Chapter 34
Darcy dismounted in one fluid jump and in seconds he was beside her.
“Elizabeth, my darling.” He gathered her into his arms.
She did not move.
She felt cold to the touch.
“Elizabeth… Elizabeth.” He called her name desperately.
“Ummmmmm….”
He heard the smallest of whimpers… she was alive.
He grabbed his double-barrel pistol and pointing up fired two consecutive shots into the air.
Elizabeth moaned again.
Darcy removed her bonnet and cleared some grass and leaves stuck to her face and finally a few wet curls… and then he gasped in horror. Across her face there was a deep and bloody thin line, a cut that started above her right eye and ended underneath her left ear.
Richard arrived galloping and quickly dismounted when he saw Darcy on his knees holding Elizabeth as if she was dead.
“Darcy?” He said panicking, “how is she?”
Darcy lifted wet eyes to him, “she is alive, but she is injured.”
“What happened?” Richard asked crouching down by his cousin.
“I think her foot may be broken, I do not know,” Darcy pointed at her badly swollen foot.
“Oh good God I hope not,” Richard turned to start a quick examination of Elizabeth’s foot while she moaned unconsciously.
Being a soldier and being accustomed to carnage on the battlefield did bring some useful knowledge sometimes.
“I do not know exactly what happened here,” Darcy said as he watched his cousin work, “but I think she was thrown from Aurora, I do not believe she simply fell.”
“Most likely,” Agreed Richard.
“Also, look at this.” Darcy removed another curl from her face and Richard gasped when he saw it.
“What the bloody hell, what could have made such a deep and thin cut, the reins?”
“I do not think so. The reins are made with soft strips of leather, and they are not that thin.”
“Then, what do you think it is?”
Darcy looked around them; he noticed several deep hoof prints around where Elizabeth lay. “Could she have been attacked?”
Richard frowned, “by whom? It has been many years since we had brigands in Derbyshire.”
“I do not think they were brigands.” Darcy said trying hard to control the fury that started to boil inside him.
“Who else then?” Richard was confused after he finished the foot examination, “who could possibly treat a woman like that?”
“Look where we are, Richard. Whose land is it from here?”
Richard looked up, “Whose?”
“The Buchanans.” Darcy spat the name like a curse. “But there will be time for this later, now I need your help to get her to my arms after I mount my horse. Please hold her for me while I do it, and then hand her back to me.”
Richard nodded and got up, “the good news is that I do not believe that her foot is broken. Let us pray that I am correct.”
Darcy placed Elizabeth carefully into Richard’s arms, took his coat off and draped it over her.
Then he mounted Sir Ebony who had been waiting patiently, and Richard passed her back to him.
He held her close to his heart as they started off slowly.
He did not want to jostle her unnecessarily for he feared doing further harm to her injured foot.
She moaned again.
She looked as pale as a ghost but she seemed to seek his warmth and when she settled into his arm, she whispered, unconsciously, with a voice barely audible, “I love you, William.”
He froze for a few seconds, then he dipped his head and kissed her hair, murmuring quietly, “I love you too, my dearest, loveliest Elizabeth.”
The gentle rain restarted and he pressed her closer to him, trying to keep her warm. He regretted removing her bonnet but he could not stop now to replace it. So he increased the pace a little, but she moaned in pain and he was forced to slow down again.
Eventually, after what seemed like hours but had only been half an hour, he arrived at Pemberley, the light failing around them.
Immediately they were surrounded by not only Lady Anne and Georgiana, who ran across the yard to meet them, but also by every servant both from the house and from the stables, all of whom wanted to be of assistance to Miss Bennet.
Elizabeth, it seemed had conquered all. She was well loved by servants and masters alike. The clamouring around them was almost deafening.
She was gently lifted from his arms as he dismounted and then given back to him. He did not even know who had done it since he could not take his eyes from her limp form.
The men who had gone on the search for Elizabeth, were then returning, exhausted and all with a relieved expression on their tired faces. Until their countenances fell and changed into frowns of worry when they saw the state in which she had been found.
Elizabeth was still unconscious, her right foot swollen to the point of straining against the stocking and overly tight half boot. She looked deathly pale and the contrast of the red thin line of blood against her unnaturally white face was alarming.
Darcy strode hurriedly into the house carrying her, for the rain was increasing apace.
Lady Anne sent one of the men to the village to fetch the doctor, and he left galloping and spraying gravel.
“What happened?” She asked as she led her son up the stairs and into Elizabeth’s chambers.
“I am not completely sure, but I think Elizabeth may have been forcefully thrown from Aurora… attacked.”
Lady Anne gasped and fell silent.
He laid Elizabeth gently upon the bed and his mother shooed him out of the room as she started to undress the young woman.
Mandy was already there with a basin of hot water and Lady Anne cleaned Elizabeth’s face and hands herself. There was blood and dirt under her fingernails.
The doctor arrived and after an extensive and painful examination, which saw Elizabeth waking up and screaming, he declared that her foot was not broken but simply badly sprained - to the relief of the entire household.
Both the doctor and the Darcys breathed a quick prayer of gratitude to the Lord Almighty, after ascertaining that Richard’s first assessment had been correct. For they were all aware that bone breakage most regularly resulted in infection and subsequent amputation.
The doctor also found a lump on her head indicating the reason for her unconscious stupor.
Lady Anne asked him what he thought about the cut on her face, about where it had come from, and as he examined it, he answered without hesitation,
“It seems to have been caused by a riding crop, my lady, or a piece of rigid, thin twig,” he said touching the wound gently, “with enough force that it is a miracle that it did not break her nose or left her blind.”
Lady Anne controlled her fury which threatened to explode, but instead she, with a clipped voice asked the doctor for his discretion.
“You have it my lady, as always.”
Laudanum was quickly prescribed for pain from both injuries and enough supply of willow bark tea was to be acquired for the following days and lengthy recovery process.