“Thank you for last evening,” she said, realising she had never told him. “You threw out those awful men and prevented any further offence against my person.”
“Do not thank me for that,” he said. “It should never have happened. Your safety is my responsibility, and I thought too much of my own cares. Besides, anyone with a conscience, a sense of decency, would have intervened.”
She did not correct him. Many would have ignored it, thinking it was not their concern, and plenty of men would have thought an unattended woman deserved what happened to her.
He looked distressed to remember anything about their journey to Gretna Green, and she could not blame him. To show that she bore him no ill will, she teased him. “I see you managed to change your clothes and even shave. What wonders for a rich man with no valet to attend to him.”
He gave her a dark look before he realised she was joking. He must not be used to anyone sporting with him. “My valet is for keeping care of my clothes, for coordinating my luggage, and settling my bills. A man who cannot dress himself does not deserve to leave his house.”
“And you shaved, as well.”
“Well, the shaving stand in my room baffled me for a long while, but I persevered.”
She laughed, and he smiled before asking, “Can we forgive one another for our loss of temper and unkindness of the past two days?” Elizabeth readily agreed, and then Darcy grew pensive. “Tomorrow will be challenging.”
“We will persuade her,” she insisted. “His lies, his tricking Lydia, his past with prostitutes and its repercussions? Who would stay with such a man?”
“I fear a determined but lovesick girl will not be easily swayed,” hesaid in a small voice. “I thought I knew her, but I never anticipated this. If I haul Georgiana away by force, I risk her running away again to find him. I think she must be persuaded.”
“If their travel was anything like ours, she might not want to marry him anymore,” she said. “Even if they stopped to sleep and ate meals at a table, they surely argued during such stressful travel.”
“And after being in such close quarters for days, jolted together in a carriage and fearful of being caught, her patience for him must have waned.”
Elizabeth grinned. “She might hate him already. You will promise her an easier journey home than the one she took here.”
“She will be glad for your company and consolation on the drive to Pemberley.” He spoke in a tone that sounded as though he wanted to be convinced.
“Certainly. But after we get to your home, I won’t want to get into a carriage again for a long while, so prepare yourself for having a guest until Christmas.”
He still looked serious. “If Georgiana will not leave him…” He exhaled and pierced her with a heavy look. “Both of our good names are lost if we remain single.”
It did not bear thinking about.
Deprived of having a husband of her own choice and forced to commit her chance at domestic happiness, her very person, to a near-stranger? It was intolerable. This plan only worked if the world thought she and Georgiana left Ramsgate with Darcy to visit her home. If Georgiana married Wickham, then everyone would know Elizabeth spent days alone overnight with a man.
The only way Elizabeth could show her face in society again was if she returned as Mrs Darcy. Otherwise, she and her sisters’ reputations were forfeit.
“I will marry you if I have to,” he said with all the bravery of a man facing execution.
She felt a small bit of gratitude for his honourable intentions, but no woman wanted to hear a proposal that included the words “if I have to.”
Elizabeth stood from the table, no longer feeling hungry. “It will notbe necessary,” she said. From the look on Darcy’s face, she must have said this firmly. Perhaps she had shouted it. “I am going to bed. Shall we wait in the innyard? They will appear sometime tomorrow. We must be ready to speak with her before she finds a blacksmith.”
He agreed, and she ran off to her room, where she fell into a deep sleep despite the disquiet filling her heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Although he needed far more sleep, Darcy’s mind was too occupied, and he awoke with plenty of time to dress and wait in the innyard for his misguided sister. When he went downstairs, he asked a maid to wake up “Mrs Gardiner” but was told she was already waiting for him.
While his nerves were frayed at confronting his sister, he was also nervous to see Elizabeth. He felt a strange tension between them he did not understand. They spoke so straightforwardly, so effortlessly with one another, but argued nearly just as often. He supposed he was grateful they also compromised easily and worked well with one another.
He was fortunate to have a partner in this disaster.
Even if such a partner embarrassed him by seeing him in his shirtsleeves and appearing in her dressing gown, with her hair down and looking far too pretty for having spent two days in a mail coach. He ought not to notice such things when his mind was preoccupied with family concerns.
He saw her bag by her feet and placed his with it. They were both right in thinking they needed to be ready to leave as soon as Georgiana agreed to return with them.
“I do not think they will be long,” Elizabeth said after an hour of his pacing before her. “Wherever they stopped last night, Wickham will be eager to cross the border.”
