A flicker of movement caught his eye.
Two figures emerged from the shadowed side door of Longbourn—Mr. Bennet first, his coat unbuttoned, shoulders unusually stiff. Behind him, Bingley. Both approached without haste, but with purpose.
Darcy stepped forward.
Bingley offered no jest tonight. He clasped Darcy’s arm in silence and held it a beat longer than usual. “Take care of her,” he said. “And of yourself.”
Darcy inclined his head. “Thank you, Charles. I trust you will look after the Bennets. I fear they may be a target now as well.”
Bingley gave a crooked smile. “Jane says to write. Mrs. Bennet did not say anything at all. Which I take as a form of gratitude.”
Darcy might have laughed if his chest did not feel so tight.
Mr. Bennet extended a small packet, sealed with wax. “For her,” he said. “If she should need reminding that not everyone prefers her absent.”
Darcy accepted it with a quiet nod. “I will do what I can.”
Bennet’s eyes were sharp behind his spectacles. “Do not do what youcan. Do what sheneeds. There is a difference, and you strike me as a man who often forgets it.”
Darcy smiled tightly. “Sir, if I may, I heartily suggest that your family be seen at church tomorrowwithoutElizabeth. Put it out loudly and to anyone who will hear it that she returned to… wherever it is you all claimed she was from. Protect your family by making it known that your house is no longer her shelter.”
Bennet nodded. “Let us concern ourselves with that, sir.”
“I mean to sit up with him all night ‘drinking,’” Bingley supplied. “And keeping our powder dry. We will be careful, Darcy. I pray you will be as well.”
“I do not need to be more ‘careful.’” Darcy sighed. “What I need is a bit of luck to turn our way for once.”
Before Bingley could respond, the door creaked again, and Elizabeth stepped into the clearing.
No laughing smile. No fanfare. Just a cloak drawn close, and a satchel slung over one shoulder. Her eyes found his instantly, as if she had always known exactly where he stood.
She crossed the lawn with no hesitation and stopped just short of him. “I am ready.”
Darcy gave a small nod, then helped her mount the mare. She did not flinch when he touched her elbow. She did not smile, either.
He kept them to the side lanes, avoiding the turnpike and every coaching inn marked on the general maps. Even before he left Meryton that afternoon, he had put the first signal into motion. Selwyn would receive it through an intermediary—no names, no seals, just a symbol etched in charcoal on the corner of a supply chit. That had always been the agreement.
Selwyn did not know who he was. Darcy had been adamant about that when the arrangement was first made, years ago during a particularly volatile inquiry into naval procurement fraud. Selwyn thought he worked for a minor functionary in the War Office. He had no reason to suspect otherwise.
The safe house itself was no great comfort. A squat stone structure at the edge of an old Cambridge holding, it had been purchased under an alias and stocked only for emergencies. There were shutters that locked from the inside, a cold cellar, false flooring, and a rear exit that led directly to an overgrown game path. It had once been used to move wounded couriers during a failed Irish rebellion. Darcy had sworn then he would never need it himself.
And certainly not for this.
There would be no servant waiting, no one to light the hearth or tend a meal, and certainly no chaperon. The very idea of bringing a lady here alone would have scandalized the man he once was. And yet here they were—riding through a nearly moonless night to a place built for silence, not comfort.
He glanced once at Elizabeth as they turned northward past a low stone boundary. Her cloak fluttered slightly in the breeze, but her seat was solid. Daughter of Lord Ashwick, she had probably grown up chasing the hounds. How strange that now they were chasing her.
Still no questions.
Still no fear.
Only trust.
It humbled him more than he could bear.
Itwaspasttenwhen they cleared the last hedgerows of Longbourn. The stars had just begun to push through the thinning clouds, and the road beneath them stretched like a ribbon of ink through open fields.
Elizabeth rode side-saddle, one hand wrapped tightly around the reins, the other gripping the pommel so hard her knuckles had gone numb inside her gloves. The horse beneath her was solid and sure-footed—Darcy had chosen well—but after the first hour, every jolt of its gait sent a fresh ache up her spine.
