Page 79 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

He did not stop to eat. He drank a pint of small beer standing up at Biggleswade and another at Kettering. He changed horses nine times. By the time the sun went down behind the long hills beyond Market Harborough, he had come ninety miles, and could barely feel his hands, and the relay horse was blown, and he had to stop.

The Three Swans at Market Harborough was full of carters and farmers and the smell of roasting mutton. He stood in the yard in the red dusk, leaning against the wall, while the ostler brought out the next horse, and made himself breathe.

A rider came into the yard from the north at a hard gallop.

He was a young man in a mud-splashed Pemberley livery coat, on a lathered grey that Darcy knew: Swiftsure, from his own stables, the fastest horse he owned. The young man flung himself down in the middle of the yard and shouted for a fresh horse for London, and the ostler turned to look, and the lantern over the stable door fell full on his face.

It was Tom Hollins. The son of the Hollins farm. Whose little brother had had the fever, and been told the story of the beanstalk three times.

"Tom," said Darcy.

The young man turned, and saw him, and his face went slack with astonishment and then something like wild relief.

"Sir! Oh, sir. Thank God. Thank God." He fumbled in his coat and pulled out a letter, crumpled and damp, and thrust it into Darcy's hands. "From the mistress, sir. She sent me off at first light. I was to ride to London and not stop. I was to give it into your hand."

Darcy broke the seal. It was very short. It had been written fast, in the dark, the letters running together.

My love. A light on the far side of the lake last night at one o'clock. Somebody watching the house. Mrs Reynolds went down to Lambton at dawn and saw the gentleman at the Green Man with her own eyes, from the church porch. It is Mr Wickham. She knew him at once.

We are all safe. The doors are barred. James and the grooms are armed. I have not told Georgiana. I will not let her out of my sight.

I am not frightened. That is not true. I am very frightened. But I know what to do. Come if you can. I love you. E.

Darcy read it standing in the inn yard at Market Harborough, in the red light of the lantern. His hands were perfectly steady.

Then he folded it, and put it inside his coat with the others, and turned to the ostler, who was holding the fresh horse and staring.

"Is that the best you have?"

"Best in the yard, sir. But you'll not get far tonight. It's black as pitch past Leicester. No moon till two."

"Then I shall ride by the stars," said Darcy, and swung up into the saddle.

Tom Hollins caught at his stirrup. "Sir. Let me come. Swiftsure's done, but give me any horse. I know the road. I came down it this morning."

Darcy looked down at the boy's white exhausted face, at the mud on his livery, at the way he held onto the stirrup leather as if it were the only thing holding him up.

"Tom," he said. "You have ridden ninety miles today for my wife. You will eat your supper and go to bed and ride home tomorrow, and when you get there, you will tell your mother that the master says your brother is to have a pony. Do you understand?"

The boy stared at him. Then, slowly, he let go of the stirrup.

Darcy turned the horse's head north, into the gathering dark, towards Leicester and Derby and the long black hills, and put his heels to it.

Chapter 22: Wickham in Lambton

Pemberley. Tuesday, 28th April 1812

Mrs Reynolds came back from Lambton at seven in the morning, on foot, in her black bonnet, having walked the two miles there and back before breakfast, and stood in front of Elizabeth in the housekeeper's room with her hands folded at her waist and her face like a closed door.

"It is him, madam," she said. "I stood in the church porch opposite the Green Man at six o'clock, and he came out into the yard in his shirtsleeves to wash at the pump, as bold as brass, whistling. I knew him before he had lifted his head. I watched that boy grow up. I gave him bread and jam in this very room when he was six years old, and he stole the silver spoon off the tray while I was fetching the milk." Her mouth set like iron. "He has not changed."

Elizabeth had not slept. She had sat up all night in the great hall with James and the two grooms from London and three more of the Pemberley men, with the candles burning and the doors barred and a blunderbuss across James's knees, and listened to every creak of the old house settling round her, and watched the black windows go grey. She had thought she was ready for this. She found her hands had gone cold.

"The rider," she said. "Tom Hollins. He is gone?"

"At first light, madam, on Swiftsure, as you ordered. He will be at Leicester by noon and London by tomorrow night."

Tomorrow night. Thirty-six hours before Fitzwilliam could even know. Two days at the very least before he could be here.