“But I cannot walk around London with you unchaperoned! My aunt is kindness itself, but even she would forbid it!”
“Do you have any sensible sisters? Even one?”
I wanted to slap him. Or split his head open again. “Jane,” I grumbled. “She is everything good and sweet and rational. But you won’t get Mama to let her go to London now because she has got it in her head that Jane has to marry our new neighbor. We haven’t even met him! He could have bad breath and leprosy, but Mama is determined to ensnare the poor man. Someone named Bingley.”
William’s eyes twinkled in the dusky light from the hayloft window. “What if I told you that there may be a way for your mother to have her heart’s desire in London?”
I straightened. “I’m listening.”
Darcy
Itwasthestupidestidea I had ever had.Whywould I be so brainless as to agree to any of this? How the devil was I to get back this worthless statue when it had already been collected by the prince’s men? It would be under guard on the road and under guard once it reached the palace.
But it was also bloody difficult to say no to Elizabeth Bennet. And that was going to create a serious problem for me one day.
She left me stowed in the barn like a stray dog while she went to the house to arrange her journey to London. If she could persuade Mrs. Bennet, that was the end of all arguments. I would be committed. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed she would fail.
Ten minutes later, she returned, and her face said all. “Mama has agreed!”
I sighed and bade farewell to my life as I had known it. “Very well. What day do you travel?”
“I am afraid you do not understand the urgency of our situation. Every moment wasted is one that might mean disaster. We may not be in time to prevent the sculpture from arriving, but once it is seen by whoever is designated to receive and inspect it, all hope is lost. We must go this very hour.”
“Without even writing to your relatives in London to request the honor of visiting?”
She grinned. “As for that, Papa usually ‘forgets’ to post letters about our trips to London. Our dear aunt is a saint among women, and she has assured Jane and me that we are welcome anytime, day or night, because she is so used to us turning up without warning.”
“Your aunt is kinder than most.”
“She is. Jane is packing her trunk, and we are to take the post from the Meryton Inn. We ought to be just in time.”
“The post! Here, I cannot let two ladies ride post when I have a perfectly good carriage waiting at the inn.”
She cocked a wary eye at me. “A thief who has his own carriage? Whoareyou?”
“Not the man you would expect to be tangled in this disaster.”
Elizabeth nodded, her gaze still skeptical. “Nothing about you adds up, sir.”
“I expect not. When will you and your sister be ready to depart?”
“I need a quarter of an hour. My father gave orders for the buggy to be hitched up, and it will take us to town.”
“I will meet you at the inn.” I reached for my hat and frowned in dismay when I found it covered in straw. I was dusty and disheveled from boots to cravat.
“I know that expression. You are wondering how you will show your face in public, looking as you are. You just put one foot in front of the other. See?” She held her arms aloft and pantomimed walking.
I glared at her. “You are very cheeky, Miss Bennet.”
“I am only repeating what someone else once told me. You would be surprised how uncurious people really are.”
“I look like a farmhand.”
“You may look like many things, but a farmhand is not one of them.” She patted my cheek with a teasing smile and started for the ladder.
I put my hand to the spot she had touched and found it rather warm. Hang it all. I was blushing like a schoolboy. “Wait. Where do I meet you?”
She stopped on the rung, her face turned up to me. A shaft of dusty light from the window broke over her features, bathing her skin, so she looked like a shabby sort of angel. And suddenly, I had to cough.
