Chapter Twenty-Three
Darcy had never been so conscious of the shape of a road.
The turnpike from Baldock back to Biggleswade impressed itself upon his mind as if he had ridden it daily.
Four roads could carry Miss Bennet away.
Two were likely, but the first would allow a carriage to disappear the quickest. That was the one his instinct told him was where he would find Elizabeth.
They reached the second road from Biggleswade, and with a brief exchange of salutations Mr. Bennet’s carriage turned onto it. Not thirty minutes farther on, Darcy saw the pollard willow and his own coach turned. He could not help watching both sides of the lane for any sign of the party he chased.
The inn Anders had mentioned was a squat, dank house another half hour from the turnpike. It sat back from the lane, smoke crawling from its chimneys as if reluctant to rise. The sight of it made his skin crawl. Surely Sir Reginald would not have taken Miss Bennet here.
Darcy stepped down. The yard was slushy underfoot; a thin boy threw straw before the stable door with more enthusiasm than success.
Inside, the air was thick with stale tobacco and a fire that smoked. A rail-thin woman stood behind her bar with a cloth in her hand, polishing a tankard that had no further need of attention. When she looked up and saw Darcy, she stiffened.
“Good day to you, madam,” he said. “I am in search of information regarding a lady who passed this way earlier today in a small dark coach.”
“We have many coaches upon this road of late,” the woman answered, her voice just a degree too loud. “So long as their money is good, I do not pry.”
“Did a small dark coach stop here to water or change horses today?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I would not know.”
A man by the hearth made an exaggerated cough that might have been a laugh. Another muttered something low, and a bench scraped the floor as bodies shifted, turning their attention more fully upon Darcy. He felt Anders behind him, silent and watchful. Johnson was outside, watching the door.
The woman leaned forward over her counter. “You speak like a magistrate.”
Darcy met her stare. “I would rather not send for one.”
Her mouth tightened. It was not fear he had touched, but calculation. Trouble was expensive; in places like this, it could ruin a woman’s business and her life.
Darcy reached into his pocket slowly, keeping the movement deliberate and open. He produced a single guinea and set it upon the counter with a soft clink.
“For your inconvenience,” he said.
She looked at the coin as though it were both insult and temptation. She did not touch it.
“We keep no book for names,” she said at last. “And I will not have folk saying I sell my customers.”
“I am not asking you to sell anyone,” Darcy said, his answer measured. “Only to save a lady from harm.”
The woman’s eyes flickered; she glanced toward the men by the hearth and then back again. “Harm,” she repeated. “What harm?”
Darcy kept his voice low. “The gentleman she travelled with is not her family. He has taken her under false pretences and without her father’s consent. If he is permitted to carry her on, there will be consequences that cannot be undone—not only for him, but for everyone who has helped him.”
Her hand twitched, as though she meant to snatch up the guinea, then stopped.
“You say she were taken,” she said carefully.
“Yes.”
“And you want me to help you catch him,” she returned, her voice still too loud—still meant for the room as much as for him. “So that he can come back and break my windows for it.”
Darcy did not flinch. “I will not have your windows broken.”
A few soft chuckles rose. “Oh, will you not?” one of the men called, openly amused now. “Hear that, lads? The gentleman’ll guard us.”
Darcy turned his head toward the sound, and allowed himself a small, almost courteous smile, nothing warm in it, nothing that invited familiarity. “I have no desire to engage with you at all,” he said. “Unless you make it necessary.”
The man blinked.
Darcy returned his attention to the woman. “I understand your caution,” he went on. “But I must know. Did a coach stop? Did it take on fresh horses? Which direction did it travel?”
Her nostrils flared. At length she said, “We had more than one coach today. And I don’t never see ’em. I stay inside.”
“Did you see the young lady?” he asked.
The landlady paused just long enough to tell him there was more. Her eyes slid sideways—toward the doorway behind the bar—and Darcy understood. She knew, but she would not say it with an audience.
He inclined his head, the picture of reason. “I will not press you, madam,” he said, raising his voice to be better heard. He made a show of picking up the coin and dropping it back in his pocket. Her eyes followed the movement, then lifted to his.
Darcy met her gaze, looked over her shoulder at the back door, then to her again. She made no sign that she understood. He nodded and made his way out as the men offered a last round of jeers.
He did not hurry. He walked out with purpose and did not glance back.
Outside, Johnson stood near one window, watching. Anders came through the door after Darcy and lingered a few paces away, his gaze on the inn. But though he walked in the direction of the carriage, he did not stop.
There was a back entrance, and that was where Darcy meant to go.
As he approached, the back door was already being opened, but not by the woman. By a maid, her eyes darting about like a bird’s.
“Sir,” she whispered, gesturing for him to come closer. He complied.
For a moment she only glanced about. Darcy waited.
At last she swallowed and spoke in a rush. “Mrs. Briggs sent me. She—she can’t come herself.”
“What is your name?” Darcy inquired gently.
A pause. “Sally, sir.”
“Sally,” he repeated, letting the syllables be ordinary, safe. “You are doing me a service, and I will not forget it.”
The girl’s throat worked. She looked over her shoulder toward the inn, then quickly back. Her hand went into her pocket, and for an instant Darcy tensed.
But she drew out a small handful of dried peas—hard little beads, dull green and pale. She held them in her palm, then offered them to him.
His brows lifted and he extended his hand.
“She said you’d know I was telling the truth if I gave you these,” Sally whispered.
Darcy closed his fingers around the peas. “You have my attention,” he said, very softly.
“They left about noon, sir,” she said. “Ridin’ farther on down the road.”
He felt his pulse give a hard, steady thud.
Sally glanced around again, fear tightening her shoulders.
“Mrs. Briggs says they’ve a little hideaway house hidden in the trees on the left, ’bout ten mile down.
A sort of place folk keep when they don’t want neighbours.
” She lowered her voice to nearly nothing.
“The approach is direct, sir. Straight as a string. They’ll see you comin’. ”
Darcy exhaled once, slow. He had asked for information. He had it. Now he must use it without losing the only advantage left to him: surprise.
“You have done exactly what you ought,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pressed two coins into her hand, closing her fingers over them before she could refuse. “One for you and one for your mistress. Keep them hidden. If anyone asks, you never spoke to me.”
Sally’s eyes shone with relief and terror. She nodded, sharp and quick.
Darcy stepped back. “Go,” he murmured.
He was already thinking of the road ahead, the house hidden in trees on the left, and how best to approach without being detected. The air was turning bitter; the day was beginning to lose its light. Ten miles would take an hour; there would not be much daylight remaining when they arrived.
They took the carriage as far as prudence allowed, careful in the gathering dark, before pulling it off the road behind a stand of scrubby elm. The coach would still be visible from the road, but Darcy did not plan to be gone long.
They unharnessed the horses and proceeded on their way, remaining in the woods but parallel to the road.
Despite Sally’s warning, they almost crossed the approach, for it announced itself only by absence: a gap where the undergrowth was trampled, and a straightness to the line of trees that seemed planned. A narrow track ran in, hard-packed and bare of leaves.
They circled back, keeping themselves behind cover, moving along the edge of the trees until the house showed itself through branches: low, dark, half-hidden behind a rise.
He signalled, and Anders and Johnson were at his shoulder.
“Johnson,” Darcy murmured, without taking his eyes from the house, “get round to that side window and look in. Quietly. I want to be certain we have the right place before we put a hand to any door.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnson breathed, and was gone into the dark.
Darcy and Anders waited, and when Johnson returned ten minutes later, he did so quietly.
“Have you seen anyone?” Darcy asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Two men and a woman downstairs in the front parlour,” Johnson said. “Mrs. Hobart was one, and the man I saw this morning near the carriage is there as well. There’s another man—stout. Might be someone else in the back.”
“Did you see Miss Bennet?”
Johnson shook his head. “She may be upstairs. It is not a large house.”
Darcy nodded. “Johnson, wait at the back door and do not allow anyone to flee.”
They watched him go. “Well, Anders, shall we see whether they are receiving callers?”
The coachman nodded, silent and serious; the two of them allowed Johnson time to get into place and then moved swiftly to the front door. Darcy tested it. Latched. But it was not a heavy door.
He stepped back and kicked. The wood cracked.
He kicked again.
The door gave way with a crack of wood, and he was in the front parlour.