General Fitzwilliam leaped from the rolling carriage as it came to a stop.He looked deeply commanding in his general’s uniform with gleaming gold buttons and long epaulettes.“Open the damned gate.Quick!”
“I must see your authorization.”
General Fitzwilliam annoyedly stuffed a sheaf of papers in the guard’s face.“My regiment is on theOrionwaiting to take sail the instant I arrive.”
Behind them clattered up the Bow Street Runners and Mr.Blight.Darcy had at some time, without quite realizing it, put his arms around Elizabeth, and he held her tightly against himself.
He thought it was more to comfort himself than her.He had a pistol as well hidden in a compartment of his carriage, but he knew that would be no use against the entirety of England.He could shoot as many Bow Street Runners as he wished, and the only end it would bring was to have him hung whether they kept Lizzy from the noose or not.
His nerves seized up as he gripped Elizabeth’s slim form in his arms.She, though, straightened up, carefully watching the action.
“Halt these men!”the Bow Street Runner shouted at the marines, hoping they had at last found someone who would listen to the voice of authority.“By the authority of King George they are all under arrest.”
The marine examining General Fitzwilliam’s papers looked up from them, glanced at the Bow Street Runners, glanced at General Fitzwilliam, and then looked at the carriage with Darcy and Elizabeth staring palely out at him through the windows.
He shrugged.“Papers in order, General.Papers in order.Open the gate!”he shouted to the other soldiers.He stabbed his thumb dismissively at the Bow Street Runners.“Thems with you?”
“No, not at all.I’d not admit them if they don’t have proper authorization.I suspect,” General Fitzwilliam lowered his voice, “I suspect they may be infiltrators trying to destroy our ships and are part of one of those groups of agitators, like the Hampstead clubs, or those people who want Napoleon to rule Britain.Best give them a run around before you send for the Captain on duty to look at their papers.”
General Fitzwilliam handed the man a coin.The marine nodded, bit the coin, and waved General Fitzwilliam’s soldiers and the Darcy carriage through.
“Stop, in the name of the king, stop them!For fuck’s sake.”The leader of the runners threw his short top hat to the ground in anger.“Are all you all here criminals?These men are disobeying the law and must be arrested.”
“He is definitely,” said the royal marine, enunciating every syllable, to the Bow Street Runner, “a proper and auth-en-tic general.Now are you calling a general of his majesty's army a criminal?”
“That woman tried to murder a peer of the realm!”
And their carriage rolled them away, towards where a giant ship that had been designed along the same lines as the most modern East Indiamen, with long trees trunks making up the sweeping line of the deck, a smattering of canons stuck in a single line along the gun deck, and beautiful black paint on gold making up the coloration.The sterncastle was painted blue, and the flag of the united Great Britain flapped in the wind.
A wide gangplank made of hewn yellow planks led up to the ship.The railings were lined by red-coated soldiers with their muskets out and settled calmly on the wooden planking of the deck.The cold wind blew stray hair about, but the soldiers kept a firm formation on the mostly stable platform of the ship.
The soldiers who had escorted them dismounted and formed up an honor guard.General Fitzwilliam stepped out into the cold wind; the temperature of the day was cold enough that their breath formed clouds.The slightly rotted, even in winter, smell of the Thames greeted them.Darcy took Elizabeth’s arm to help her out of the carriage.To his surprise, and pride, she smiled at him, and she was completely steady.
“A fine adventure, Mr.Darcy,” she said, “but one I hope is over, and that we shall not repeat.”
“I was never so terrified in my life as when the marine would not open the gate.”
Elizabeth smiled softly at him as she let him lift her to the ground from the carriage.“You took our escape with rather less composure than me.”
“You merely hazarded your own life, I hazardedyours.”His voice was low.
The drummer on the ship took up a rolling military beat to greet the return of the general.The three of them walked up the gangplank together.Elizabeth was now steady and firm in her steps, as though the fear of the last hour had scared away, at least for the moment, any lingering aches and weakness from her illness.
They reached the deck of the ship, and the gangway was pulled in.
The captain of the ship was a bald man with a grey fringe of hair and a vicious scar an inch wide going up his forehead and disappearing under his slightly askew bicorn hat.He wore a coat of a blue wool that was at least half an inch thick.And he was angry.
“What the damned tarnation is the matter with you, Fitzwilliam,” he ranted at Darcy’s cousin.“Thought you were a reasonable man when we settled matters.In all tarnations!Ordering us off onto sea on an instant.You can’t prepare a ship like this to sail without some warning.It just isn’t done.”
“Do you have the pilot, and all preparations under way?Can we cast off?”
“Damnations, man.Yes I have the pilot.Had to promise him a bottle of my best whiskey and an extra six guineas to show up on such notice.A different ship is being held an extra hour so that we can be guided out, and the stores are not prepared.Damnations and tarnations, man.”
“I would ask,” Darcy said coldly to the naval officer, “that you might keep your language under some regulation whilst there is a lady present.”
The seaman looked Darcy up and down.Darcy smiled pleasantly back at him, standing tall and firm, and unwilling to be challenged on this matter.
“Damnations, man, Iamwatching my language for her sake.Damnations isn’t a curse.It’s nothing like…” He blushed, which rather surprised Darcy.“None of that nonsense in a lady’s presence.Quite outside of what should be said to her.”
