Perhaps she should buy one.
She squinted down at the few remaining coins in her palm, trying to remember exactly how much money she had promised to the street vendor in exchange for the nuts.
Surely not all of it.
Ah, well. Darcy could sort it out.
At that precise moment, she heard her name—or at least, something suspiciously like it, spoken in a rather strangled, despairing tone.
She turned lazily.
Ah. There he was.
Darcy was cutting through the street toward her, his coat flaring slightly behind him, his expression tight, his jaw locked. He looked almost feverish with frustration, his entire frame tensed as though bracing for battle.
Elizabeth beamed. “Mr. Darcy!” she called out cheerfully, lifting a hand and waving at him. Then, in a spirit of generosity, she turned and waved at a few other passersby as well. “Capital afternoon!”
Darcy reached her far too quickly for her liking.
“Inside,” he bit out.
She blinked up at him. “Inside what?”
“The carriage.” He nodded toward a plain black coach waiting nearby.
Elizabeth huffed. “It is perfectly pleasant out here.” She tilted her head up toward the sky. “The air is delightful.”
“Inside!” he repeated, his voice rather strained.
She popped another nut into her mouth, watching him thoughtfully. “I rather hoped to speak to those young ladies I saw earlier,” she said lightly, peering up and down the street for the girls from before. To her dismay, they were nowhere to be seen. “I have been looking for them for… I think some while.”
“That is a pity.Inside.”
Elizabeth turned to him with an exaggerated sigh. “Must you always be so serious?”
Darcy made an unintelligible sound and took her firmly by the elbow.
“I suppose you will want to know what I have spent,” she said breezily as he guided her rather more quickly than necessary toward the carriage.
His lips pressed into a tight grimace.
“I promised the street vendor you would be good for it,” she added. “I did not have enough… I think. He said something about charging it to my room at the inn?”
Darcy heaved a sigh that sounded like it came from his boots. “I will leave the money with the innkeeper,” he muttered.
“That is most obliging of you,” she said magnanimously.
Darcy hauled open the carriage door and turned back to her. “Inside.”
Elizabeth placed a hand on her hip. “You are truly dreadful company.”
“Inside.”
“Oh, very well, very well.”
She lifted her foot to step up—miscalculated entirely—and nearly toppled forward.
With a muttered curse, Darcy caught her around the waist, hoisting her up into the carriage with all the ease of a man throwing a sack of grain over his shoulder.
