“I shall reserve my right arm for such endeavours,” he replied.
“This is beyond all belief,” Mrs. Hobart broke in. “Such horrors in a Christian country. To be attacked upon a public road and Her Highness exposed to banditti! I shall inform Sir Reginald. I shall inform the proper authorities. All the world shall hear of it.”
At the word “Highness,” something in Elizabeth flinched. The sound of it carried her back to the hollow, to the shining barrel of a pistol and to Mr. Darcy’s back between her and it. She opened her mouth to insist that Mrs. Hobart stop this instant.
But Mr. Darcy spoke before she could find her voice. “Mrs. Hobart,” he said.
He did not raise his tone, yet the little space of the carriage seemed to draw tighter about his words.
“Mr. Darcy?” she asked, as though she had not expected to hear him speak.
“There will be no more talk of Her Highness,” he said, “nor of princesses, nor of royal blood, while you travel in my carriage.”
Mrs. Hobart stared at him, her mouth rounding. “No more talk—Mr. Darcy, I am charged with the care of—”
“You are charged,” he said, still composed, “with the care ofMiss Bennet. Your first duty is to preserve her safety, not to decorate her with titles beforeevery ostler and tapster from here to London. This morning you have seen what such behaviour invites. I will not have it repeated.”
Mrs. Hobart’s cheeks swelled with outrage. “I have done only what is proper to her station. It is my duty to see that she receives the respect that is—”
“It was your duty,” he interrupted, “to keep her out of the way of loaded pistols. Do you think the respect of an innkeeper is of use to a woman being ransomed?”
He spoke the last quietly, but there was a hard edge under the quiet that made Mrs. Hobart’s protests falter. She fumbled for her handkerchief again and pressed it over her mouth as if to prevent any further dangerous words escaping.
Elizabeth looked at him. She knew too well that he was right.
No one spoke for some time. The rhythm of the wheels steadied into a more even clatter as the road lifted them out of the hollow’s pocket. The harness creaked, the horses snorted, the carriage swayed and rocked.
Mr. Darcy sat with his shoulders back, his gaze once more upon the window. Every rough movement of the coach drew a minute tightening about his mouth. He made no complaint.
Mrs. Hobart’s breath, by degrees, eased into its accustomed pattern. Shock gave way to querulousness. “The cold will be the ruin of me,” she began, muffled through the handkerchief. “These post-roads are an affront. Whoever is responsible for their upkeep ought to be ashamed. I shall petition the Crown. I shall—”
“Mrs. Hobart,” Mr. Darcy said. “There is nothing to be gained by counting the ruts in the road aloud. The coachman is aware of them already. He is doing what he can.”
Elizabeth’s lips twitched. She kept her face turned towards the window, unwilling to affront Mrs. Hobart with her laughter, yet comforted despite herself by the droll humour under his dry façade.
She let her mind move more freely now that her hands had done all they could.
If she had been only Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn, there would have been no talk of ransom, no men lying in wait for a princess of Thurnia.
A picture rose in her mind of her grandfather, in his distant palace, hearing that an English gentleman had taken a ball meant for his unknown grandchild. Perhaps His Majesty would send a letter of thanks, or some Thurnian order to hang about Mr. Darcy’s neck. The notion of this austere man being so singled out was ridiculous enough that a small, quiet laugh escaped her.
But her amusement was short-lived as anger followed close upon gratitude. Anger at Mrs. Hobart, who had poured Elizabeth’s title into every ear that would listen, who had turned her from a private absurdity into a public one with every “Her Highness” given to stableboys and chambermaids. Anger at Sir Reginald, who had warned them not to speak of her title but had not insisted upon a stronger escort. If he honestly believed that men might be tempted to mischief, he ought to have done. Anger at having been expected to travel in the winter in the first place.
Anger at herself most of all, that she had not found some clever way to silence Mrs. Hobart before. She had remonstrated, she had entreated, she had blushed and wished herself invisible, but she had not succeeded. If she had been more resolute about keeping Mrs. Hobart quiet, would there have been men in that hollow at all?
The coach rolled on. The landscape outside changed with painful slowness. Bare hedges, stubbled fields, a distant line of dark trees. Once afarmyard slid by, a smudge of smoke rising from a low roof, a man lifting his head to look as they passed. Then more road, more hedges, more grey.
Elizabeth realised, with a small inward start, that she had not thanked Mr. Darcy. Not truly. She had obeyed him in the hollow and had argued with him about cleaning the wound, but she had not once said the words that civility, feeling, and justice all demanded.
The thought of attempting to say them in the present circumstances—rocking in a carriage with Mrs. Hobart listening—made her stomach perform a fresh little somersault.
When they stopped, she told herself. When the ground was steady under her feet again, when she was not in danger of falling into his lap if the coach ran over a rough spot in the road, when Mrs. Hobart was out of the room. Then she would speak. And if he chose to dismiss her, at least there would be no witnesses other than the two of them.
The light had altered by the time the coach at last began to slow, the grey deepening and the clouds gathering again in the sky. A low building came into view through the glass, smoke rising in a struggling wreath from its single chimney.
The coach swung into its small yard and rocked to a halt. The sudden absence of motion seemed as shocking as the first lurch had been. Elizabeth set her hand against the side to steady herself.
The door opened. Mr. Darcy descended with obvious care, his right hand upon the frame. Elizabeth saw the stiffness in his shoulder as he moved.