Page 163 of A Debt Inherited

“I had one chance.”

Fitzwilliam’s mouth tightened, but he did not dispute it. The first light caught the scar at his cheek and made it pale as old ivory.

“And no certainty that riding into their hands would preserve it,” Fitzwilliam said.

He looked at Darcy.

“You chose poorly.”

Darcy’s breath left him before he could govern it. Pain followed, sharp beneath the ribs. “I must go to Longbourn.”

“No.”

“I must know she reached her father.”

Fitzwilliam’s voice lost all trace of humour. “If you ride to Longbourn at dawn, bloodied, half dead, and seen by one maid, one boy, one tenant upon the road, you publish her ruin.”

Darcy looked towards the road.

“Think, cousin. Not as her champion. As the man who would preserve her.”

Darcy’s hand closed upon the saddlecloth, then loosened.

“Bennet knows enough to keep his doors shut and his tongue behind his teeth. If there is word to send, it will come by Villiers.”

Darcy turned his face away. The eastern sky had begun to pale beyond the trees.

“You ask me to do nothing.”

“No,” Fitzwilliam said. “I ask you to do the hardest thing available to a man of sense.”

Darcy’s laugh came once, without amusement. “Obey you?”

“Be useful.” Fitzwilliam brought Perseus alongside Goliath.

“Come. Before pride kills what Wickham failed to finish.”

Darcy gathered Goliath’s reins, set one boot in the stirrup, and pulled himself upwards.

Fitzwilliam caught him beneath the sound elbow.

Darcy looked at him.

“You may resent me when you are mounted, cousin.”

Darcy gained the saddle and settled his injured arm against his body.

* * *

Elizabeth recognised the large granite stone beside the lane. “We are less than a mile from Longbourn.”

Sergeant Villiers eased the horse to a walk and drew open the coat folded across his thighs. He had placed her across the saddle before him when they left the wood, one arm firm about her waist and the reins gathered in his other hand. Elizabeth had chosen not to dispute the arrangement. Modesty might recover from the journey; she doubted she would recover from falling beneath the horse.

“Pardon the indelicacy, Miss Bennet. You’ll need to press close and make yourself small.”

Elizabeth gave a quiet laugh. She drew her feet beneath the hem of her gown and bent forward against his arm. The coat settled round her shoulders, thick and coarse. It muffled sound and light alike; the world shrank to the steady rhythm of hoofbeats.

“None shall see you, miss.”