CHAPTER 11 #2
Darcy felt the blankets pulled away, and their guards directed them once more out of the wagon. They climbed down as clumsily as every morning before, caught by waiting hands and guided along some path toward their day's confinement.
Although, this morning proved different from the rest. The house before them was considerably smaller than their previous lodgings, and Darcy and Elizabeth found themselves guided, for the first time, into a single shared room.
The door opened, they were pushed within, and it shut and locked behind them at once.
Almost as soon as they entered, Mr. Darcy asked, "Are you well?"
Attempting to grasp their newest lodgings, and exhausted from another abysmal night, Elizabeth replied none too kindly. "No, Mr. Darcy, I am not well. Her tone was curt, and she almost let out a loud huff.
Darcy heard movement beside him and understood she was working the sack free of her head; he did the same, and, lifting his eyes at last, beheld Elizabeth Bennet for the first time in a full week, having known her until now only by touch and voice.
She looks, he thought, remarkable still, her hair loosened and disordered about her face, her eyes shadowed with exhaustion, and yet handsome for all that.
He suddenly worried again that she had been harmed. And, distracted at the vision presented before her, he asked, "Are you hurt?"
It seems the only question the man knows how to ask, she thought, with some private exasperation. Of course I am hurt, wearied, aching, entirely worn through.
She held her tongue, grateful past measure simply to have someone to speak with at last, and shook her head. "I am exhausted, Mr. Darcy. But no, I am not hurt."
His face eased with visible relief. "Thank heaven. I have been exceedingly anxious for you."
She could not entirely suppress a small smile, at the look of relief in his warm eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Darcy.”
It struck her as exceedingly strange to be thanking a man for his concern in low whispers within a locked room, and yet a week of solitude had altered her ideas of what constituted comfort.
She had been so long without conversation that even the smallest exchange had become a welcome relief, however peculiar the circumstances.
He returned her smile, and Elizabeth found herself surprised by how much she preferred it to his customary frown. There was something almost disarming in the sight.
When the silence stretched between them once more, she found herself unwilling to let it settle. “Where do you suppose we are, Mr. Darcy?”
“I have been attempting to determine that myself. We are certainly no longer in the south, I think, but I cannot say whether we have travelled west or north,” he replied, whilst still looking around their settings.
“I overheard one of the men speaking of fishing in the North Sea. Do you suppose we are travelling north?” Elizabeth shared.
“I could not say with certainty.” He paused, considering. “I know only that we have kept almost entirely to back roads. That would considerably slow our progress in any direction and makes it difficult to judge our true course.”
Elizabeth nodded, absorbing the information, while Darcy shifted, and she noticed the discomfort that crossed his face.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said quietly, “might you attempt to untie me?”
She looked toward him with what looked to be an odd mixture of uncertainty and alarm. And, he wondered whether she felt too frightened to go against their captors wishes.
“Your bonds are fastened at the front. Mine, I believe, are secured behind me. If you could loosen them, we might at last begin to consider an escape in earnest.” His expression tightened as he glanced toward his hands. “I am of very little use to either of us while I remain bound.”
She hesitated another moment before saying, “I shall try.”
Elizabeth turned then, taking in their surroundings properly for the first time.
The room was small and sparsely furnished, containing little more than a single bed and the necessities of a place intended for temporary lodging.
There was no window she could see from where she sat, and the door remained firmly secured.
Darcy turned his back to her and extended his wrists as far as his restraints allowed, and Elizabeth moved closer.
The task proved immediately more difficult than she had hoped. With her own hands bound before her, she could scarcely get a proper hold of the knots at his wrists. She bent awkwardly over them, feeling the rough rope beneath her fingers and attempting to work one knot loose by touch alone.
“Forgive me,” she murmured, tugging at the cord. “I fear I have never had occasion to become proficient at this particular skill.”
He exhaled what sounded like it could have been a faint, dry laugh, “I cannot say I have either.”
His dry reply drew a quiet laugh from her, “Then we are both regrettably inexperienced.”
“An unfortunate deficiency at present,” Darcy replied in kind.
Elizabeth smiled despite herself and returned her attention to the knots. For the first time since their captivity began, they were working toward the same purpose, freedom.
After some minutes' fruitless effort, she found their difference in height made the task nearly impossible standing. She glanced toward the bed. "Mr. Darcy, might we sit? I believe I should manage better in a steadier position."
He turned to look at it as though noticing it for the first time, and, with a nod, seated himself upon the old frame, which answered with a creak of protest. Elizabeth settled behind him and resumed her efforts.
An unspoken awkwardness filled the room, both of them conscious of the impropriety inherent in two persons, wholly unattached, seated together upon a bed.
And yet, Elizabeth reflected, there was something almost droll in it, a bed was generally understood to imply one of two very different circumstances, and she doubted either party present had ever imagined it employed toward the freeing of a fellow captive from his bonds.