The carriage, at least, offered shelter from the wind. And if Mr. Darcy had gone to the house to confront them, he must return to it.
She eased the door open and climbed inside, careful to leave it slightly ajar. If footsteps approached and they were not his, she would still have a chance to run. She drew her skirts close and sat rigidly upright, willing her teeth not to chatter, willing Mr. Darcy to find her. She searched for a rug and pulled two out, draping one over her legs and pulling another over her shoulders.
Minutes passed—she could not have said how many. The cold made each breath a small labour. Now and again she leaned toward the open door to listen, straining to hear the crunch of boots on the snow or to see the swing of a lantern through the trees, but there was only silence. Silence and cold that numbed her hands and feet, cold that froze her ears and nose and made her head ache.
Just as she was beginning to wonder whether she had been foolish to shelter here, whether she must either move again or risk freezing solid where she sat, a voice cut through the dark.
“Miss Bennet!” A pause, and then, “Elizabeth!”
Elizabeth’s thoughts scattered like startled birds. She leaned forward, gathered air into her lungs, and called, “Here!”
The word came out as a pathetic scrap of sound—no more than a breath. It vanished into the trees as if the night had simply swallowed it.
She tried again, louder, forcing the shape of the syllable past lips that felt numb and stiff. “Here! Here!”
It was, if anything, worse. Her throat produced a thin rasp that might have been a leaf skittering along a branch. She might have been addressing a squirrel for all the effect it had.
Outside, the voices continued, maddeningly unchanged.
“Miss Bennet!”
“Answer, if you can!”
I am answering,she wanted to scream.
She dragged in another breath and tried once more, putting all her will into it, as if that alone could warm her throat and make it obey.
“Mr. Darcy!” she attempted.
What emerged was a hoarse whisper that felt like tearing paper.
She stood there, shaking with cold. Papa often teased her about talking too much. Tonight, when speech was required, her voice had turned traitor.
The calling moved away again.
She tried to stomp her feet, to clap her hands, but nothing produced a noise loud enough to make a difference.
Finally, she tugged at the gloves on her hands, pulling them off, putting two fingers in her mouth in an entirely uncivilized manner, and whistled as she had when she was twelve and needed to startle her younger sisters into listening.
Nothing.
Elizabeth blew on her bare fingers. Just as she was tugging the second glove back on, a lantern flared outside the window, bright and warm. The carriage door was pulled open with brisk decisiveness.
Mr. Darcy stood there, framed by the lantern’s glow.
For a heartbeat he only stared at her. Relief flashed across his face so quickly she almost missed it, chased at once by incredulity, and then by something else, deeper, held fiercely in check.
“You are here,” he said, as if accusing her of existing.
Elizabeth attempted dignity and produced a faint, chattering, “I have been t-t-trying to t-tell you.”
His gaze dropped to her hands, to the rugs, to the damp hem of her skirt. His expression altered immediately.
“You are freezing.”
“I had n-noticed,” Elizabeth replied, shaking harder still.
He stepped in at once, without asking or hesitating, to seize the rugs and wrap them around her properly, with an irritation that seemed aimed not at her but the cold.