“What are you doing in here?” he asked, looking between her and Darcy as he moved out of the way and lowered the steps.
“We are not out of danger,” Darcy said, stepping down and then throwing his arms around his cousin. Elizabeth saw the colonel’s eyes widen in surprise, but he clapped Darcy on the back in return.
“I should like to see anyone recapture you with me here,” he said, smiling.
“I do not think you alone are enough to hold back a band of smugglers bent on revenge,” Darcy said. He sounded stern, but he was looking at his cousin and smiling widely.
“Well, it is a good thing I am not alone. Your valet, Mr Easton, and Rosings’s coachman joined me. More wanted to come, but these were the men who made ready the fastest. I was not about to wait any longer than the time it took to saddle my horse.”
Darcy had said this might be the case, and a pang struck her heart as she wondered who in her life would have faced imminent danger to come swiftly to her aid. It might have been Darcy before she implied that she still believed Wickham.
Darcy noticed her climbing from the chaise and held out a hand to help her balance. But he refused to meet her eye, and she felt disappointed in herself all over again. She folded Darcy’s letter and put it away before anyone commented on it.
Ignoring Darcy, she held out a hand to Colonel Fitzwilliam. She could not find the words to thank him, and he smiled knowingly as she gripped his hand. Just as with Darcy, words of gratitude seemed too absurd and inadequate.
“Miss Bennet, Mrs Collins is beside herself with worry for you,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “Are you well, as well as can be expected?”
It was peculiar to be called Miss Bennet. She had been tauntingly called Nan or endearingly called Elizabeth for two days. “I am shaken and overwhelmed, but perfectly well.”
“Hardly,” Darcy muttered. “She was hit in the face, yanked by her hair, tossed about, and half starved. To say nothing about the vile threats made against her.”
The colonel’s eyes widened in shock, and then they softened in sympathy. The look struck her. It was full of pity and a little fury too. She hated the expression and knew instantly this washow everyone would look at her as soon as they knew someone had kidnapped her.
“Darcy was just as knocked about and threatened as I was,” she said. “But we are in good health, and there is nothing else to say about it.”
The cousins exchanged a look and seemed to agree with her. They left the carriage house and entered the yard to see the two men from Rosings and their horses. At the sight of them, they gave a cry of exultation. They bowed over her and shook hands with Darcy. It was remarkable to be celebrated for not being dead.
“How did you find us in there?” Darcy asked his cousin.
“It was the damnedest thing,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “A boy with a blackened eye watched me the entire time I was in the yard?—”
“Kirby!” Darcy cried, turning sharply from the smiles and handshakes.
“He never said his name,” his cousin said. “We asked the innkeeper to go to your room—I gave him the name you said that you used here—but it was empty. No one could account for where you might have gone, not even the innkeeper’s wife who had seen you an hour earlier. But as I came back into the courtyard to consult with the others, this boy mutters, ‘Check the stables,’ as he walked past me and mounted his horse.”
“Was he alone?”
“The boy joined men who arrived on horseback not five minutes after we did.”
Elizabeth gave a little whimper at realising who the other riders in the courtyard must have been. At the sound, Darcy finally looked at her. She could not read his expression, even as she tried to tell him with her eyes that she was ashamed of herself for not realising sooner Wickham had lied. Whatever Darcy saw in her face, he betrayed nothing of what he felt.
“Did you speak with the other men?” Darcy asked his cousin. “What did you notice about them? What did they say?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam shrugged and shook his head in confusion.
“They were our abductors if they left with Kirby,” Elizabeth said.
The colonel’s face betrayed his surprise, and then his cursing betrayed his frustrations at not having known.
“I spoke with them,” Darcy’s valet said, stepping forward. “While Colonel Fitzwilliam was with the innkeeper, there was a slight man with blue eyes and two other men who came into the yard on horseback and were listening to us. I asked if they had seen you in the town. I could not remember the name Mr Darcy used here, but I described you and said that there was a young lady with you.”
“What did he say, Easton?” Darcy asked, his voice low.
“He looked us over and said he had not seen you. Then he swore angrily, and they all rode off.”
“Markle gave up rather quickly,” Darcy muttered.
“Not if he saw the brace of pistols the men from Rosings carried,” Elizabeth replied. “He must have realised he could not kill us without being caught.”
