“Darcy—?” Bingley began, but he had already quickened his pace to keep up.
The form resolved as they neared. A woman’s gown, the skirt rumpled, the figure half-turned toward the earth.
Elizabeth Bennet.
Cold went through him—not a chill, but a clarity that jolted every thought into sharp order. He dropped to one knee beside her while Bingley called her name in alarm.
She lay curled upon her side, one hand slack in the grass, the other tucked near her chest. A smear of damp earth darkened her glove; her sleeve had slipped back enough to expose the tender skin above her wrist he had seen yesterday—flushed and angrily inflamed.
“Is she hurt? Darcy, is she—good heavens, what happened? Did she fall from a horse?”
Darcy knelt and touched her shoulder lightly. The contact drew a sharp, unwelcome sensation through his chest, as though his breath had misjudged its own depth.
“Miss Elizabeth?”
No response. Her breathing came shallow and disordered, not the soft rhythm of a simple faint.
He shifted to support her, turning her carefully to rest against his arm—and had to pause. A brief wave of vertigo passed through him, swift and disorienting, the world narrowing to the press of her weight and the heat of her skin against his sleeve. He set his jaw and continued, adjusting his hold until her head rested more securely.
Her head lolled, a faint crease between her brows as though some discomfort still gripped her even in near-unconsciousness.
“No sign of hoofprints,” Bingley mused, shading his eyes up and down the lane. “What could have brought her out here alone? She must have stumbled—though there is nothing to trip her. You do not suppose she was attacked, do you?”
Darcy scarcely heard him. The field around them held an odd quiet. Not absolute stillness, but a pause in the natural sounds he expected—the wind seemed to have forgotten its movement. The hedges almost seemed to lower themselves to a more modest height, as if they had bowed to watch the woman on the ground.
The earth seemed less reliable beneath his feet, not enough to alarm, but enough that he adjusted his stance without thinking. “We must take her back at once.” His voice sounded easy, confident, though he had to apply somewhat more effort than usual. “Fetch my horse. Quickly!”
Bingley sprinted toward the small copse where they had tethered the animals.
Alone, Darcy adjusted his hold on Elizabeth. Her skin felt warm through the fabric of her gown—overwarm—and the slight tremor in her fingers washed a wave of weakness through his arm that did not belong to him alone. For an instant, his stomach turned sharply, as though his body had mistaken her distress for its own.
He gritted his teeth and brushed a fallen strand of hair from her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered with faint distress.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he murmured, though he did not expect her to wake. “You are safe now.”
The effort of speaking left him briefly light-headed, as though he had given away more strength than the words themselves required.
Her lips moved. A fragment of sound escaped—no more than a breath, but it carried the shape of a word.
“…wrong…place…”
His body went still—not from fear, but from the sudden, undeniable sense that in coming to her aid, he had crossed something of his own. He bent slightly, straining to hear, but the rest dissolved into an indistinct murmur.
Her brow creased; a shudder passed through her shoulder and into his arm, faint but unmistakable.
Darcy adjusted his hold without thinking, drawing her closer to keep her from slipping, and felt again that quiet draining sensation, as though the strength required to steady her had been taken from him rather than summoned. He set his jaw and bore it, unwilling to loosen his grip even by a fraction.
Bingley returned with both horses, breathless from haste.
“Is she worse?”
“She is insensible, nothing more,” Darcy said, keeping his voice even. “We must take her back to Netherfield.”
He gathered her in his arms and rose. She felt light, far too light, and when her head fell briefly against his shoulder, a sharp flicker of protectiveness shot through him—unwelcome, unbidden, but impossible to ignore.
“Netherfield!” Bingley cried. “Would not her family be better—”
“Longbourn is three miles from here. Heaven only knows how she got so far on her own, but she needs a doctor at once. I can take her if you will ride ahead for help.”
