Page 24 of I Have Faults Enough

The next spark caught. Darcy bent over it, breathing carefully until the ember held, then fed it into the nest of dry shavings. A thin thread of smoke rose, followed at last by a small flame. It was a miserable little fire, no larger than two cupped hands, but when it steadied, Elizabeth felt something inside her loosen.

“We shall survive the night,” Darcy said quietly. He glanced at her, and for a moment there was something almost warm in his expression. Then the silence returned.

Neither had much left to say, as the fire demanded tending, the cold demanded endurance, and the darkness beyond them demanded caution. Darcy remained beside the flames, feeding them occasionally, while Elizabeth watched him from beneath his coat, still cold but slightly less so.

While he worked, she found herself thinking again of the things he had said. I have you. And, most troubling of all, the knowledge that when he had thought she might be lost to the river, he had been afraid.

Her head grew heavy. She fought it for a time, unwilling to sleep when danger might still be near, but eventually her body betrayed her. Her eyes closed, opened, and closed again.

Darcy noticed, and without a word, he shifted closer and allowed her to lean against his shoulder. This time, Elizabeth did not protest.

The river still roared some distance away. The little fire burned low between the roots, and Darcy's shoulder was warm beneath her cheek. For tonight, she decided, she would ask nothing more of herself than to remain alive until morning. The rest can wait.

CHAPTER 15

Early that morning, the first grey streaks, Elizabeth and Darcy removed their hanging clothes and put them on their bodies. The clothes were still damp, but wringing them out and hanging them near the baked fire had helped to dry them, even if a little.

The business of dressing again proved an awkward one. Both felt, this morning, a fortitude they had wanted the night before, and it was in the recovering of it that the awkwardness of their situation pressed upon them most. As they retrieved their clothes hanging to dry and dress, they spoke little, and turned each from the other, that some small privacy might yet be preserved between them.

Once dressed, Elizabeth was the first to speak, informing him that she was ready to go on. He turned, and found her gown yet clinging damp to her form, and her hair fallen in dark disorder past her shoulders. She put him in mind of some wood-nymph, before he had the sense to check the thought. He was at once ashamed of the disloyalty such a fancy did her, reduced as she was, and frightened, and far from anything like herself.

Together, they left the hollow as soon as the light was strong enough to start out, although Elizabeth was not convinced either of them could make good use of it. She had slept, if the fitful half-consciousness of the night's last hours could be called sleep, curled against roots that had left half her back stiff beyond anything, and when Darcy helped her to her feet she discovered that the ankle, though rested, had not so much improved.

Darcy stood for a moment outside their hollow, studying first the land to see if anyone was nearby. And, then he looked up at what sky showed through the thinning cloud.

He turned, and helped her out of the bank and onto the firm ground next to him. And, as he continued to look around, he said quietly to her, “If I have my bearings right, the storm drove that river generally southward, which I believe would put Hertfordshire somewhere to the east of us, though I will own I am a good deal less certain about where exactly we are or where we should be going.”

She looked around, and sensing that she had not the slightest clue where they might be, conceded to him. "I am willing to test the certainty as we go, for I do not think either of us has the luxury of waiting here much longer."

They went slowly, and Darcy helped Elizabeth each step of the way. As they walked alongside each other, Darcy allowed himself to admire her, to really look at her. He had, by all means the night before, attempted to not so much as look at her, clad in her delicates, with his coat for her modesty. However, now fully dressed, and looking quite the nymph, Darcy noticed her thick, dark hair hung in damp, dishevelled strands about her face and shoulders.

Her dress, though she had put it on again as best she could, remained quite damp, clinging uncomfortably to her limbs, and there was an exhaustion in her countenance which she could not conceal. And yet Darcy, looking at her beside him in the still dripping darkness of the morning forest, found himself struck by the extraordinary conviction that he had never seen her look more beautiful.

It was an absurd thought, he told himself, given their circumstances. They were cold, drenched, injured, and still in flight from those who sought to capture them.

However, as she stood with one hand braced against the rough trunk of a tree, her hair wild about her face and her breathing still uneven from their escape, he could not look away. There was something in her then which affected him more deeply than any gown or composed smile ever had.

He found that Elizabeth was utterly unguarded, and somehow all the more beautiful for it. He looked at her a moment longer, staring intently, as he almost always did. She must have sensed his stare, and looked up to him, before he quite bashfully turned his head to appear interested in the nearest tree bark, or some other part of the forest nearest by where he stood. She did not remark on this, and neither did he.

They continued walking in an easterly direction, at least by his best reckoning, going opposite of the river, much to Elizabeth’s gratitude. The pair walked slowly across unfamiliar landscape; the fields had gone to winter fallow, hedgerows bare and dripping still from the night's rain, and the whole surrounding area offered no landmark either of them could put a name to.

As they walked, they listened with an attention that bordered upon desperation. Every crack of a branch, every stirring of the evergreens, every distant cry from the forest seemed to demand their immediate notice. At the slightest unfamiliar sound, they would stop as though struck motionless, their eyes searching between the trees, each silently wondering whether their pursuers had at last found their trail.

Elizabeth found herself on constant alert, her heart pounding all the while, but she tried diligently to keep her nerves to herself, and continue walking towards what they hoped to be their freedom.

It was in this steady, anxious walking that she discovered the day's true business was not speed, nor even distance, but endurance. Even as her heart raced, she placed one foot carefully before the other, learning with each uncertain step how her injured ankle meant to behave upon the uneven ground. Every root, furrow, and hidden hollow beneath the wet leaves demanded fresh negotiation, and there were moments when even the slightest misstep sent a sharp reminder through her.

Darcy's hand found hers whenever the path grew difficult, steadying her without drawing attention to the assistance. He never asked whether she required it; he seemed to understand that she would be reluctant to admit as much. Instead, his fingers would close gently around hers, offering whatever support he could while allowing her to maintain the dignity of proceeding under her own strength.

It was hunger that first tested what resourcefulness the day still had to offer them. They had eaten nothing since Ned's stolen bread the day before, and by midmorning the hollow, light-headed quality of that hunger had returned in earnest, and it was Elizabeth, scanning the hedgerow they walked beside with close attention.

When she was younger, and joined her father on his rambles through Longbourn's own countryside, he had taught her to spot sloes.

She looked diligently, and miraculously spotted a dark cluster of sloes still clinging, shriveled but not spoiled, to a blackthorn's bare branches.

"Look! Mr. Darcy, sloes.” Elizabeth said excitedly, stopping and pointing to the cluster. “They will be sharp as vinegar this late in the season," she said, moving slowly now until she reached them, and began working a handful free with fingers still clumsy from cold, "but, I do not think we are like to find anything better between here and wherever we are going."

Darcy took what she offered him without hesitation, and ate them, attempting to disguise how thoroughly the sourness had affected him. As she watched his private struggle, she began to laugh, as she watched his eyes and mouth pulled back in a grimace; it was a real laugh, and it surprised them both. He looked at her with an expression she had not seen before, it almost looked to be an open regard, and Elizabeth dropped her eyes, unsure what to think of the look she noticed on his face.