He shrugged. She was not wrong. The feeling that he ought to have done more, done better, was pervasive. “You are a lively woman; you do not strike me as the sort to dwell on regret.”
He could tell by her movements that she had dropped her head. “Well, I may not dwell on my regrets, but I do have them.”
He lacked the courage to ask if any of her regrets had something at all to do with him. Besides, it would be a selfish question, and he was resolved to be less selfish. “We ought to make better use of our time than thinking of the past.”
“Then do we escape from the carriage in Dartford, or while the carriage is moving before we get there?”
He thought for a long while, and Elizabeth did not seem to mind. She just leant against his back, slowly breathing in and out. It was pleasant, consoling, to feel her breathe against him and know that she was, at least at this moment, safe.
“If we escape the carriage in the inn yard,” he mused, “what if Steamer convinces them we are guilty of something? Young lovers running away or servants caught stealing. He could convince a constable to turn us over to him. Steamer might even bribe or threaten someone to look the other way.”
“Then we escape from the carriage before we get to Dartford. We walk the rest of the way and make it appear that we arrived at the inn yard like any other traveller.” Elizabeth pressed into him, making her point.
“You intend for us to jump from a moving carriage, without breaking any bones, and without the carriage stopping to retrieve us?” he asked in disbelief. “We shall have little luck getting past Steamer anyway if he rides with us as he did last time.”
“I assumed he would. What if we throwhimfrom the carriage?”
It sounded as though that was what Elizabeth wanted to do all along. “What about the door?” Carriages had no handles on the inside. The only handle was on the outside, so whomever folded up the steps also closed the door.
“I can lower the glass and pretend to need the fresh air. I should be strong enough to reach out and lift the lever.” The idea had merit, assuming Steamer did not run either of themthrough with his knife in the attempt. “When I lean out, it would force him near the door to pull me back. Or, if he objects to my lowering it, I can refuse, and he will come nearer to stop me. Either way, he puts himself by the door right before I open it.”
It would only work if Elizabeth threw open the door at the exact moment Darcy pushed him out, and did not fall out herself. “He is a large man, built like a boxer and broad-shouldered.” If Steamer had been a boxer, he had not been a successful one; his nose had been broken and his left ear portrayed the vigour of his opponents. But that was not to say he was not capable of fighting and harming Elizabeth in the process.
Elizabeth sighed. “If you dislike this plan, then please come up with your own.”
“I do not dislike it,” he said quickly over his shoulder, “but we must plan every step to the best of our abilities, and one shove won’t be enough.” He pulled the slight quill knife from his pocket and passed it behind him. “I shall have to injure him, throw him off balance and distract him, and then push him out. You will have to throw open the door and then get out of the way so you don’t fall too.”
A thousand things could go wrong.
He heard her turn the knife over a few times in her hand, but she was quiet. After more silence, Darcy said, “He is certain to be wearing a coat. I shall have to aim for someplace vulnerable.”
“Do we kill him?” Elizabeth whispered.
She said “we,” but it would be Darcy who stabbed Steamer and threw him from the carriage. It hardly sounded difficult now, not when he remembered how Steamer had brutalised Elizabeth and threatened him. But practice differed from theory, and any hesitation on his part could be fatal to them both.
“I won’t intend to kill him,” he said quietly. “The goal is to incapacitate him and throw him from the carriage and let the fall take care of the rest.”
She passed the knife back to him. “That solves one of our problems, but how do we get the carriage to stop before we arrive in Dartford?”
“Conway rode postilion last time. An experienced rider will stop the horses when he feels the change in weight and knows something is wrong. Let us assume he stops and Steamer is no longer relevant.” If Steamer could fight after the fall, there was no hope he and Elizabeth could overtake an angry man with a knife and a smuggler on horseback with a gun. “Do you think we can rush out and overtake him before he draws his pistol?”
He felt and heard Elizabeth heave a sigh. “No. When you tried to stop them from abducting me, Conway was on horseback, and he pulled a pistol, but you could not see him.” Through his back he felt her breathing faster. “It was terrifying. I could not alert you and I could not stop him from shooting you. There was no way he would miss from there. He would have shot you in the head and you would have died in front of me.”
Coping with the fear and shock of their abduction was going to take a long time. “No one better than me understands how helpless you feel.” Darcy reached back to where Elizabeth’s hand rested on the bed. He gave it a squeeze. “But now we can do something about it. Focus your thoughts on that.”
She tilted back her head to rest against him, and when she righted her head, he let go of her hand. The desire to hold her, to protect her, had not waned. If they managed this and Steamer was no longer a threat, he would gladly take a bullet if it meant Elizabeth would get away from Conway.
“If Conway dismounts and looks into the carriage, we could surprise him there,” Darcy suggested as an idea formed in hismind. “He looks inside expecting Steamer so his pistol might not be drawn, and I overtake him and steal the carriage.”
“How?”
“The carriage stops after we toss out Steamer. It might take the rider fifty yards to come to a stop, and in the dark Conway won’t see him. Conway dismounts, looks into the carriage, I surprise him, take the pistol, and then get past him to ride the horses to Dartford.” Conway was a follower, not one who made decisions. He would stay with Steamer, who would hopefully be too injured to follow. Without his pistol or instructions, Conway would not be the same sort of threat Steamer was.
“And what do I do?”
This was the part he did not like. “You keep Conway from re-entering the carriage as I start moving the horses. There is a bolt in the door to keep anyone opening it. You get back inside and shift it into place. It would help if you had a knife to keep him from grabbing hold before you can lock the door and put up the glass.”
“Then we need a second weapon. Maybe they will bring us cutlery when they deliver our roast lamb for dinner.”
