Chapter 17
Elizabeth knew from the sun’s position in which direction to continue her journey, but she took advantage of the elevated location of her night’s stop to again look for the smoke and church spires of London.
They only seemed a little bit closer, and she dearly hoped that she would be able to figure out a way to find Darcy before having to cross every mile on foot.
Or perhaps Darcy might find her. It still seemed impossible that he would have any idea where to search, but Darcy just might be the sort to accomplish the impossible!
After eating berries and drinking water, Elizabeth walked back to the road and started heading towards London. Her valise was empty, because she needed all of her clothing against the chilly breeze. But even the day before, carrying the valise was no hardship. She had little enough with her!
It was early enough that, for a while, Elizabeth never heard wheels nor horses. When she finally heard hoofbeats approaching from behind, she once again wondered if there was a way of keeping protected from jailers and strangers but spotting if the riders might be rescuers.
She hid in the wheat field, but not as well as the day before.
She stayed very still but was still able to see the road just a bit.
And when she heard her name called—“E-liz-a-beth!”—her heart thumped so loudly, she thought the rider might hear it, even above the sound of his enormous horse pounding against the road.
At once, she saw that he was a stranger, but he could be a stranger hired to search for her, by Darcy. She spent a moment in indecision, and he was already gone, but there were more hoofbeats, and she decided that she would not hesitate so long if this man also called her name.
Before she could see the rider, she heard, “On behalf of Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, we are searching for the most intrepid walker ever to grace Rosing’s land!”
The most intrepid walker ever to grace Rosing’s land!
Those were the exact words the colonel had said to her when they met the previous April.
There was no way that anyone else could have heard him say those words, so this must be either the colonel or a friend or servant of his.
She hurried to the edge of the road, and she was gleeful to see the colonel himself!
“Colonel!” she called, although he had already seen her.
“Miss Bennet!” he responded. He directed his horse towards her but stayed mounted until another rider approached. He gave swift instructions to the man, and then more instructions to yet another rider. Only then did he dismount his gigantic chestnut horse and fervently kiss her hand.
“Is Darcy—” Elizabeth started to say as he asked, “Are you—”
They both stopped speaking. The colonel stuck out his elbow and said, “May I escort you?”
Elizabeth happily slipped her hand through his arm. He held out his free hand, and she gave him the valise and laughed when he looked surprised at how light it was. They began to walk, turning north rather than south.
Rather than jumping into her many questions, Elizabeth waited, this time, for the colonel to speak. He soon did: “I hope that we find Darcy somewhere along the road, for I sent him an express with your location, but I have yet to clap eyes on your intended this morning.”
“If I know him as well as I think I do, he is riding Beorht towards us even now.”
“I imagine you are correct. How are you faring? Are you injured? I imagine you do not much wish to ride my war horse with a man’s saddle, even if I am mounted, as well, and holding you securely.”
“I do not. After all, I am an intrepid walker!”
“You are. I had my men calling out with those words so that you would know we were friendly searchers rather than unfriendly.”
“Very clever, sir.” They walked another fourteen steps, but then Elizabeth skipped the most obvious question—how did the colonel discover her location?
—for another question: “So, my sister Jane had something to do with this. But she could not have arranged a cottage and servants to act as jailers. Do you or Darcy know who was the arch-villain of the plot? And, perhaps, the motivation?”
“My parents, the Earl and Countess of Matlock, are either the ones who planned this or are at least responsible for portions of the arrangements. They claimed that your father asked them for help securing your safety from Darcy, but that they had no idea you had reached your majority. Your father hinted that my parents sent agents asking for his help to separate you two, and there are indications that they threatened your family with some brand of harm if they did not comply. I suppose it is possible that others may be involved, as well, but we have no evidence for such.”
“Why would your parents care?”
“I think that they tell themselves that they are saving Darcy from a fortune hunter. But I believe that their true motivation is to keep Darcy’s wealth within the family.”
“You mean, by him marrying Anne de Bourgh?” Elizabeth was dazed at the idea of such an aggressive act to attempt to control Darcy’s marriage.
“To be honest, Miss Bennet, I am pretty certain that my parents would have been furious if Darcy married Anne; they wanted him to marry one of my younger sisters.”
“You have sisters?”
“I do. Two of them. My parents used to be more subtle in their promotion of Sarah and Margaret than my aunt Cat was of her daughter, but when Darcy wrote about your betrothal, my parents seemed pretty fervent in their upset about not being able to bind the Fitzwilliams more closely to the Darcys.
And I am certain that they wished to capitalise on Darcy's good reputation even more than on his vast fortune.”
Elizabeth wondered, His vast fortune? She knew he was wealthy, of course, and she had seen the size and beauty of Pemberley, but she would not have thought that his wealth would seem vast to an earl and his family.
Aloud, she asked if Lady Catherine would have been unhappy if Darcy had married one of the Fitzwilliam daughters.
“Yes, I am almost positive Lady C would have been incensed if he had married one of my sisters.”
“So the clever man has managed to make two branches of his family equally angry by marrying outside of the family rather than tearing apart the family by choosing one of its branches?”
The colonel laughed. “How very politic of him.”
She laughed as well. Learning a theory of even an ugly motivation for her abduction and captivity—and having that theory partially exonerate her own family, if they were truly under threat—made her spirit feel lighter.
Jane determinedly pressing a concoction on her that led directly to her own harm had felt as if the entire world was suddenly unknown and scary, as if nothing from her past could be trusted, as if any knowledge she thought she had was suddenly suspect.
They walked on for another minute. Elizabeth asked, “Well, your parents as well as some members of my family were involved. How did you actually discover my location?”
“Darcy suggested that holding you against your will was against the law, whereas I was assuming that you were still wholly under your father’s power.
Of course, Darcy knew your birthday, and I did not.
Darcy wrote to his London solicitors asking about laws against abduction, and the solicitors wrote an astonishing letter to my parents that prompted them to give me your location. ”
Every time the colonel said Darcy’s name, another thrill ran through Elizabeth’s body. She ached to see him again. She felt as if something inside her body could sense that he was coming nearer and nearer, and she laughed again, this time at her own strange notions.
The colonel was still talking. “You truly have a mysterious power over Darcy, because he usually hates deception, but his letter to his solicitors convinced them to write a letter that was pretty much a morass of dissembling. Apparently, under the current laws, a man cannot protect his intended from being taken and held against her will. But my parents did not know that, and the moment they read the letter from Darcy’s solicitors, they folded like a nervous gambler. ”
“Will Darcy or the solicitors get in trouble for dissembling?”
“I convinced my parents that we should burn the letter, since it could be used as evidence against them. So they have no evidence of fudging the truth.”
“Good.”
“My father, especially, seemed to be very angry at your father—because he either lied about your age or does not know it.”
“Oh, my father knows our ages, roughly, but he pays no attention to birthdays. So he is often wrong about someone’s age for months at a time.”
She deliberately did not glance up to see how the colonel had taken her words. She knew that many of her father’s attitudes were less than exemplary.
Looking down for a moment, Elizabeth contemplated asking further questions but then, hearing hooves again, she looked up—
“Darcy!!!”