The interior smelt of damp wool, leather, and the ghost of Mrs. Hobart’s brandy. Miss Bennet’s ruined shawl lay folded upon the seat. Where was his . . . there it was, the little circle of Blue John, on the floor between where he and Miss Bennet had been sitting. He stepped inside and reached for it.
His fingers brushed against something small and hard. He looked down to see a few dried peas on the floor.
He stared at them for a moment as he recalled Miss Bennet’s hand dipping into her pelisse’s pocket. The peas jumping free with the handkerchief, disregarded in her haste to tend to him.
Miss Bennet travelled about the country equipped with dried vegetables.
Of course she did.
He picked up a pea. It sat in the centre of his palm. The other he pinched between his thumb and forefinger and added beside it. Together they looked very small, very plain, and entirely unlike any ornament that Mrs. Hobart would have thought fit for a princess.
The thought occurred, without his seeking it, that a pea was, after all, a seed. He knew enough of such matters to doubt the wisdom of the notion. Heaven knew how long Miss Bennet had carried these particular specimens about her person; they might already have been old when she took possession of them. They might be parched beyond all hope of life. They were more likely to decay quietly in the soil than to reward foolish sentiment with green shoots.
He slipped them into his waistcoat pocket, beside the unaffectedly practical items a man of business carried there. He could always throw them away later.
He slipped Georgiana’s Blue John into his watch pocket, closed the carriage door, and stepped down again. He wished to be off as soon as the horses were sufficiently rested.
Anders was speaking low to one of the grooms. The man straightened at Darcy’s approach, cap in his hands, his face respectably impassive save for the keen gleam in his eye that had served his master well more than once.
“Sir?”
Darcy cast a glance about them. The yard held only the usual life of such a place: a boy carrying a bucket that slopped over his shoes, a dog nosing in the straw, a man clapping his arms about his chest in a vain attemptto restore feeling to his fingers. No one stood close enough to overhear, provided one did not shout.
“The landlord has heard,” Darcy said, “that there were highwaymen upon the road behind us. I have told him only what was necessary.”
“He is not the only one to have heard something of it, sir,” Anders replied. “The post-boy who came in before us told the ostler there were shots in the hollow. Men have quick tongues when the subject is not their own foolishness.”
“So I have observed,” Darcy said. “I am less concerned with their foolishness than with that of those who travel with me. I am not willing to present Miss Bennet as a target twice in one day. We shall alter nothing in our outward arrangements that might excite remark, but I would have the discipline of the party improved.”
Anders nodded. “You have only to say the word, sir.”
“I wish you to understand that our passenger is to be either Miss Bennet and nothing else. No princesses. No Highnesses. No Thurnian anything.”
A small spark appeared in Anders’s eyes that might have been approval. “Neither Johnson nor I will speak a word, sir.”
“Good.” Darcy cleared his throat. “In addition, I wish every man on the road to believe that what occurred in that hollow was a regrettable but ordinary piece of English rascality that has already met with a check. We shall not halt where there is no need. I do not require you to drive the team into the ground, but keep them moving. You and Johnson will keep a sharper lookout than ever. If you observe any man who seems too interested in our progress, have Johnson take up the coach gun. I will not have us surprised again.”
“Yes, sir.” He touched his cap. Darcy turned back towards the inn.
The passage from parlour to yard seemed shorter when he re-entered the house. The landlord bobbed up from a corner where he had been inconsultation with a maid about teapots. He bowed, promised that the fire in the parlour would be built up, that hot water would appear, that whatever they had to secure their comfort would be made ready.
Darcy turned towards the parlour, intending to enquire whether Miss Bennet required any further assistance, and perhaps to attempt, while Mrs. Hobart remained absent, a more temperate explanation of his objections to the princess tale. It would be easier to say what he must without Mrs. Hobart’s fluttering presence to turn every plain sentence into drama.
He had not taken two steps when the door flew open and Mrs. Hobart herself appeared, crowned with a fresh cap and indignation.
“Mr. Darcy,” she cried, nearly colliding with him. “I declare this house is the very definition of discomfort. The necessary is in dreadful condition, the water is scarcely warmer than ice, and the maid has no more notion of proper attendance than a ploughboy. I shall never recover. My poor nerves—”
Her hand dropped to the reticule upon her arm, plump fingers tightening about it. Between them, peeping from the mouth of the bag, Darcy glimpsed the folded edge of a letter. Miss Bennet’s, he supposed.
“We shall not be here long,” he told her. “You should find a boy to take that letter.”
“I have yours as well,” she informed him.
He was piqued that she should have taken it without permission, but he nodded. He did not, however, give her the letter for his cousin. He could not say why.
Mrs. Hobart was soon gone down the passage, reticule bouncing at her side, the letters safely within.
Darcy watched her for a moment, then turned and entered the parlour.