She looked up at him ruefully. “I thank you, but I believe I should rest here a few minutes longer before I try anything complicated like standing up. At the risk of sounding like my mother, my nerves are suffering.”
“A few moments of rest sounds like an excellent idea.” He collected the brandy flask he had left by the spell book before joining her again. “Normally I would hesitate to offer brandy to a young lady, but under these circumstances, perhaps it might soothe your nerves.” He uncorked it and held it out to her.
She took the flask. “I am willing to try anything.”
“I recommend small sips,” he said as she raised it to her lips.
She coughed a little with her first sip but seemed more comfortable with the next. “I cannot understand why anyone would drink this for the flavor, but the sensation is not displeasing.” She offered it back to him. “I imagine you could use some as well.”
It was true, but they were no longer in Faerie, and he would not be able to offer it to her after he drank from it. “It is not necessary.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Surely you are not worried about propriety after we shared a cup in Faerie, not to mention the way we rode together on my –” She stopped and pressed trembling lips together.
“What is it?” Darcy asked. She could not possibly be feeling the effects of the brandy this quickly.
She let out a breath. “I was about to say the way we rode together on my cat. Because that is what we did. We rode bareback on my cat.” Her voice shook with nervous laughter.
He chuckled, relieved it was nothing more. “So we did. Or perhaps we rode your raven. But this is the last time I will refer to us riding double. It would be very difficult to explain here.”
Her expression sobered. “I suppose so. And I suppose we had best relieve my friend’s anxiety by returning to her.”
Chapter 5
Walking to the parsonage was agonizing. Each step jolted his injured arm, but even so, Darcy noticed Elizabeth’s pallor increasing. It was hardly surprising, given her lack of sleep since her disappearance, but he was still concerned.
At the parsonage, Elizabeth was greeted with embraces and exclamations of relief by Mrs. Collins and a fashionably dressed man of middle years whom Elizabeth called uncle. They immediately began peppering her with questions which seemed only to confuse her.
Darcy managed to catch Mrs. Collins’s eye. “Miss Elizabeth has not slept since leaving here.”
“You poor thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Collins. “Come, I will take you up to bed this minute before you make yourself ill.” She hustled Elizabeth upstairs.
The unknown man said, “You must be Mr. Darcy. Pray permit me to introduce myself. I am Edward Gardiner, Lizzy’s uncle.”
Thankfully he had not held out his hand for a handshake. The pain of that would be unimaginable. Perhaps when Mrs. Collins returned, he could ask her privately for something to bind his arm for the trip to Rosings. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gardiner.”
“So you and Lizzy were in Faerie all this time,” said Mr. Gardiner.
“I realize it must sound like a ridiculous story, but it happens to be true.” Darcy tried to keep his temper in check. Naturally the man had doubts. Any sane man would doubt his story.
“That was not an accusation, young man. I believe you. In fact, I would have a great deal of trouble believing any other story.”
“You believe me? Why?”
“Let me see. Lizzy disappears utterly. Two days later you also disappear. You return here the following day, and Lizzy is carrying a fresh apple in April. Faerie is the only explanation.”
The following day? He must have been walking in the glamour woods for a very long time indeed. Richard would be frantic. “You seem to take that remarkably calmly.”
“The idea of Faerie does not frighten me. For all that my mother appeared fully human, her father was fay, so you might say I imbibed Faerie with my mother’s milk.” Mr. Gardiner smiled self-deprecatingly at his little joke.
“You have fay blood? Does that mean Miss Elizabeth does as well?” Why had she never told him? It would have helped him understand a great deal.
“Some, yes. It shows differently in different people. You could see the fay in Lizzy’s mother when she was younger, when she was much like Lizzy is now. My other sister, who is now Mrs. Phillips, seemed to have no fay in her at all. I am somewhere in between – human in essentially every way except for an inexplicable talent for magical healing.”
It stung to be hearing this from her uncle. “Miss Elizabeth did not mention this to me.”
“After a journey together through Faerie? I am surprised.” He frowned suddenly. “Or perhaps I am not. It is possible she does not know. Mr. Bennet does not permit discussion of anything related to the fay at Longbourn.”
“Yet he married a woman with fay blood.”
