“Mr. Darcy.” Perfectly proper, perfectly cool.
“Miss Bennet.” Their exchanges since the scene in the inn’s common room early the day before had all been conducted in this same measured formality. It was preferable to reproaches and tears. There was in her manner a stiffness that spoke of wounded pride, and he was resolved not to seek any further understanding.
“Pray step in, madam,” he said, offering his hand as she approached the carriage.
Her gloved fingers rested lightly upon his. The contact was brief, no more than custom required, yet he felt, with unwelcome vividness, the warmth beneath the kid and the slight tremor that passed through her hand as she set her foot upon the step. The cold, he told himself. The morning air was bitter enough to set any hand to shaking.
Mrs. Hobart followed, leaning rather more heavily upon his arm. “These roads will be the death of my constitution, Mr. Darcy,” she announced asshe climbed in. “I am persuaded that if His Majesty had any notion of the hardships involved, he would have sent us in high summer, when the air is at least tolerable.”
“His Majesty appears to have been unacquainted with English winter,” Darcy said evenly. He was exceedingly tired of this charade, but now that the “secret” was out, the woman simply pressed harder. “Pray be seated, ma’am.”
The interior of the coach seemed narrower than he remembered, crowded with cloaks and parcels and the three of them obliged to sit together. Mrs. Hobart took the rear-facing bench with a small huff, but Darcy would not relent. He always travelled in his own coach particularly so that he might command the forward–facing seat; any journey of more than an hour otherwise left him quite unwell.
The coach rocked as Anders and Johnson mounted the box, and then they were moving, wheels crunching upon frozen ruts. Through the small pane of glass, the yard fell away behind them, inn sign whipping in the wind, stable boy’s cap raised in a last, perfunctory salute.
They made the curve back onto the road a bit sharply, and the motion threw the three of them a little closer together. Miss Bennet’s shoulder brushed his. The slight impact sent an immediate awareness through him: the soft feel of her breath near his ear, the yielding warmth of her body through her pelisse, the faint, clean scent of jasmine that clung to her. He drew back by an inch, more than politeness demanded, and set his jaw against the foolishness of his own senses.
She murmured a soft apology without looking at him, fingers tightening in her lap.
“It is nothing,” he said curtly.
Outside, the landscape slid by in a succession of fields and hedgerows, all softened by the recent snow. Miss Bennet watched it with a sort of hungryattention, as though she were intent upon memorising every tree and cottage. Each village they passed, each church spire, each smoke-wreathed yard, received that same searching look.
Opposite him, Mrs. Hobart dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief and gave a delicate sniff.
“I am persuaded,” she declared, “that this climate was contrived expressly to afflict persons of refined constitution. The damp penetrates the very bones. Miss Bennet, you must not sit so near the window. The air is pernicious.”
Elizabeth drew closer to Mrs. Hobart in obedience. The movement brought her nearer to him also. There was no avoiding it. Darcy felt the faint press of her boot against his as they bumped over another rut. He looked away, out through the glass, and forced his attention back to the road.
“Once we have made two good stages today,” he said, “the worst of the strain will be over.”
Mrs. Hobart sniffed again. “If I survive that long, sir.”
He did not roll his eyes, but it was a struggle.
The coach lurched more violently as it encountered a hidden hollow. For an instant the floor seemed to tilt; Miss Bennet was thrown forward, and his arm shot out of its own accord to keep her in her seat.
He felt her slender form against his hand, the sudden, startled tension of her muscles. He turned to be certain she was steady, and at such close quarters he could see the tiny pulse at the base of her throat, fluttering rapidly.
“Forgive me,” she said, breathless, as he released his hold. A faint flush rose into her cheeks. “The road is worse than it appears.”
“Evidently,” Darcy replied curtly. His hand burned with the memory of that brief contact. He flexed his fingers once, then folded his arms across his chest, as though to imprison any further impulses of that kind.
Mrs. Hobart, who had given a little shriek at the same jolt, now pressed one hand to her bosom. “Oh! This brutish motion cannot be endured. I feel my very life shaken out of me.”
Miss Bennet turned to her at once. “Can I fetch anything from your bag?”
“It is my heart,” Mrs. Hobart said in a tone that combined severity with suffering. “I have long been subject to palpitations. This roughness, this cold, this interminable road . . . I do not know if I can bear many more miles. I am very unwell.”
Darcy looked closely at the older woman. Her colour remained high but there was no sweat upon her brow, no true distress in her breathing. He had seen genuine illness and nothing in Mrs. Hobart’s present state resembled it. Yet she moaned again as the coach dipped, and shook her handkerchief in feeble protest.
“Mr. Darcy,” Miss Bennet said, a note of resignation in her tone. “If there is an inn near at hand, might we stop for a little while? Only until Mrs. Hobart is easier. I should be sorry if she were to suffer more than is necessary.”
He could hardly refuse the request without appearing barbarous. Yet every hour lost ate into his schedule, and his mind stubbornly returned to Georgiana.
With a growl rumbling in his chest, Darcy rapped upon the roof. Anders’s voice came faintly through the wood. “Yes, sir?”
“Is there a house of accommodation within a reasonable distance?”