And then, just as Elizabeth was about to start across the street, a hackney cab, driven at the unsafe, hurtling pace that all cab drivers used, pulled up in front of the Gardiners’ house.
Two men stepped out.
One a uniformed constable from the parish association funded to protect the rich district that Lachglass lived in.The other’s face was wrapped up in bandages, Elizabeth could easily recognize him from his size and posture as Mr.Blight, the earl’s man of business.
They walked up to the door and pounded for entry.
*****
Elizabeth hurried away, back the direction she had come.And then she went south, to the waterfront of the Thames.
She reached the waterfront near the flat top of the old London Bridge.Old people still talked about how the bridge used to be packed four stories tall with houses.Boats with lamps swinging side to side floated up and down the river, barely visible in the dim foggy evening.In the distance the last reddish hints of sunlight faded by the second.The eternal bustle of commerce, barges, stevedores, cats, dogs, and all manner of people and creatures continued doing their business along the dockside at night.
There was a barrel with a fire burning in it for warmth that dockworkers taking a break and chewing tobacco gathered around.Elizabeth cautiously stood next to them, warming her hands.
“Eh, lady!Watcha doin out so late in that dress with no coat?Sick you’ll be.”
“Apologies.”Elizabeth shivered and flinched away from the barrel and the workmen.The man looked after her with a head-shaking frown as she fled along the riverfront away from him.
Cold wind blew off the river, freezing Elizabeth’s face.
She was alone, helpless.
There was nowhere she could go in London.No one she could turn to.Anyone who she stood upon close enough terms with that they would give her shelter without any money, was someone whose connection to her would be easily discovered by the investigators.
And even if a friend hid her, their servants would talk, and turn her in for a reward.There would certainly be a great reward.She had, after all, killed an earl.
She would freeze to death, in the wet and cold.
Was there anyone she could trust to help her at this time?
The name of one gentleman crossed her mind.He had been named as the inhabitant of a particular house on a square a few blocks from Lachglass’s house.She had been told that this man was present in the town after the spectacular society marriage of his sister a few weeks ago by a gossiping footman while Elizabeth walked her ward around the streets.
It was a slender hope.
But this man whose name occurred to her had once, in a more fortunate time for her, many years before, told Elizabeth with dark passionate eyes that he ardently admired and loved her.And then she refused his suit out of misplaced spite and misapprehensions.
Wind blew through Elizabeth’s dress, and a proper soaking rain now entertained her.Elizabeth started back towards where she had started, going towards the scene of her crime once more.The night was full of cold sleety rains, caught halfway between hail and plain rain, with little flutters of snowflakes melting in the lamplight.
One step after another.That was all it would take.One step after another.
Elizabeth wanted to lie down and cry, and let darkness take her.Her stomach hurt with hunger, and her foot ached and twinged with every step.
But Elizabeth kept walking.
Chapter Two
The moment Darcy entered the door to his finely appointed townhouse, his housekeeper Mrs.North greeted him in an unusual agitation.She flapped her hands and tugged at her bracelet.“Sir, sir, I’ve been waiting for you to return for the past hour.A strange gentlewoman is asking after you.”
Darcy blinked.“A strange gentlewoman?Did she leave her card?”
“In the drawing room.Told her to wait for you.Couldn’t send her off.Not in the cold.Not at all.I gave her a toddy, and told her to just sit there and keep warm.It’s all so irregular.I think she is in some trouble, but a very sweet and good natured young gentlewoman.I can tell, you know.I can tell.Someone did wrong by her.”
With a small smile Darcy shook his head.“Mrs.North, this is most unlike you.I can hardly make out the direction of your communication.Who is the woman seated in my drawing room who saw fit to call at,” Darcy frowned in thought, “ten o’clock in the evening, since you said she has been waiting for me for an hour now.This ismostirregular.”
The thought crossed his mind that the entire situation might be some bizarre attempt to entrap him in marriage by entangling his reputation with that of the strange girl who had called.But that made no more sense to him than anything else that Mrs.North had said.Besides now that Georgiana was happily married to Mr.Tillman, Darcy had rather less reason to concern himself with the possibility of scandal.
“Um.Yes.Um.Let me explain.”Mrs.North’s head bobbed up and down as she stammered.“Nothing like this ever happened before.But I am sure she is a good sort, even though I don’t know her.I’m worried she’ll be quite sick from all that cold, walking around all day she said, in just a thin dress — no coat.It’s been raining all day, off and on, and with that wind.She’ll be fortunate if she doesn’t catch her death of the cold.”
