Darcy’s blood ran cold at the man’s implication. Glancing around the empty street, he vainly searched for a sign that someone was witnessing the event and would send for help. Reaching behind him, he wrapped his hand around Elizabeth’s arm, moving her so that his body further shielded her. Lowering his voice, he addressed her. “Elizabeth.” He swallowed. “When I say so, you must run. Do you understand me?” His heart raced as he waited for confirmation that she had heard and understood what he was saying. Her silence and utter stillnessforced him to look at her stunned face and vacant expression in her eyes. She seemed too torpified to move on her own.
“What’s that?” The man’s smile dropped from his face. “I wouldn’t be attempting any tricks if I were you.”
Darcy watched as the man reached into his coat and drew a pistol, which he held aloft.
“Now, I’ll be taking the lady as well as the other items you gifted me so nicely. Step aside.”
“No.”
The man sighed, and clicking back the hammer of the weapon, he deftly levelled it at Darcy’s chest.
“Last chance,” the man trilled, his excitement seemingly growing with each uttered defiance.
Darcy could feel Elizabeth tremble behind him, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly. Keeping his eyes fixed on the man, his brain worked furiously, assessing the problem from every angle. The odds of him surviving this were bleak, but he would make sure the reprobate would never lay a hand upon Elizabeth. Adrenaline thrummed through his veins as he boldly took a step forward. “You will not touch her.”
“Undoubtedly, you have more spunk than the others. Or is it stupidity? They all cowered and pleaded for their lives. They were right to fear the Hertfordshire Hound.” The man’s voice rose in cadence as his finger tightened on the trigger. “You’ll fear me in the end, though.”
With a bang, Fitzwilliam Darcy’s world darkened.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, he vaguely remembered being moved. Bingley frantically called his name. The tearing of fabric. He tried to speak, to ask of Elizabeth, but his sluggish mouth refused to form words. The pain became too much, and his world descended into darkness once more.
The sound of a door being closed awakened Darcy. His mind mired in a fog, his groggy eyes opened, and he blinked in the candlelight. He was in his bedchamber at Netherfield. Panic overtook him as the reality of his situation crashed down upon him, and he remembered all. It was too dark to see the clock upon the mantel, and he groaned in pain as even the slightest movement sent bolts of white-hot pain ripping through his shoulder, covered with a thick bandage.
He closed his eyes and when he next woke, morning light streamed through a crack in the heavy curtains. Hines’ voice permeated his hazy mind: Did he want a drink, broth, laudanum? The doctor had come and gone. Rest was what he needed. Shall he read to him, indicating a book in his hand?
Taking a shuddering breath, his brow slick with cold sweat, Darcy tried to focus on his valet’s words, but thoughts of Elizabeth Bennet intruded. Gone, she was gone. As his clammy hands clutched the sheet, he forced his eyes, blurred with tears, to read the title,Unhappily Ever Afterby Melissa Anne.Fitting, he thought, and nodded to his valet.
Hines began:“It is a truth universally acknowledged that, even a grown man, if one has been indulged all his life, still will attempt to find a way to get what he wants, regardless of the outcome or the desires of others who may be involved.”
Chapter 7: Unhappily Ever After
by Melissa Anne
Rosings Park, Kent
Tuesday, the 7thof April, 1812
Elizabeth seemed restless this morning as they rambled through the grove at Rosings. Most mornings, they spoke little, but this time, Elizabeth seemed more discomposed than usual. Wanting only to comfort her, Darcy asked what was wrong.
“I am well, MrDarcy,” she said, her voice sharper than he had been accustomed.
“If there is anything I might do to aid you….” Without thinking, he took her arm and gently guided her towards a nearby folly.
They walked along peaceably to a stone bench, and he gestured for her to sit. Darcy thought she behaved stiffly. He wondered again what troubled her.
His answer came soon enough, for nearly as soon as she sat, she spoke. “Tell me, MrDarcy, do you arrange the lives of everyone around you?”
Taken aback, he said, “As master of Pemberley, there are a great many whom I am responsible for and—”
“In truth, I have long suspected you are to blame for my sister’s present unhappiness. From what your cousin told me, I feel certain that you are the reason MrBingley never returned to Netherfield and my sister.”
“What do you mean, Elizabeth?” he asked, moving to sit beside her.
She stared, her mouth agape. When she gathered her composure, she said, “I have not given you leave to call me by my Christian name.”
While he ought to be moving away from the lady, something in him drew him closer. Against his sense of decorum, against his sense ofrestraint,in his agitation, he reached for her and kissed her.
She wrenched herself out of his grasp. “MrDarcy! What in heaven’s name are you about?”
