Even though she continued to scream for help, she heard pounding feet, and the larger man holding her suddenly stumbled. Elizabeth realised that Mr Darcy had slammed into the man gripping her arms.
“Run,” he cried.
The large man’s grip had loosened, and she pulled free to escape, but he caught up to her in a few steps and yanked her back. He pressed her against him, her back to his chest, and Elizabeth fought and shrieked, until she realised that his other hand had pulled a knife that was now pressed to her throat.
“That is enough,” he said through the pipe he still had clenched in his teeth. “Tell him to stop.”
Mr Darcy had not noticed the knife, and he was tousling with the other man by the carriage whom he had knocked down. Elizabeth tried to speak, but panic made it impossible with a blade at her neck. The man holding her grunted in frustration and called, “Ho there!”
Mr Darcy glanced over his shoulder and started at what he saw. In this moment, the man on the ground jumped to his feet and pulled a pistol from his coat pocket. Elizabeth shrieked involuntarily, and the knife pressed a little harder. Mr Darcy stepped toward them, a hard look in his eyes, but stopped when the blond man he had knocked down by the carriage cocked the pistol.
“Now then,” said the man with the pipe, “I only needher, but maybe I can take you as well. You might be worth something to him too. You and your betrothed stop fighting and screaming, and we can all get into the carriage without anyone dying.”
Elizabeth saw the confusion flit across Mr Darcy’s face, and they shared a quick look. Who needed her? And how could anyone have known he asked her to marry him, and why did they assume she had said yes?
Mr Darcy ignored all of this and said firmly, “You cannot take her.”
The man flicked his wrist, and Elizabeth flinched in pain. She felt blood trickle down her neck.
“I can do whatever I damn well please. Like I said, ’tis only her ladyship’s daughter I need.YouI can do without.”
They think I am Miss de Bourgh.They both had dark hair, and any young brunette at Rosings walking with Mr Darcy might be presumed to be his cousin Anne de Bourgh. Once they knew they had the wrong young lady, maybe they would let her go.
“I…I am?—”
Mr Darcy shook his head, and the same moment the man with the knife yelled at her to “shut it.”
She glared at Mr Darcy, but he was no longer looking at her. Mr Darcy was watching the man with the pistol, who held it firm and level just out of Mr Darcy’s reach. Why should she not tell them they had the wrong woman? They might let them go, and no one would get hurt.
“What shall it be, Mr Darcy? Are you joining us, or do I have Colton put a bullet in your head?”
“Steamer, we don’t need the rich cousin,” the blond man with the pistol whined. “Let me just shoot him and go.”
A sickening thought struck her. If they wanted Miss de Bourgh alive for some purpose, would they just as soon kill her too if they knew they had made a mistake? One man seemed eager to shoot Mr Darcy, and the other ambivalent at best. They might cut her throat if they knew they had blundered so dreadfully.
Elizabeth felt Steamer, the man with the pipe, shake his head. “He wantsher, but maybe we can get more for the both of them, as long as he ain’t much trouble.”
The other man riding postilion had pulled a pistol as well and now aimed at Mr Darcy, but Mr Darcy could not see him, as he was facing away from the carriage.
“What shall it be, Mr Darcy?” Steamer called again. “Your cousin is coming with us, but what of you?”
“I will not let you take her.”
Mr Darcy’s eyes darted across the scene to the knife, to the pistol, and then back to her face. He shifted his stance, looking again at the blond man holding the pistol, and then looked back at her. He seemed to come to a decision, and a very stupid one at that. It looked to her like Mr Darcy was going to risk a bullet to stop the man with the pipe from abducting her.
Elizabeth shook her head, but she doubted he saw it. He might disarm the man called Colton, but he did not know the other man atop the horse was aiming a pistol at the back of his head.
“No!” she cried. “I will go with you, and Mr Darcy will let me go.”
He threw her a look that seemed to say he would do no such thing. He might be a selfish man, one who ruined people’s happiness, but he was trying to prevent her from being kidnapped. She would not let him get shot, not when it was clear she was about to be abducted no matter what they did.
“There is no need to shoot anyone,” she added, staring hard at both men with the pistols, and Mr Darcy looked over his shoulder and recoiled at the sight of another pistol aimed at him. She watched Mr Darcy’s shoulders fall as he held his hands out and open in resignation.
The knife point pressing against her neck slackened, and Steamer said, “Now then, Miss de Bourgh”—he let go of her and turned her roughly to face him—“if you would drink this, we can be on our way.” He pulled out a bottle and handed it to her.
“What—”
“Laudanum. Take a swig and get in.”
