He would have to attend to her gentle reproof, but he was not ready to talk to her yet. He did not care for the way he felt around her. She made him feel flustered and nervous, and he could not explain why. There was no relief to that now. Her presence mere inches from him was unavoidable. They had over twelve hours until they arrived in Carlisle on the Scottish border.
Elizabeth feltlike she had spent a week in the mail coach. How many changes of the horses had there been? She had long since stopped checking the card with the distance of each stage and the time of arrival at the same.
At some point in the journey, her mind had drifted and emptied. It was monotonous, but perhaps that was the only way to endure such hard travel as this. Sleeping for moments at a time in a corner of the coach, grabbing food quickly and scarcely having time to eat it, and sharing a tight space with the sounds and smells of strangers was more exhausting than she imagined.
She could have cried from both relief and fatigue when they arrived in Carlisle, ten miles from the Scottish border. It was ten thirty on the second night, and in the coaching inn’s lantern light, Elizabeth got a fair look at Darcy. How did he still look handsome with a two-day beard, rumpled clothes, and disordered hair? She was not eager to talk with him since their quarrel, but that did not mean she minded looking at him.
Elizabeth refused to look in a mirror before she had changed her clothes, washed her face, brushed her hair, and slept for eight hours. She did not want to know how bad the damage was.
“The toll collector says no one matching their description has crossed into Scotland from here,” Darcy said, coming up to her in a rush. He seemed energised by their arrival despite the late hour and the weariness of the journey.
Still, she managed a smile. Her scheme had worked. “They arehours behind us. They stopped to sleep, after all. We can intercept them here.”
He frowned. “But, as you said, they likely travelled on side roads to avoid me.”
“You are afraid we will miss them if they avoid Carlisle altogether?” she realised. “You want to go on to Gretna Green?”
Her voice must have fallen, and she even sagged against the coaching inn’s wall. Darcy gave her a pained look. “I know you do not want to get into another coach—I am starving, I promise you, but?—”
“I will go for Georgiana,” she said with a sigh, and dragged herself to the post-chaise Darcy pointed to.
There was a house with a tollgate beyond the bridge as they crossed the Sark and a moderate incline into Gretna Green. It was a small village with a few houses, the parish kirk, the minister’s house, and a large inn that they arrived at by half past eleven.
She had a sudden realisation that they would have to present themselves together in public. After Darcy tipped the postilion and retrieved their bags, she asked him quietly, “How do we announce ourselves? Brother and sister?”
He instantly knew what she meant. “Perhaps servant and mistress would be better.”
She barked a dry laugh. “No one will believe you are a servant, even as bedraggled as you are.” He still had a commanding presence although travel-worn, and his wrinkled clothes were incredibly fine. “We can say we are married and take two rooms. Use the name Gardiner, if you do not want to give your own. It is my mother’s maiden name,” she added at his curious look.
Darcy asked the innkeeper for two rooms with a sitting room, and whatever food could be had at this hour. The proprietor agreed with an amused smirk.
“I can find someone to marry you now, you know,” he said. “No need for the pretence.”
Darcy instantly threw him a haughty look and said he was already married and to not disparage his wife’s reputation. Elizabeth hardly cared at this point so long as she had a bed, but she kept her gloves on to hide that she wore no wedding band.
Half an hour later, in a nightshift and dressing gown and having bathed with a towel, a basin, and a bar of soap, she felt, if not better, then at least more like herself. She looked at her journal, but was in no state of mind to reflect on the exhausting past two days. The sitting room on the other side of her door was quiet. Deciding that Darcy must have eaten and then gone to sleep, she opened the door.
To her surprise, Darcy was in his shirtsleeves, staring into the fire. He had changed his clothes and shaved, and his hair was still wet. He started at the sight of her, jumping from the mantel and averting his eyes as he went for his own door with a hasty good evening.
“Have you eaten?” she asked before he could sneak away. From the looks of the table, he had not.
“No, I—I meant to eat before you came in, but I am afraid my mind wandered.”
Two days alone in a coach did not warrant seeing one another in undress, but hunger won out over propriety. She fell into a chair and gestured to another. “I may be impulsive and you may be proud, but we must eat before we fall over. Sit down, Mr Darcy,” she insisted when he still looked ready to go into his own room.
He hesitated before conceding and sitting across from her.
“I am not intractable and oblivious, Miss Bennet,” he said after he had filled his plate. When she gave him a questioning look, he added, “I heard your criticisms, and my manners need correcting. But I am not incapable of proper feeling, you know.”
“I did not think you were,” she said. He threw her a sceptical look, and she conceded. “Not entirely, anyway. No one who went to such lengths to save his sister could be unfeeling.” With a pointed look, she added softly, “No one who would rescue his sister’s reckless friend whom he does not respect could be unfeeling.”
“It is nothing compared to you. You are the most generous person I know.”
She scoffed and took a long drink before piling more food onto her plate. “I did not act well last night when we argued.”
Darcy put his elbows on the table and leant toward her. “You have acted for the good of others this entire time, and whilst I want topreserve Georgiana from a lifetime of misery, I know I have acted pridefully. I was selfish, while you have been entirely selfless.”
He held her gaze for a long moment before returning to his food. Darcy had a good heart, was an honourable man, in spite of his pride. She would always be grateful he had instantly offered to find Lydia, and he kept her safe on the mail coach.
