Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (40 page)

Immediately he and Fitzwilliam reclaimed solemnity to embark upon a lengthy detailing of the horse’s lineage, in which she held no true interest. Yet such was their obvious pleasure in relating it that she smiled and nodded at the information as if she did.

Before they had long set about impressing Elizabeth with dam and sire, a commotion occurred outside the arched entrance to the courtyard. Loud voices ensued, and the squealing sound of horses. Fitzwilliam was closer than was Darcy and they both walked hastily in the direction of the noise.

Although Darcy turned and said to her in useless exercise, “Stay here,” Elizabeth, much too curious, followed a short distance behind.

When all came through the gate, they saw a footman yanking upon the rein of one of two horses harnessed to a gig. He was tugging upon the bit cruelly, simultaneously striking the trembling horse with a coach whip. Frothy blood came from the horse’s mouth, his eyes wild with terror. Involuntarily, Elizabeth put her hands to her face, horrified at the sight.

Before Fitzwilliam had taken many steps toward the man, Darcy’s long legs over-strode him, and he reached the footman first. Whirling him about, he yanked the whip from the man’s hand and brought it down across his shoulders.

“There, does that not encourage you to do my bidding?”

He spoke in a loud, angry voice, one Elizabeth had never heard. From the astonished look upon Fitzwilliam’s face and those of the grooms, they had not either. All stood in petrified anticipation. John Christie, too, had followed and was standing behind the group, his mouth agape, unnoticed.

Casting the whip to the ground, Darcy turned his back upon the man and walked over to the still quivering horse. He raised his hand and spoke soothingly to the animal, which steadied but slightly, excitedly still attempting to back away. Taking hold of the bridle, he stroked the horse’s nose and neck, talking softly to it. Gradually the horse was becalmed. When Darcy called for a groom to unharness it, several men jumped, and one came forward to take the poor, shivering, lashed horse to his stall.

Darcy turned back to the horse flagellant. Indeed, all eyes fell upon him. Tom Reed was standing glaring at the Master of Pemberley with fists clenched, his body recoiled into a near crouch. Curiously, as Darcy approached him, the man’s eyes first darted to Elizabeth before returning to his advancing adversary with considerable malevolence. As Darcy advanced, Reed, who was quite as tall as Darcy and a stone heavier, backed up a full step.

Darcy said, “You have been warned before. Begone from this property and do not return.”

As a man used to having his instructions obeyed, he turned his back and looked not back.

To the other footman who was better known to him, he said, “Stay if you wish, but your brother will not step upon my soil again.”

When Mr. Darcy spoke to him, Reed’s brother, Frank, was making a great point of inspecting his boots. He did not look up at Darcy, but nodded an acknowledgement before sneaking a pusillanimous glance at his brother.

Tom Reed spit upon the ground in Darcy’s direction, then looked again directly at Elizabeth before he stomped away.

Shaken, Elizabeth stood in abject stupefaction. Sheltered as she had been, she had never witnessed an act of brutality or such a confrontation as had just played out before her. Rather than frightening her, however, the sight of her husband, in his shirtsleeves and riding boots, standing up to a larger man and facing him down, bestirred her blood in what she knew was a decidedly unseemly fashion.

Once reclaiming his equanimity, Darcy seemed to remember himself. Addressing Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth, he murmured numerous apologies for his eruption. Trailed by John Christie, they walked back to the courtyard. Elizabeth took her husband’s hand. It was an instinctual gesture of reassurance. Nevertheless, it was apparent it was she, not he, who needed restoration, for his grip was steady. Hers was the one that trembled.

The mare stood peacefully where her lead rope had dropped. John ran ahead of the others, sheepishly taking it in hand, realising that in all the excitement he had done the unthinkable of forsaking his post. He looked at Darcy fearfully, expecting a reproof. If Mr. Darcy intended one, he was deflected.

For just then, Elizabeth turned to Fitzwilliam (who looked a little shaken himself) and asked, far too merrily, “Has Darcy told you what I am to call my horse? He has not spoken of it to me.”

Not able to rescue good humour in so swift a fashion as Elizabeth, Fitzwilliam looked at her a little dumbly, and then to Darcy, then back to Elizabeth.

“He said you were to name her yourself.”

“Then she shall be called ‘Boots,’” she announced with finality.

This garnered both Darcy and Fitzwilliam’s attention, both making a point of not looking at each other in mutual disregard of Elizabeth’s whimsical choice of appellation for such a fine specimen of a mare.

For both men believed that the horse was named but for her two stockinged feet.

The trio turned their thoughts toward supper, which was to be capped by champagne (from France—there was a war, but Portuguese wine was indefensible) and cake in honour of Elizabeth’s twenty-first birthday. Because of the company and cake, their retirement was later than usual. Due to an imprudent enthusiasm for toasting, Fitzwilliam found himself a little in his cups. Darcy steered him up the stairs, insisting he stay the night.

There was little more that could be done with Fitzwilliam than to remove his boots and roll him face down onto the bed. That accomplished with bleary, if inept, cooperation from Fitzwilliam, Darcy returned to his dressing room to see to himself.

Expecting Elizabeth already to be asleep (unused to champagne as she was), he tiptoed into their room in want of not disturbing her. Elizabeth’s eyes, however, had not found sleep. Be-gowned, she sat cross-legged upon the bed. It was well apparent that champagne was more an aphrodisiac than a sleep inducer to her. Never one to question, he immediately drew off his night-shirt and joined her upon the bed, happy to re-toast her birthday in any manner she chose. She chose something surprising. “Husband, I wonder if you might indulge me in a whim?”

He assured her that he would.

“I wonder if you would…pull on your boots?”

His countenance bore a quizzical expression.

“My boots?” he repeated.

“Yes, your tall boots.”

“Now?”

She nodded her head emphatically. Looking a little bewildered, he did not question her more and went back to his dressing room. It was but when he closed the door that a flicker of understanding overspread his face.

He reopened the door, stuck his head around the corner and asked in reassurance he had heard her correctly, “My boots alone?”

“Perhaps those breeches you wore today, as well.”

When he came to her clad but in his breeches and boots, she was looking out the door of the balcony onto the moonlit lawn. However, when she felt his presence, she turned to him and ran her hands across his bare chest, an invitation he would not ignore.

If this perpendicular embrace had not the heat of the one previous, no hesitation was brooked. Moreover, if their passion was birthed standing up, it did not expire that way, for this time their bed bade them come. The night might not have been particularly young, but there were many hours until dawn. And boots did give better traction.

When they had been gratified, Elizabeth rose and returned to the balcony door. The air was cold, hence he came up behind her, putting his arms around and beneath hers. Both gazed out at the moonlight.

Nestling his face against her hair, he asked, “Are you actually going to call that mare ‘Boots’?”

“Certainly.”

“’Tis a better name for a cat.”

“I like it for my horse.”

“I am not certain my countenance will not betray me each time I hear you say it.”

“Why, Mr. Darcy, whatever do you mean?…”

When the moon drifted behind a cloud, the stone of the balcony reflected an odd glow. Elizabeth looked at it curiously, but before she could ask Darcy what it meant, he startled her by abruptly pushing her away and heading for the door.

He bellowed, “Make haste! Rouse Fitzwilliam! The stables are on fire!”

Fortunately, he had on his boots and breeches and needed but to grab a jacket as he raced for the stairs. Elizabeth ran the length of the corridor to Fitzwilliam’s room and pounded both fists against his door. The shouted word, “Fire!” rendered him both awake and sober. Running back to their room, she grabbed Darcy’s long coat, and, unable to find her shoes at all this time, gave up the search and ran back to the stairs just behind Fitzwilliam.

When they reached the esplanade the sharp rocks slowed her bare feet, hence, Fitzwilliam immediately out-distanced her. By the time she got to the first barn, flames were already licking at the roof from the hayloft. Swirling smoke and cinders filled the air. A dozen people had converged upon the site, the distant sound of neighing, frightened horses accentuating the shouts and confusion.

The immediate plan was to get the horses out before the ceiling caved, but that could not be initiated until the barrels blocking the main door were rolled away.

Darcy and Fitzwilliam alone dared enter the burning building to open stall doors for the horses nearest, slapping them upon the rump to encourage them out. The barn had filled with smoke, but no fire was yet in sight inside and the horses pounded out, greeting Elizabeth’s tardy appearance. She had to leap aside lest she be trampled. When the loft burnt through, lumber and burning hay fell to the floor with a hissing crash, thereby alighting new fire along the floor betwixt Darcy and Fitzwilliam. When Elizabeth was able to enter, she could see but Fitzwilliam for the smoke.

He called out that the fire lay between Darcy and their exit.

Running back to the throng of people who had already initiated a water brigade, Elizabeth screamed to the men they must open the doors at the other end of the building. Several ran for them, Elizabeth in pursuit, the tail of Darcy’s coat dragging upon the ground behind her. The weight of the coat and the stones upon her bare feet
allowed Fitzwilliam to overtake her lead. By the time she got to the doors, the barrels that blocked them had already been rolled away.

When the doors were thrown back, they were greeted by a spewing cloud of smoke and five more freed horses galloping by. Not seeing Darcy, Elizabeth attempted to run in, but Fitzwilliam grabbed her arms and held her back. Hardly impeded, she hastily yanked her arms from the sleeves of the coat to free herself and started into the smoke again, screaming her husband’s name.

Fitzwilliam knew well if Darcy survived but to learn that he had allowed Elizabeth to enter the flaming stable, he would never be forgiven. Hence, he ran and caught her again, this time by her night-gown, and held her fiercely to him. Impatiently, he shouted to her if she would just stay he could go, but, in hysteria, the reasonableness of this was lost upon her. She was still struggling thusly when Darcy emerged from the smoke. He had a rag over Boots’ eyes, the singular way he could get the terrified mare through the fire. Smoke curled up from his figure and, thinking it was his hair, Elizabeth ran to him. As it was just his jacket that smouldered, she and Fitzwilliam both beat it out, Elizabeth with her bare hands, Fitzwilliam using the coat Elizabeth had escaped.

It was but when she clutched herself to him in relief that Darcy realised she was there.

“Elizabeth! What are you doing out here? You should have stayed! Fitzwilliam, how could you have allowed her to come?”

Wrenching the greatcoat from his cousin’s hands, Darcy wrapped Elizabeth in it. Fitzwilliam gifted him with a look of confounded exasperation. Thereupon, with a shake of the head, Darcy withdrew the reproach, both understanding the difficulty of thwarting Elizabeth. (If she was chagrined at being the culprit in this vexation, contrition did not visit her until later.)

The large stable in irreversible ruin, they re-routed the bucket brigade to wet down the roofs of the other buildings. Blessedly, dawn brought a soft shower of rain. It smothered the smouldering timbers, and the family sought refuge in the house.