Darcy stepped toward the trees. “Miss Bennet!” he called into the darkness. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet! If you can hear me, make a sound! You are safe now!”
There was no response, only the soft whistle of wind through the branches.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You will not be frozen,” Elizabeth told herself. “You will walk briskly, you will keep to the trees, and you will find a place to hide.”
It was an excellent speech. It would have been improved by a fire, a chair, and a hot cup of tea.
Elizabeth put one foot before the other. The woods did not respond by becoming less sinister. The trees were bare, their branches clawed up at the now-dark sky like black hands, and the lightly drifting snow had stopped, leaving her concerned about leaving a trail that Sir Reginald and his friend could follow.
“Keep moving,” she reminded herself. “And above all, do not sit down.”
Unfortunately, sitting down grew more attractive the longer one walked in the cold. Sitting down promised relief. Sitting down also promised, with alarming plausibility, never standing again.
A sound rose suddenly from deeper in the wood. Elizabeth stopped so abruptly that her knee protested. She listened.
There it was again. A short, eerienote, then silence.
She moved forward, too quickly, and her foot slid on a patch of ice hidden beneath a dusting of snow. She went down on one knee with a stifled gasp, hands flinging out to catch herself. For a moment she remained there, absurdly kneeling, as if she had come to the woods to pray.
Perhaps, she thought bleakly, she ought to have waited.
There it was—good sense, arriving late. If she had remained in the room, if she had sat still and done what sensible young ladies were expected to do when waylaid by villains, then she might have been found by someone who was looking for her.
But no one was looking for her. That was the problem, was it not? And it was her fault. She had refused to believe Mr. Darcy. Not because she believed the world harmless, but because she believed herself too clever to be caught by anything so obvious. And to be fair, because he so stubbornly clung to the belief that she was a liar.
It was a mortifying realisation.
She forced herself upright. Her knee ached. Her skirt was damp through. The cold was no longer an inconvenience; it had become a presence; patient, industrious, working steadily inward.
She began again, slower now, choosing her steps while trying not to let her imagination fill the woods with men tracking her.
The clouds thinned at one edge, enough to allow a pale beam of moonlight to slip through. Suddenly the woods had shape again: trunks, branches, the line of the ground. Beyond the last ranks of trees, a straighter darkness appeared—clearer, more deliberate.
The road.
Elizabeth’s heart lifted. She moved toward it, careful now. Light did not mean safety; it meant visibility. But it also meant she could see where she was going, which was an improvement upon stumbling into whatever awaited her.
At the edge of the trees, she stopped and peered out.
The road lay empty.
For a moment she allowed herself to hope that empty meant freedom, that Sir Reginald and Mrs. Hobart still were unaware of her escape and she could simply walk until she found a place to stop and warm herself.
She glanced back in the direction of the house, and there, somewhere behind her, she could make out a shape. She began to walk in its direction.
In the moonlight it was only a dark mass at first, but then her eyes caught the curve of the wheel, the clean line of the panel, and then the crest upon the side, bright where the moonlight illuminated it.
Mr. Darcy’s carriage.
Elizabeth went still. If his carriage was here, then he was near. If he was near, then she wasnotalone.
And if he had brought his carriage and his men onto this lonely road, then Mr. Darcy hadnottravelled ahead and left her to the mercy of her own poor choices.
But the road remained silent. No call came from the trees, no lantern-glow shifted between the trunks—there was no sound at all but the thin stirring of wind. Elizabeth stood with her hand on the carriage panel, listening.
Cold crept in again the moment she stopped moving. It slid beneath her collar and into her sleeves, turning her fingers clumsy, her thoughts slow. If she grew much colder, she would have no choice but to crawl back to the Gregory house—and this time Sir Reginald would not leave a window unbarred or a door unbolted. He would lock her up tight, and she would never have another chance to seek her freedom.