"Brava, Mrs Cartwright!" said Elizabeth.
"Stitch and time," said Jane, walking beside her. "Then the phrase begins with a stitch and time."
"Saves nine," said Elizabeth.
They stopped together and looked at each other grinning. "Nine," Jane said. "The final object must be nine."
They found Miss Drummond, Clara and Harriet in the morning room, where Miss Drummond was already standing over the third clue with a look of triumph. "I am three times three,"she read aloud. "My fellows delight in knocking me down." She looked at Elizabeth. "The answer is nine. Not a number written down, I think. Lady Hortensia wants objects, so we want something that stands for nine."
"Ninepins," said Jane, her voice rising in her enthusiasm.
"That was my thought," said Miss Drummond. "There is a little set in the cabinet by the card table."
Before Elizabeth could answer, a shout came from the hall.
"Darcy! We have the third!"
The gentlemen answered with a roar of triumph. Chairs scraped, footsteps hurried across the polished floor, and Mr Darcy's voice cut through the noise, deep and steady. "Bring it here. Ashcombe, the paper. We must write the answer at once."
Miss Drummond's expression sharpened. "They have all three."
Lady Frances, who had been standing by the window with the answer sheet in her hand, looked up at once. "Miss Lacey, the pencil." Harriet's eyes brightened.
"Harriet," said Elizabeth, with warning in her voice.
But Harriet was already moving. "Fill in the paper!" she shouted over her shoulder. "I shall fetch the nine!"
"Harriet!" Elizabeth called, but it was no use. Harriet shot out of the room and across the hall as if she had been fired from a pistol, leaving Elizabeth to seize the answer sheet from Miss Lacey while Clara leaned over her shoulder.
"Stitch," said Clara. "Time."
"Nine," said Jane, breathless with excitement.
"A stitch in time saves nine," said Miss Drummond.
Elizabeth bent over the nearest table and wrote the phrase as clearly as her racing hand allowed. She had just signed her name when a great shout came from the gentlemen.
"Every cloud has a silver lining!" The words rang through the hall, followed by a cheer from the Blackwood brothers and Mr Hadley's delighted laugh.
"Their phrase," said Clara.
Elizabeth looked up. Across the hall, Mr Darcy had the gentlemen's completed sheet in his hand and was already turning towards the small library.
Elizabeth did not wait. She snatched up the sheet and ran. It was not dignified or captainly. It was certainly not ladylike, and her mother would have been horrified to see her sprinting in a house full of eligible gentlemen. But Mr Darcy was ahead of her, his stride long and determined, and the small library door stood open. Elizabeth gathered her skirts in one hand, the paper in theother and moved with such speed as she had not used since she was a girl racing down Oakham Mount.
Darcy reached the doorway half a pace before her. Unfortunately for him, he hesitated. Elizabeth did not. She slipped through the narrow space between him and the doorframe, knocking his arm with force and thrusting the paper towards Mr Pritchard.
"Mr Pritchard," she said through laboured breaths.
Darcy arrived at her shoulder in the same moment, his own answer sheet in his hand and his expression one of astonished offence. "Miss Elizabeth," he said. "That was most unsporting."
Elizabeth, still breathless, looked up at him. "All's fair in love and war."
The words had left her mouth before she considered them. Mr Darcy coloured. A wash of red rose along his cheekbones, and Elizabeth felt her own face warm in answer. She turned quickly back to Mr Pritchard.
Lady Hortensia had been sitting in the library the whole time in a high-backed chair beside the hearth, a cup of tea in one hand and a look of serene delight upon her face. The library door stood wide open. She had not missed a moment.
Mr Pritchard accepted Elizabeth's sheet, then Darcy's, with the solemnity of a man receiving terms of surrender. A momentlater Harriet came skidding to a halt behind them, flushed and clutching the little ivory ninepin in her hand.
