Behind them Darcy heard a crash.
A violent jolt went through the ground, and the world seemed to come apart at his back. China and glass shattered. Someone cried out. He dragged the child and Miss Elizabeth closer and bowed over them, shoulders hunched, his back to the flying debris. Something small and hard glanced off his shoulder; something colder struck the back of his neck. The water and lemonade poured down over them in a flood, running under his collar, over the front of Miss Elizabeth’s dress, and somehow reaching Henry, who had been merely startled until that moment and now drew the long, gathering breath of a boy about to make his feelings widely known.
Then the canvas came down.
It settled over the wreck in great snapping folds, shuttingout the sun, the air thick with the smell of canvas, lemonade, crushed strawberries, and trampled grass.
For one stunned moment, none of them moved.
Then Miss Elizabeth gave a breathless, disbelieving laugh. Alaugh.
She is unhurt,Darcy thought with relief, and for a second, he could think of nothing else but her weight against him, the quick rush of her breathing, and the fact that she was already trying to rise. He released her. Henry began batting at the canopy.
Hands seized the canvas above them.
“Hold still,” Richard said. “Or at least choose a direction and make it unanimous.”
The canvas lifted. Light broke in, sharp and sudden, and Richard appeared over them, hat gone, coat splashed, face stripped of every expression but focus. He caught the nearest fold and flung it back over the fallen pole. Bingley and Hurst peeled it back on the other side.
“Miss Bennet first,” Darcy said.
“I am perfectly?—”
“Up,” said Richard, and took her by both hands to draw her to her feet. He set her clear of the wreck before she had quite finished protesting. Then he bent again for Henry, who was already standing and had recovered sufficiently to object loudly to being rescued, wet, and separated from his play all in the same minute.
“There now, Master Henry. A famous escape.”
“Thefish?—”
Richard looked at Miss Elizabeth, who mouthed “The strawberries.”
“Ah. Gone to ground, I am afraid,” said Richard, depositing the boy into a waiting footman’s care. “A cowardly manoeuvre,but common among the species.”
Darcy, finding himself abruptly without either burden, rolled over and sat back in the grass. He bent one leg at the knee and assessed the ruins. His coat was soaked through, lemonade and water were making progress down his spine, and before him lay the wreckage of a very expensive picnic.
The centre pole had crushed the table at one end. Plates and pieces of plate lay in the grass. Strawberries were everywhere. A raised pie had come to grief against a chair. The glass bowl was gone entirely, except for the pieces glittering under the fallen canvas.
Richard took in the entire scene and then offered Darcy his hand.
“Well,” he said as he pulled Darcy to his feet, “I think we may safely say the meal is concluded.” He turned to the boy. “Well done, Master Henry.”
Henry, who had got his breath ready for a roar, appeared to reconsider it, and held out his arms to Miss Elizabeth.
“What a quantity of lemonade you have brought up with you, Master Henry,” Miss Elizabeth said with a smile as she took the boy from the footman’s arms. “We shall have to wring you out like a dishcloth and hang you on the line to dry.”
Henry gave one indignant sob.
“Yes, I quite agree. Very poor treatment for such a valiant fisherman.”
“Henry!” Mrs. Atherton rushed up, every drop of colour gone out of her.
Miss Elizabeth did not make a performance of the handing-over. She put Henry gently into his mother’s arms and stepped back, so that what the rest of the party saw as they hurried up was a mother holding her own son.
“He is safe,” Darcy said, because someone had to say it plainly. “Wet, frightened, and very angry. But safe.”
Henry, offended by the accuracy of this report, howled into his mother’s shoulder.
Mrs. Gardiner appeared at Miss Elizabeth’s side, steadying her with a gentle hand on the shoulder and offering a quiet word of reassurance.