. They agreed.”
Sir William gave an approving exclamation.
“Very proper,” he said. “Excellent. Quite what I should have done myself, had I possessed a carriage, men, horses, and the idea.”
Mr. Bennet’s eyes slid closed. Darcy surmised that it had been a long ride.
“You travelled together for some miles then,” Mr. Gardiner said, ignoring his companions. “Yet Elizabeth is not with you.”
“We stopped at a posting inn last evening,” Darcy said.
“Sir Reginald appeared after dark, no doubt alerted to our location somehow by Mrs. Hobart. He insisted upon taking charge. I could not like it, and I said that I had promised to see Miss Bennet delivered to her relatives.” He caught Mr. Gardiner’s gaze.
“She mentioned an uncle and aunt in London, sir. I must presume she spoke of you.”
Mr. Bennet’s mouth tightened. “And my daughter—how did she appear? Distressed? Confused? Under constraint?”
“She was herself,” Darcy said, and found the words lodged like grit in his throat. “She believed she was obligated to remain with her original party.”
Mr. Bennet held his gaze. “You are certain?”
Darcy’s hands tightened at his sides. “I am.”
“And Mrs. Hobart?” Mr. Gardiner asked. “How does she stand in this?”
Darcy’s stomach turned at the name. “She stands at Sir Reginald’s shoulder,” he said.
“Where did you begin this morning?” Mr. Bennet inquired.
“We tracked them to Biggleswade, but not beyond.” Darcy nodded at Anders. “My man and I were just discussing the roads between there and here.”
Mr. Gardiner was already calculating. “Name them.”
Darcy did so, briefly and without ornament, while Anders confirmed in plain terms where each lane was likely to come out.
But naming them was one thing. Choosing where to begin was another. Darcy had always been decisive; indecision was a luxury for those not losing something precious with every moment wasted in conversation.
“The broad road—Little Highland,” Mr. Gardiner said at once. “If they mean speed, they will take the easiest route. Fresh horses in a town, quick change, off again before anyone can ask questions.”
“It is also the road they would expect us to search first,” Darcy said.
Mr. Gardiner’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning you believe him clever.”
“I believe him practised,” Darcy returned. “And practised men do not always choose the most obvious path.”
“Practised men,” Mr. Gardiner said, “still require roads that will carry their wheels.”
“We ought not delay any longer,” Mr. Bennet insisted.
“Indeed,” Darcy agreed. “Let us search both. My men and I will return to the willow road, and—”
Mr. Bennet and Mr. Gardiner exchanged a glance. Mr. Gardiner nodded. “We shall take Little Highland.”
Johnson, who had been silent until now, spoke. “We ought to be on with it, Mr. Darcy. It looks like snow before the evening, and the roads may be more difficult to travel then.”
Darcy nodded once. “Yes.” Sir Reginald and Mrs. Hobart must know, after the laudanum, that Darcy would be searching, that he had discovered their plan.
And if they had no scruples about drugging him, there was no telling the lengths to which they would go .
. . He forced the thought aside. Wrath could wait. Action could not.
Sir William clapped his hands as if starting a dance. “Excellent. A rescue party.” He hurried back to the carriage.
“Let us rendezvous at the Inn at Topler’s Hill tonight,” Mr. Gardiner said, naming an inn between the two tollgates. “God willing, Elizabeth will be with one of us. If she is not, then we meet there regardless and decide together how to proceed.”
Darcy inclined his head. “Agreed.”
He climbed into his carriage. Johnson gathered the reins; Anders took Darcy's horse and swung up in to the saddle.
As the bar rose and both coaches creaked into motion, Darcy spared one last glance at the other party. No liveries. No banners. No solemn proclamations, only ordinary men in ordinary coats, bound together by their care for Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
Let Sir Reginald and Mrs. Hobart speak of crowns and kings. Darcy desired only this: that when Elizabeth Bennet next stepped down from a carriage, it would be to greet those who truly loved her.
Until that was done, he had no intention of yielding the chase.