Fitzwilliam blinked. “Who? Where?”
“Hertfordshire.”
A pause.
Fitzwilliam’s expression edged toward genuine concern. “Are you well?”
Darcy barely heard him.
“Longbourn,” he muttered, the plan assembling itself faster than he could articulate it. “A family of daughters—quite respectable. A cousin no one has met. If she takes the name…”
Fitzwilliam’s brows pulled together, deeply, profoundly concerned now. “Darcy,” he said slowly. “Do try to form a coherent—”
A noise.
Faint, at first—just the low murmur of voices from above, indistinct, blending with the general hum of the inn.
Fitzwilliam stopped speaking and rolled his eyes upward, toward the sound, but Darcy barely registered it. His mind was still spinning, assembling, caught between the details of Hertfordshire, Longbourn, and how precisely he was going to convince Mr. Bennet to take in a fugitive.
Then something shifted.
A different tone. A shuffle of movement on the stairs. A disturbance.
Darcy’s brow furrowed, his mind stumbling, trying to process it before it could fully break through.
Then— that voice.
Sharp. Cutting.Familiar.
Darcy’s entire body snapped to attention.
“Mind your hands, sir!” came Elizabeth’s unmistakable tone, cool and clipped despite the fire beneath it. “Andyour eyes! I will thank you to put them back in your head where they belong!”
The words hit Darcy like a trigger pulled.
He was on his feet before he fully knew why, the chair scraping back with a harsh clatter. Fitzwilliam’s voice reached him—something questioning, something alarmed—but Darcy was already moving. Shoving past the table. Striding toward the door.
The words replayed in his mind—a warning, not a scream—but his pulse was already pounding violently, drowning out thought.
The stairs were before him.
He rounded the corner.
And there they were.
Two men.
Both staggering slightly, the stench of cheap spirits thick in the air around them. Their postures were too close, too familiar, their weight tipped slightly forward, that telltale lazy confidence of men accustomed to women tolerating their presence whether they wished to or not.
Elizabeth’s expression was carved from stone—her chin lifted, her dark eyes blazing with a quiet, deadly fury—but there was a slight tension in her shoulders, the kind that spoke of bracing for impact.
One of them had his hand on her sleeve, despite the fact that she had hooked her arm in an attempt to pull away.
The moment registered. And Darcy saw red.
The next second happened on instinct. His stride never faltered—his arm shot forward, his hand closing into a fist before he fully thought to do so—
Contact.
