Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (50 page)

She cast her eyes curiously upon certain houses upon Regent Street, howbeit not overtly. No undo attention would have been attracted had she not overheard the milliner’s assistant sending a boy to deliver several hatboxes to a house upon the next block.

“Harcourt House,” she said. “It is the large grey one. White shutters. You know the place.”

The boy nodded and set off upon his errand. Titillated by such news, Elizabeth could hardly contain herself until Darcy returned to escort her home. With studied nonchalance, she took his arm and suggested a stroll before returning to the carriage.

“We are to take leave to-morrow and I have not yet had my fill of peering into shop windows. Do humour me.”

It was unlikely that he thought her entirely innocent of gossip. Thus in not demurring she believed he was, indeed, humouring her. In want of convincing them both she truly wanted to see what the shop windows held, she stopped and admired several whilst steering him determinedly about the block. When they rounded the court, she saw a handsome stone house. As they took the corner, Elizabeth was studying the house so diligently, she did not notice the woman who passed. No note might have been taken had not Darcy done the improbable.

Almost imperceptibly, he touched the brim of his hat.

It was not done for a gentleman to acknowledge a lady not of his acquaintance. The woman did not appear to respond nor was there any attempt at introduction. Nevertheless, Elizabeth could not resist turning and looking at her as she took the steps to the grey house. There, the woman paused and returned her gaze. She was tastefully costumed. Beneath the satin ruffle of her bonnet, honey-coloured curls framed a patrician countenance. It was one of breathtaking beauty. Her figure could only be described as voluptuous, her costume, exquisite. She did not appear to be wearing rouge at all.

A more dismal moment was unimaginable. Could not her husband have had the good graces to commit carnal necessities with a woman who looked cheap? Ugly?
Obese? No, he had hockled about with possibly the most beautiful courtesan in England. That was indefensible.

Other than his subtle acknowledgement of the passer-by, Darcy had looked straight ahead, keeping a firm hold on Elizabeth’s arm.

As he led her away, Elizabeth said simply, “She is very beautiful.”

When Darcy responded neither in question of whom she spoke nor in agreement, Elizabeth knew there was little doubt of the identity of the woman. It would have been reasonable, even expected, for her to ask him if he knew the house or inquire about the woman. However, she did not. She too, did the improbable. She spoke not a word.

Upon their return to the carriage, a dejection descended upon her that she did not attempt to rescue. For she realised her being had just been usurped by a green-eyed, grasping, grudging, possessive monster. By the time they reached the townhouse, Elizabeth decided that of all her many injurious faults, curiosity might well rank higher than impatience. She would have been quite content to live out her life without ever once looking upon that beautiful woman, understanding the intimacy she must have once shared with Darcy.

Obviously, Darcy knew Elizabeth comprehended all the implications of what she had witnessed. Her silence told him that. Hence, it was with no little tenderness that he took her into his embrace that night. When she received him, she did so with generosity, but when their union was compleat, she had a whispered entreaty.

“I wish we were home.”

P
erchance it was the step of being formally introduced to society that had coaxed Georgiana from her diffidence. Perchance it was something more. Whatever it truly was, Darcy gave credit for Georgiana’s new-found confidence to her work being published. As that came about at Elizabeth’s insistence, his esteem for his wife and her opinion only grew. He did not say so in so many words, yet she knew it all the same. Elizabeth was quite happy to have her husband’s praise in place of possible censure had it gone badly.

He told Elizabeth that he was inclined to believe that Georgiana’s eighteenth year should see her happy at last.

That was the single pronouncement made of their season. The subject of their encounter upon the street with his past was avoided with superb dedication. All appeared content to recapture the quiet serenity at Pemberley, Elizabeth most of all. When she had told him she wanted to go home, he did not once fancy she meant
Longbourn. He had been long persuaded to understand that she, as did he, thought only of Pemberley as truly home.

When the day of decampment arrived, the trunks had been loaded into the coach boots, but Mrs. Annesley was tardy yet from her visit with her daughter. Having had his fill of London, Darcy was too impatient to delay for a single minute. One coach was to await her return, and accompanied by Goodwin, would take leave directly thereof, the other forthwith.

Elizabeth, Hannah, Georgiana, and her lady-maid, Anne, fit into the first coach quite easily, but their number gave Darcy an excuse to return to Pemberley astride Blackjack. If he could not ride with Elizabeth in privacy, he chose not to tuck in his knees for thirty leagues just to look at the bobbing heads of Hannah and Anne.

Moreover, it was much easier to breathe a deep sigh of relief from the independent seat of his saddle. The dreaded trip to London and his past was behind them. He did not feel unscathed (Juliette of all people, and the Twisnodde twins as well), but at least relieved. Every trip to London would be successively less trying. The worst was over.

Immoderately cautious when travelling, Mr. Darcy always examined the soundness of the four matched carriage horses for himself. He first inspected each head, then each wheeler, running his hand down all sixteen legs, lifting the hooves to check their shoeing. This ritual may have been looked upon with some amusement by his coachman and postilions, seeing the great gentleman in his fine clothing doing the chore of a smithy. Nevertheless, it was also with grudging respect. For if Mr. Darcy was that attentive to their duties, they undertook the commission of inspecting the worthiness of the coach with the same enterprise.

That understood, it came as a surprise when the coach became disabled some distance outside of London. It was conjectured that a cotterpin must have been loosened upon the cobblestones, for they had not gone but half their distance.

When no spares were found, Darcy could barely contain his disgust. The governing principle of such vigilance was to circumvent being stranded upon the road. Fortuitously, he was already upon Blackjack, thus, he had one of his postilions loose one horse with its defective harness to accompany him to find the smithy in a village they had passed a short way back. It was imperative not to tarry long, for much delay meant travelling the last miles to home after darkness stole dusk.

Coming to her window to explain the problem to Elizabeth, Darcy almost leaned over to kiss her a brief good-bye, but decided not to by reason of an audience. He simply assured her of a quick return. Upon observing Georgiana’s uneasy countenance, he made a point of noting to her that two men stayed. A long gun lay in the leg well up top with their coachman. A pistol rode in the other postilion’s waistband. This talk of weaponry was said in reassurance, but to Georgiana, it merely reminded her that there were miscreants about necessitating them.

The disrepair of their coach occasioned upon an isolated stretch of the road. However, it was bucolic, trees lining either side. There seemed nothing sinister upon the landscape save for the attention of some buzzing insect. Elizabeth thought to
take the time to find a bit of rest, but could not. It was hot. She considered untying the ribbon to her bonnet, for her neck had begun to perspire. She was just reaching to draw the window shade down when she saw the remaining postilion pass by with his handgun drawn. Alarmed, she peered out and thereupon espied an even more dreadful sight. The postilion was pointing his handgun at their coachman. Clearly, the coachman took the threat seriously, for after surrendering his weapon he raised his hands high.

At that moment, two armed riders approached the carriage. One man, invoking far more blasphemous invectives than were necessary, ordered the women out. Whether because of the guns, the curses, or a combination of the two, the ladies all sat in stuporous fright in their seats, no one yet daring to move. Finally, Elizabeth, of the opinion it was unlikely anyone was going to hand them down, motioned to Anne to open the handle and kick back the door. Their exit might have proceeded more expeditiously had not Hannah, who was first out, thought it necessary to negotiate the steps of the coach with her hands upraised. Elizabeth was disposed to believe even desperados would forgive the use of the handrail.

An additional string of profanity encouraged them to move faster and, once Hannah was upon the ground, they did. Of the two men on horseback, Elizabeth recognised the man in front. But not by name. She knew him but by deed, as he was the one Darcy had fired for beating the horse. In all probability, he was the stable arsonist. It appeared the man was not content to be a murderer of horses. He was a bandit as well. Nor was it unlikely that their disabled carriage was but coincidental to their thievery for his brother rode their coach and held his gun yet on the coachman. Clearly, the blackguards had gone to a great deal of bother to rob them.

Indeed, they had gone to a great deal of bother. Thomas Reed had been lying in wait for four months to exact his revenge upon the impervious Mr. Darcy. So keen was his hatred, he went to the lengths of enlisting Jack (Iron-Mitts) Lewis as an accomplice (since being cashiered from boxing, the erstwhile pugilist had been somewhat tardy finding alternative employment). The scheme of their little band was a bit precarious, Frank Reed’s wavering courage, not Jack Lewis’ missing marbles, being the most unreliable link in their chain.

Tom Reed called out as to where was Mr. Darcy, “Aye thought ’e to be ’ere on this ’ere coach.”

Frank told him the man had gone to the smithy, then timidly added, “Ye said t’weren’t t’be no killin’, Tom.”

Tom cursed his unremitting ill-luck with a single expletive, then said, “Aye wanted to see ’is bloody face when we’s to rob ’im’s all.”

Unable to imagine what Tom Reed might do to Darcy had he been in his sights, Elizabeth whispered a prayer of thanks he was not. Moreover, she was relieved she had not worn Darcy’s mother’s pearls, for Frank Reed demanded their jewellery and appropriated their reticules. Thereupon he rummaged for valuables and weapons through the baggage in the coach boot he had loaded in London. The bandbox in which the
bijouterie
was hidden he procured forthwith, the pearls along with it.

Ere long, Elizabeth’s upraised hands betokened her fright in a tremble. She dearly wished she could hide them behind her, but dared not. Next to her, Georgiana quietly
lost her wits. Uttering what sounded like snatches of the Lord’s Prayer, Hannah’s discomposure was a little louder. Anne, however, was quite silent, evidently of the persuasion that if she did not see it, it was not happening. Therefore, she stood with her eyes shut tight.

As deftly as the coach was disarmed, the bounty was loaded. But hope that the men would then take leave began to fade for the brigands commenced to eye the women. Knowing well if the worst happened it was a useless gesture, Elizabeth nonetheless edged Georgiana, who had begun a low keen, behind her.

A brief impasse was instituted when Frank called to Tom to make haste. Yet Tom Reed lingered.

Abruptly, he swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. Then, he stood full and commenced a glowering approach to the already terrified women.

He stopped. And for a man of congenitally transcribed ignobility, his countenance thereupon did the unlikely. It smiled. However, no one who witnessed what passed for mirth with Reed believed it issued good tidings. For, albeit his smile exposed several teeth, it was actually just an extended smirk. Clearly, just partial incentive for the robbery had been extracted. He walked directly in front of Georgiana and looked upon her from head to toe with menacing deliberation. Although that was, in all actuality, just a sadistic threat, Reed thought it a pity. It would have becalmed a great deal of his considerable loathing of Mr. Darcy to breach his sister’s chastity.