He laughed. “Bold of you to assume they intend to feed us again.”
Elizabeth joined in his laughter. “I am counting on it. I had to cast up my breakfast to lose the laudanum, so I will even take mysterious potted meat again.”
This gave him an idea. “Do you still have the bottle?” She passed it back to him. It was a teardrop-shaped crystal bottle, slightly larger than a ladies’ perfume bottle, with a little silver cap. “I think I can break the bottom,” he said, “and you can hold the neck to keep Conway from getting back in.”
“You want me to wield it like a knife?”
“If I can break it into a large enough piece for you to hold.”
Elizabeth was silent, and he wondered if she was afraid to stab Conway. “Never mind,” he said. “All you need to do is shut and bolt the carriage door once Conway dismounts. I can get the horses moving swiftly, and he will fall off.”
“What?” she asked, confused. “No, no, I can do it.”
“You hesitated, so I thought?—”
“Darcy, I hesitated to ask you how a laudanum addict must act.”
Realisation dawned. She did not want to distress him by mentioning Anne’s opium use. Thanking her for thinking of him felt wrong. She would not want to be thanked for showing him a kindness. “I think the best way to act is to be in such a state of indifference that you take the least interest in anything.” He thought for a moment. “The only problem might be your eyes.”
“What is wrong with my eyes?”
Good God, not a thing. “They have to look as small as pinholes.” He blew out a breath. “How will you possibly look as though you have lustreless eyes?”
She was quiet, and Darcy wished he was looking into her eyes right now. “Darcy,” she asked slowly, “do you like my eyes?”
He could scarcely hear her question; it was uttered so softly. His throat felt impossibly dry. “Yes, I do. They are beautifully expressive. It was one of the first things I admired about you, before we ever spoke.”
In the silence that followed, he wondered if she was blushing, or angry, or flattered. “Thank you.”
The feel of her back pressing against his was now immensely distracting. She sounded pleased, but he wished she was in his arms and he could see her expression.
She blew out a breath. “I can act unconcerned, and it will be dark. Hopefully no one will look carefully at my eyes.”
They talked through their plan again and again. How would Elizabeth act, when would Darcy signal for her to move to thewindow, all the way through to how many times might Elizabeth have to stab Conway’s hands with the broken bottle. The horses would need to rest so they could not take the carriage any farther than Dartford. They would take a room in the coaching inn while they awaited a stage coach and while Darcy sent a messenger to Fitzwilliam.
After another hour, Elizabeth asked, “Why is Markle moving us at all? It is not as though anyone knows where to find us.”
They were being moved so they could more easily be killed. They likely wanted Elizabeth to write one final letter, or they needed her finger to send a more gruesome message to Lady Catherine, and once the ransom was paid, they would both be killed and their bodies dumped in the Thames.
“It does not matter, my dear,” he said as calmly as he could. “We have a way to escape now and that is what we must think on.”
He did not voice his doubts about every possible thing that could go wrong.
Chapter Ten
Elizabeth had long been resigned to the truth that, as a woman, there was little in her own control. She could not travel without a man to accompany her, she could not enter a profession and still be genteel, and she could not manage what little money she had on her own. While she often bristled against these strictures in her own mind, she had accepted her place in the world and was resolved to act with as much agency as she was allowed.
Now, in this wretched, terrifying situation, she had no power at all, but at least she had a plan for her escape. That was enough to prevent her from giving up in despair. She could cling to that. She was not entirely helpless or hopeless, and it made her feel better to be in accord with Darcy.
Perhaps some of this strength, this resolve, had not only to do with having a scheme, but it also had to do with the man leaning against her back. She was not alone, and while they might not be equals in fortune or family, she was Darcy’s equal in every other way that mattered. In intelligence, in generosity, in courage. Maybe also in warmth of affections.
Darcy still had an affectionate ardour for her, but was it enough for him to repeat the offers that she had rejected? Herown feelings had been far from equalling his two days ago. On Thursday, she would have said that she despised him, but she knew now that her feelings would someday soon match his.
Does every glance, every caught breath mean what I think it does?
“What shall be the first thing you do when you are restored to your family?” Darcy asked.
They had been quiet for a while, and she smiled that he was the one to begin a conversation. And not one about how to escape or about the horrid thing happening to them. She wanted the distraction, too, both from wondering what name to give to what she felt for Darcy and what would happen when they tried to escape.
