Page 68 of Elizabeth Bennet and the Scottish Laird

Halfway across the largest field, the mare stumbled on a patch of ice hidden beneath the slush, nearly pitching Elizabeth from the saddle entirely. She caught herself on the pommel, her stomach lurching, and brought the horse to a trembling halt.

This was impossible. At this pace, in this position, she would be fortunate to reach Netherfield before nightfall. The side-saddle offered no proper grip, no ability to move with the horse rather than against it, and the icy ground demanded exactly the control it denied her.

Elizabeth surveyed the terrain ahead. The mud was worse beyond, and the slope toward the stream crossing was glazed with ice where water had seeped up from below. To attempt that descent perched sideways on a slipping saddle would court disaster.

She made her decision.

Dismounting in the muck, she unbuckled the girth with fingers made clumsy by cold. The heavy side-saddle slid free and dropped into the mud. She would send someone to retrieve it later.

She led the mare to a fallen log at the field's edge and used it to mount, swinging herself onto the horse's bare back and settling her legs astride by instinct alone. Her skirts bunched around her knees, exposing muddy stockings to the cold air, but she could grip properly now. It was scandalous. It would be the talk of Meryton for a month if anyone saw her. She found she did not care.

She urged the mare forward, and this time they moved together, navigating the icy slope with confidence. The sucking mud became merely unpleasant rather than perilous.

She rode on, faster now, her cloak streaming behind and her bonnet long since lost to a low-hanging branch. The cold bit at her exposed ears and reddened her cheeks, but she did not slow. Netherfield lay just beyond the next rise, and Mr Darcy was there, and she had wasted too much time already in misunderstanding and missed chances.

The grand façade came into view at last, windows glowing with lamplight against the grey sky. Elizabeth urged the mare up the final stretch of drive, scattering gravel beneath pounding hooves, and brought her to a halt before the front steps.

A footman emerged, his face registering surprise and then poorly concealed astonishment. Elizabeth could imagine the picture she presented: hair tumbling from its pins, bonnet vanished, habit splashed with mud to the waist, mounted astride like a farmer's daughter. It was quite the scandalous sight indeed.

She found she did not care.

Inside, Mr Darcy was waiting.

Chapter 23

Darcy stood at the window of Netherfield's study, watching the sky threaten yet more frost whilst Bingley consulted with his steward about some matter concerning the tenant farms. The legal documents requiring his attention after his journey into Kent lay scattered across the desk behind him, but his thoughts had wandered far from matters of law and entailment.

He had just turned back to his correspondence when movement at the edge of the distant fields caught his eye. A horse was galloping hard across the frozen ground, its rider bent low over the animal's neck in a manner that spoke of either desperate urgency or reckless disregard for the treacherous conditions. Darcy frowned and moved closer to the glass, for the pace seemed wildly imprudent, and as the figure drew nearer, his frown deepened into bewilderment.

The rider was a woman, mounted astride with her skirts bunched about her knees in a display of impropriety that would have sent his aunt Catherine into an apoplexy. Dark hair streamed behind her like a banner, having escaped whatever arrangement had once contained it, and even from this distance he could see that her habit was speckled with muddy snow nearly to the waist.

As horse and rider thundered up the drive, scattering gravel in their wake, Darcy's bewilderment transformed into alarm, for he knew that horse and he knew that figure, and no amount of mud or dishevelment could disguise the woman he had loved in secret for better than a year.

He kicked his chair back with such force that it toppled to the carpet, and then he was striding through the house, past startled servants and through the entrance hall, emerging onto the front steps just as Elizabeth Bennet brought her lathered mount to a halt.

She was attempting to dismount, her movements stiff and ungainly from what must have been a punishing ride across frozen fields. Her face was flushed crimson from cold, her lips had taken on an alarming bluish tinge, and when she turned to look at him, her teeth were chattering so violently she could barely keep her jaw still.

“Miss Elizabeth.” He descended the steps in three long strides, reaching her just as her boots touched the gravel. “Last time you trudged to Netherfield through the mud and arrived with your petticoats six inches deep in filth, and this time you ride astride in icy conditions and arrive half frozen.” He heard the scandalised note in his own voice and found he could not suppress it, though whether it stemmed from genuine disapproval or merely from the shock of seeing her here when he had resigned himself to never speaking with her again, he could not have said. “I find myself wondering what manner of dramatic arrival you are reserving for your next visit to this house.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but her teeth chattered so fiercely that whatever words she intended emerged as nothing more than stuttered fragments. Her whole body was trembling with a violence that spoke of more than cold alone, and there was something wild in her eyes, something urgent that cut through his astonishment and spoke directly to the part of him that had loved her longer than he cared to admit.

He unfastened his cloak and swept it around her shoulders without thinking, pulling the heavy wool close about her shivering frame whilst she clutched at the fabric with fingers gone white at the knuckles. Her gloves were soaked through with mud and melted frost, and he suspected her boots were in similar condition.

“Come inside at once.” He took her arm and guided her up the steps, then called to the housekeeper who had appeared in the doorway. “Mrs Henderson, hot cider if you please, and quickly. And please, have a stableboy tend to the horse as well. Some warm hay, if you please.”

The drawing room fire had been built high against the chill, and Darcy led Elizabeth to the chair nearest the hearth, settling her into it with considerable care. Bingley appeared in the doorway a moment later, summoned by the commotion, and stopped short at the sight before him.

“Good Lord. Miss Elizabeth? What on earth has happened?”

“Cider first,” Darcy said shortly. “Questions after she has thawed sufficiently to answer them.”

The housekeeper returned with a steaming cup which Darcy pressed into Elizabeth's trembling hands, steadying them with his own until he was certain she could hold the vessel without mishap. He watched her take a long swallow, watched the colour begin to return to her lips and the violent trembling ease by degrees into something merely pronounced.

“Mrs Henderson,” he said quietly, once he was satisfied Elizabeth was in no immediate danger of succumbing to the cold, “I wonder if you might remain with us. For propriety.”

The housekeeper nodded and took up an unobtrusive position near the door, her face carefully neutral despite what must surely be considerable curiosity about the circumstances that had brought Miss Elizabeth Bennet to Netherfield looking like a creature escaped from some Gothic romance.

The minutes stretched on in silence broken only by the crackle of the fire and the occasional clink of cup against saucer. Bingley had taken a seat across the room, his expression hovering between concern and bemusement, whilst Darcy remained standing near the hearth with his gaze fixed upon Elizabeth's face, waiting.