Darcy’s jaw tightened.
Then he stepped forward and threw his shoulder against the door. It shuddered beneath the impact, but it held.
Darcy stepped back, breathing hard.
Richard caught his arm. “Not the panels,” he said quickly under his breath. “The lock.”
Darcy glanced at him.
“The frame will give before the wood,” Richard continued, already studying the door with a soldier’s quick assessment. “Just beside the latch. Shoulder, not your foot. Hard and low.”
Darcy nodded once.
He took two steps back.
For the briefest instant, a strange thought flashed through his mind—that he had been raised from boyhood to respect doors, property, and propriety. Breaking into a gentleman’s house in the middle of the night would have horrified every tutor he had ever possessed.
But Elizabeth is inside.
Drugged.
Helpless.
That settled the matter.
Darcy set his shoulder against the wood just beside the lock and drove forward with all his strength. The door crashed inward against the frame with a sharp crack, but still did not open.
Richard nodded approvingly. “Again.”
Darcy stepped back and struck it a second time, his shoulder slamming into the wood as Richard’s booted foot drove forward beside him with equal force.
This time the wood around the latch splintered, the frame groaning under the strain as the lock began to tear loose from the jamb.
Inside the house, a voice shouted.
Darcy did not pause.
He drew back once more and hurled his weight forward.
The latch tore free from the wood with a violent splintering sound, and the door burst inward, slamming against the wall.
For a moment the two men stood in the shattered doorway, breathing hard, then Darcy stepped inside.
The front hall lay dimly lit by a single candle that had been left burning on a table. Mr. Bennet stood several paces away, his face pale and furious.
“What the devil do you think you are doing?” he demanded.
Darcy barely spared him a glance. He strode forward towards the staircase.
“I have come for Elizabeth, and you cannot stop me.”
Chapter 31
Darkness had swallowed Elizabeth.
Not the soft darkness of sleep, but something heavier—thicker—like being submerged beneath deep water where every movement required effort and every breath felt uncertain.
Sometimes she seemed to float.
