Chapter 56
Darcy sat upon a wooden stool, his shoulder throbbing. “Where is Miss Bennet?”
Fitzwilliam stood before him. Beyond the doorway, Harris and Simms sat with their backs against trees, both men bent over their blades.
The soft drag of steel upon leather marked the quiet in a steady, almost pleasant rhythm.
A darkened cloth lay open between them, and the smell of oiled steel, wet leaves, and embrocation thickened the morning air.
“Villiers has taken her back to her father.”
“Was she harmed?”
“She was walking when Villiers found her.”
Darcy drew breath through his teeth and glanced across the floor. Kerr lay where he had fallen, half-turned, his coat soaked through and the boards about him dark with blood.
“Do not lose sleep over that reprobate,” Fitzwilliam said.
“I do not believe I shall.” Darcy turned to his cousin. “But what of Wickham?”
Fitzwilliam smiled. The expression showed too many teeth and no amusement.
“He is secured to the largest oak in the woods.”
Darcy turned towards the tree line.
“Alive?”
“For now.” Fitzwilliam glanced towards Harris and Simms.
“Those two will keep him upon the tree until we are ready to move.”
“And then?”
“They will deliver him to the militia provost. His colonel may answer to the magistrates for what remains of him.”
Fitzwilliam offered his hand. Darcy took it, boots scraping against the grit as he rose. His cousin’s grip was firm, his own balance uncertain, but pride forbade any falter. The air struck cool upon the sweat of his neck. He lifted a hand to his face; it came away red.
Kerr’s blood, not his own.
He looked at it a moment, then wiped it against his coat.
Goliath stamped and tossed his head; Perseus waited nearby, broad-shouldered and patient as ever.
The air lightened by degrees, enough now to show the churned ground beneath their boots.
They walked towards the horses. “Glad to see you had sense enough to drop when that hammer came through the window,” Fitzwilliam said. “I thought you might still be fool enough to stand and fight.”
Darcy managed a thin smile. “I remember our youth well enough. You always preferred a diversion before mischief turned earnest.”
“Distraction is a weapon.”
Fitzwilliam swung into the saddle, the faintest trace of satisfaction about his eyes. He adjusted the bridle until every strap lay straight.
“By the by, cousin, you owe my man a hammer. He was rather attached to the one he sent through the window.”
“I shall replace it with all due haste.
“See that you do. Something better balanced—Harris has expensive tastes, now that he has added rescue work to his repertoire.”
“You spend my money rather freely, cousin.”
“You may mock when you have stopped bleeding upon my boots.”
Darcy glanced at his sleeve. The torn cloth clung darkly from shoulder to cuff. His arm had begun to throb in earnest now that necessity no longer held it still. The fingers of his right hand answered only reluctantly. He closed them once, then again.
“A scratch,” Darcy said.
“Naturally. A gentleman may be half dead, provided he remains exact in his descriptions.”
Darcy gave him a look. “You have ever taken too much pleasure in my discomfort.”
“Only when it is self-inflicted.” Fitzwilliam’s expression altered by a hair. “You came alone.”
Darcy did not answer at once. “Miss Bennet was here.”
“Yes.”
“I had one chance.”
Fitzwilliam’s mouth tightened, but he did not dispute it. The first light caught the scar at his cheek and made it pale as old ivory.
“And no certainty that riding into their hands would preserve it,” Fitzwilliam said.
He looked at Darcy.
“You chose poorly.”
Darcy’s breath left him before he could govern it. Pain followed, sharp beneath the ribs. “I must go to Longbourn.”
“No.”
“I must know she reached her father.”
Fitzwilliam’s voice lost all trace of humour. “If you ride to Longbourn at dawn, bloodied, half dead, and seen by one maid, one boy, one tenant upon the road, you publish her ruin.”
Darcy looked towards the road.
“Think, cousin. Not as her champion. As the man who would preserve her.”
Darcy’s hand closed upon the saddlecloth, then loosened.
“Bennet knows enough to keep his doors shut and his tongue behind his teeth. If there is word to send, it will come by Villiers.”
Darcy turned his face away. The eastern sky had begun to pale beyond the trees.
“You ask me to do nothing.”
“No,” Fitzwilliam said. “I ask you to do the hardest thing available to a man of sense.”
Darcy’s laugh came once, without amusement. “Obey you?”
“Be useful.” Fitzwilliam brought Perseus alongside Goliath.
“Come. Before pride kills what Wickham failed to finish.”
Darcy gathered Goliath’s reins, set one boot in the stirrup, and pulled himself upwards.
Fitzwilliam caught him beneath the sound elbow.
Darcy looked at him.
“You may resent me when you are mounted, cousin.”
Darcy gained the saddle and settled his injured arm against his body.
* * *
Elizabeth recognised the large granite stone beside the lane. “We are less than a mile from Longbourn.”
Sergeant Villiers eased the horse to a walk and drew open the coat folded across his thighs.
He had placed her across the saddle before him when they left the wood, one arm firm about her waist and the reins gathered in his other hand.
Elizabeth had chosen not to dispute the arrangement.
Modesty might recover from the journey; she doubted she would recover from falling beneath the horse.
“Pardon the indelicacy, Miss Bennet. You’ll need to press close and make yourself small.”
Elizabeth gave a quiet laugh. She drew her feet beneath the hem of her gown and bent forward against his arm. The coat settled round her shoulders, thick and coarse. It muffled sound and light alike; the world shrank to the steady rhythm of hoofbeats.
“None shall see you, miss.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. At the first fence, keep to the right until the second break in the hedge. That will bring us behind the apple orchard—near the scullery door.”
He nodded and guided the horse, keeping to the rutted verge. A lark stirred somewhere above, its call thin and tremulous. Elizabeth clenched the folds of the coat; she swayed with the horse’s motion. Thought required strength she no longer possessed.
Within minutes the outline of Longbourn rose before them, the upper windows dark, the eaves tinged with gold where the first light caught the tiles. The air was sweet with crushed clover and the faint tang of dew.
Villiers drew rein behind the orchard wall and followed it to the second break in the hedge. Beyond lay the kitchen yard and the dark outline of the scullery door.
He helped her down without ceremony. Her feet touched earth; for a moment her legs would not answer.
Villiers kept one hand beneath her arm. “A moment, miss.”
Elizabeth drew breath and found her balance.
Then the scullery door opened a crack.
A thin spill of morning light broke across the yard, and her father’s face appeared. The door opened wider. His face was drawn with weariness, his eyes searching hers as if to be sure she was whole. For a moment he did not move.
“Papa,” she whispered.
Her father came across the yard.
Villiers released her arm and stepped back.
For one terrible instant, Mr Bennet looked as though the name had struck him rather than summoned him. His hand gripped the edge of the door. His eyes moved over her face, her hair, her torn sleeve, the blood dark upon one palm. Elizabeth saw the question in him and could not bear it.
“I am not hurt,” she said quickly. “They did not—Papa, I am safe.”
He reached for her then, swift and unthinking, and gathered her into his arms. His hands trembled against her back.
“Lizzy—thank God.”
Her father’s coat smelled of paper, tobacco, and home. His hand closed at the back of her head as it had when she was a child.
A broken sob escaped her. She pressed her face against him and clung.
“Come,” he said, though his own voice failed upon the word. “Inside. At once.”
Mrs Hill appeared behind him, a blanket in her hands, and held it ready. “Come in, Miss Elizabeth. Quickly now, before anyone stirs.”
Elizabeth stepped across the threshold. The scullery warmth met her like a physical thing—banked coals, yeast, soap, the faint sourness of old milk. She caught the table edge as the room tilted, and her father steadied her.
A floorboard creaked somewhere overhead; Mrs Hill froze, blanket half lifted. Elizabeth held her breath.
Mrs Hill drew the blanket round Elizabeth’s shoulders.
“You are home,” her father said, his voice breaking on the last word. “That is all that matters now.”
“Colonel Fitzwilliam came for us,” Elizabeth said. “Sergeant Villiers found me and brought me home.”
She looked once towards the yard. Beyond the open crack of the door, dawn had begun to silver the orchard. Sergeant Villiers had vanished; only the faint press of hoof marks remained in the damp earth. She turned to her father.
“Mr Darcy stayed behind.”
Mr Bennet closed his eyes once, briefly.
“Then I shall owe Mr Darcy more than courtesy.”