Darcy’sheadfeltlikeit was exploding with light. She… she was free!
And Richard had relinquished her willingly—why, his cousin was already jogging back to the hotel, bellowing out orders to a bellboy standing at the edge of the walk. His final words before turning back were strangely anticlimactic to his stunning announcement. “See that Elizabeth is well, will you, Darcy?”
That was something he could comprehend. Elizabeth was already shivering under his arm, wrapping herself to his chest as she trembled in alternating waves of subsiding terror and swelling jubilation. She was laughing, choking, crying, and trying to talk all at once as she swept disbelieving hands over his face. “Is it true? Are you really here—oh, William, say we needn’t be parted ever again!”
“Never!” he vowed between kisses. “Not so long as I have breath.” Her answering tremor, the fear still quaking in both of them, made him tighten both arms around her until her face was buried in his chest and his in her tousled crown. “Did he hurt you? If he harmed a hair on your head—”
She shook her face against his jacket.
He clung to her more tightly and sent a swift prayer of gratitude to the heavens. The horror of seeing her fighting for her life, with all the terrors of her past fully realised before his eyes, had unleashed in him an instinct so livid and potent that it still took all his control not to go break the brute himself. But so long as he held Elizabeth, so long as she was whole and well in his arms, he could master the rage. With every shared heartbeat, another ounce of his wrath drained. He was still reeling and unsteady, tears of panic and relief flooding his eyes, and he gently cradled the back of her head. “I thought I might lose you all over again.”
She drew a deep shuddering breath, then turned—her cheek still pressed into him—to look at the groaning man on the ground.
“He will never harm you,” Darcy promised, and felt her muscles release somewhat. “Never again will you need to fear him!”
“He might still turn me in to the Marshals. He would like nothing better than—”
“Not when I take you back home.”
She drew back just enough to see his face. “How did you know? Is that why you came?”
“I wish it were so simple. I was in Boston with Georgiana, but I had gone to New York after I heard from your uncle that your mother and sisters were going there.”
For the first time since Bingley’s wedding, her cheeks brightened, and her eyes sparkled. “Mama?” she asked hesitantly. “Kitty and Lydia? Are they going to see Jane?”
He shook his head and gingerly touched her cheek. “I wish I knew.”
Her expression clouded, the question forming upon her lips, but he pulled her close again and stilled her with a long sweep of his hand down her shoulders and into the small of her back. Richard was already returning from the hotel, and Bryson was starting to stir not far away. He pressed a kiss to her brow.
“We will talk of it later, my Elizabeth.”
Hiscousinhadnotturned loose Elizabeth’s hand in well over an hour. Richard glanced at them occasionally; their fingers twining together, their heads more often bent towards each other than not, the voluminous looks they shared. Even he, who had every cause for jealousy, could only look on in awe. Fancy it—Fitzwilliam Darcy, the darling son of theton, heart-enslaved by a nobody from nowhere! Yet, none could deny it. The man was entirely flogged.
Elizabeth was no better, and it was she at whom Richard marvelled the most. The untamed rose he had first known had grown to a wilted lily in his own dubious keeping, but at Darcy’s touch, she was something altogether new. Elegant and fully ripened, yet still not quite broken, not perfectly conformed to the accustomed ways. And he understood just a little better why she carried that dried-out sprig of English Lavender wherever she went. He sighed at last and silently blessed her. She would make a smashing Mrs Darcy.
As for himself… well, he had a plan for that.
They had settled it that he would be the one to confront the matter of justice, though they each had their claims upon the affair. Darcy and Elizabeth, however, had what they wanted. Richard had only an idea—one that had burned in his breast, unspoken and untended, but now seemed the only natural resolution to so many questions. He entered his office with Darcy and Elizabeth flanking him and addressed the man sitting there, holding a cold steak to his left eye.
“I’ve a contract drawn up for you, Bryson. Take your time, sir, but I firmly suggest that you accept its terms.” He set the page before the scowling man, who cast a sullen glare at Elizabeth. “Oh, and not a word to the lady. She has put up with quite enough from you and yours.”
Bryson’s meaty fist banged down on the table, sliding the contract close enough for his inspection. Within seconds, he was sputtering. “Sell you my land!” he howled. “Go to the devil!”
“I’ll be calling in the police after we have done here. I can say we do not mean to press attempted murder charges,” he replied casually. “You will still face justice for assaulting a lady, but if you like, I could inform the officers that you were also suspect in the murder of Mr Bennet. Shall I? Odd fire, evidence left behind by someone who clearly despised the lady here? I doubt these Massachusetts officers are friends or beneficiaries of yours. They will treat you with justice. Dozens of witnesses today, I hear.”
The man’s lip curled, and he looked as if he would spit at Elizabeth, sitting across the room from him. “Wench. You did all this to ruin me, just because your father was a worthless fleabag! And you—Darcy, your name is? I heard you were the one who cancelled my Army contract! I ought to have known the cheap whore was behind it all. How many of you have shared her?”
Elizabeth stood still and serene as an ivory statue, refusing to acknowledge his venom, but Darcy was curling his arm around her waist and sending Bryson a glare that would vaporise the vast oceans. “How many murder charges shall we bring against you, Bryson?” he growled. “How many women could testify against your family, I wonder? How many men have you buried in your lust and greed, and how much did you pay the U.S. Marshal to put out a warrant for a woman who did nothing but defend herself from your corrupt spawn? I was against this foolishly generous scheme of my cousin’s, because you deserve a hangman’s noose for what you did to Mr Bennet.”
Bryson’s cheek twitched. “You’d never prove anything. He died a coward in his smithy.”
“I do not need to prove it, for we all know the truth. Do not tempt me to reach for the pistol my cousin always keeps at hand. I doubt he would stop me.”
“Freshly loaded, too,” Richard offered cheerfully. “What is it to be, Bryson?”
The man did spit this time, but he managed to finish reading Richard’s terms. “One hundred fifty dollars! The water rights are worth more than that! Damn you—”
“Is that not what you paid Mr Bennet when you acquired the ranch? By-the-by, I hear that curious cattle plague has never revisited your lands. A pity no one ever discovered the reason for it, but I am most relieved to know that the land and water source of Longbourn Ranch are not the cause.”
