“Ah, yes. Forgive me, I did not see you there,” she said, giving a hurried curtsey. She continued on her way, evidently with every intention of scurrying past him before he could waylay her.
“Miss, I am afraid I am quite lost. Would you be so kind as to show me the way out of here?” he asked. Though it was highly improper for him to speak to her without a formal introduction, let alone in so isolated a setting, the circumstances demanded it. Darcy frowned for a moment. Indeed, it was even odder that she was walking alone, without a chaperone or a companion. His eyes travelled over her person. She did not look to be the daughter of a poor farmer. Her dress, though perhaps a little plain, was of good quality and current style. If he had to guess, she was the daughter of some middling country gentleman. “I know it is highly irregular for me to ask, but I am afraid I am a bit desperate. I have become so badly turned around that I cannot seem to find my way out.”
She hesitated for only a moment before closing her book and marking her place with a ribbon. Darcy stifled a sigh of relief; evidently, she was not terrified of him, or at least not so much so that she would leave him lost in the woods.
“Yes, of course. Come this way.” She gave him a smile so brilliant Darcy felt his heart skip a beat and gestured him onward. To his astonishment, she walked directly towards the crooked beech tree. It was not until the last moment that Darcy saw how another path led away past it, hidden from where he had stood.
“Have you recently moved to the area?” The mysterious young woman looked at him inquiringly, still smiling.
“I am visiting a friend who leased a house nearby,” Darcy explained. He wondered if she might press for more information, but she did not, walking onward with swift, sure confidence. She wove through the trees, sure-footed as they made their way to different paths, though Darcy felt as if they were only growing more lost the further they went. He was almost at the point of saying so when he caught sight of an open field through the trees about fifty paces ahead. He breathed a sigh of relief.
The young woman had noticed his relief and was looking rather amused, though evidently too well-mannered to say so. “The main road is just up here,” she remarked.
As they came to the treeline, Darcy turned to her, intending to offer his thanks. “I cannot express enough how much I appreciate your assistance,” he began.
What he had intended as sincere and graceful thanks came to an abrupt and most unwelcome end. As they walked out of the trees together, he tripped on a root. To his horror, he fell into the young lady with such force that they both came tumbling to the ground. Darcy wrapped his arms around her waist and turned her so that he would take the brunt of the fall.
She let out a surprised yelp, and they both landed with a thud on the hill that crested up toward a walled pasture. Just then, he heard the sound of carriage wheels approaching, with the road not twenty paces from where they lay prone in an awkward embrace.
The young lady’s eyes filled with fear. He quickly helped her to her feet and stepped away from her. The carriage slowed,and he saw an older woman watching them as the carriage passed by, a pair of spectacles held to her eyes.
He turned to the young woman, who was smoothing down her skirts. “My apologies. I should have been more careful,” he said. “Are you injured?”
“No, not at all. That is, I am not injured in my person,” she looked after the carriage that had just passed in dismay. “But my reputation will soon be ruined. That must have looked very compromising.”
“Compromising —” Darcy repeated in shock. But she was entirely correct, of course. Anyone who saw them on the ground together would surely have drawn the most scandalous conclusion. Even if the woman in the carriage had seen them trip, to have emerged from a place of such solitude together, as though there had been an assignation, was almost as bad.
“It must have looked most misleading…coming out of the wood like that, and then embracing in such a way.” Her cheeks grew pink. Though reproving himself for such a thought at such a time, Darcy could not deny that it looked rather well on her.
But that was absurd wool-gathering at a time of crisis. “Do you think she saw us?” Darcy asked, appalled. “Do you know her?”
“Unfortunately, she does know me. That is Lady Lucas, and she is the foremost gossip in Meryton — perhaps in the whole of Hertfordshire.” She gritted her teeth, her jaw grown so tense that he could see a pulse jumping in it. “I have no doubt that this story will be in every drawing room in the neighbourhood by the time I return home.”
Darcy felt all the blood drain from his face. After a few seconds to take in the news, he offered her his arm. She only looked at it. “Is that wise?” she asked.
“This hill is slippery. I would be remiss if I did not offer to help you to the road,” he said. “Besides, we have already been caught in a more compromising situation.”
The young woman nodded and took his arm. “That is true, I’m afraid.” They made their way to the road, and after he helped her over the sheep gate that bridged the rock wall, they stood in awkward silence for a time. Neither of them seemed to know how to proceed.
“May I see you home?” he finally asked.
She nodded and motioned in the direction they should go.
For a time, they walked in silence. No doubt the young woman was as absorbed in her disturbing thoughts as Darcy was in his. Things could hardly be worse. It was his fault that they had been caught in such an inappropriate situation. If he had kept his mind on where he was walking, he would not have become lost. If he had not asked for her help to get out of the wood, none of this would have happened. Even at the last moment, if he had not tripped and fallen into her, perhaps the disaster could still have been averted.
But there was nothing to be done. If Lady Lucas told a soul of what she had seen, the consequences would be dire. Darcy could shrug them off, or simply leave Hertfordshire. This young woman, his rescuer, could not.
That left only one choice, little as he liked it.
He cleared his throat and turned to the young lady, stopping on the lane as they came to the bottom of the hill. “Ibelieve I have been remiss. Though there is no one present of whom I might beg an introduction, we cannot go any farther without knowing to whom we are speaking. I am Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy. My estate is Pemberley, in Derbyshire.”
The young lady turned and nodded. Her dark, brilliant eyes met his without hesitation. Darcy saw in them a knowledge of disaster to match his own, and a slight glimmer of tears. “And I am Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” she replied, her voice steady, though quiet. “My father’s estate is Longbourn, not a half-hour’s walk from here.”
Darcy gulped, wondering if she could hear the wild beating of his heart. There would be no going back once he said the words. “Very well then, Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” Darcy said grimly. “I am afraid we have no choice but to marry.”
Chapter 4
Elizabeth sat up in bed, giving up the struggle. She had spent all night unable to sleep and wishing that she might sleep forever. It was dawn now. That was late enough.
