by Abbey North
Mr. Darcy jumped beside her when the woods screeched against each other, and she wished she’d thought to warn him. Thankfully, he had the discretion not to make a sound, and she had been expecting it in an unconscious sort of way. They heard it close a moment later, and Lizzy turned slightly, observing the man had entered the building and closed the door behind him.
“I want you to take Goliath and get help. I shall stay here and keep him locked in the building.”
Lizzy shook her head frantically. “I cannot ride your horse. I do not know how, Mr. Darcy. I promise you, I am a fast runner, and it will not be much more delay for me to run to Longbourn.”
He shook his head. “Go to town. Try to get Walters, or perhaps Colonel Forster. I suspect our thief is one of his men, so it makes sense to involve him.”
Lizzy understood his reasoning, but she doubted Walters would be any help. She felt a moment of anxiety as she stared at him before starting to leave the cover of the trees. Darcy was right behind her, and he was slipping toward the building.
She wanted to tell him to be careful, inexplicably worried about his safety on a level she shouldn’t be, but she quelled the urge, both because it was so foreign, and because she didn’t want to alert their robber they had found him and were planning to lock him in. With one last glance at Darcy, she turned and ran, abandoning any hope of being ladylike in favor of speed, which was far more important at the moment.
9
Darcy leaned closer, inadvertently pressing his weight too much against the wood and causing it to screech as he tried to brace the door. It had been his intent to engage the latch, but now, he’d alerted the thief inside that he was there. He braced his weight against it, expecting the man to throw himself against the door. Nothing happened for a moment, and then there was a cracking sound followed by breaking wood.
Darcy had braced himself, so it was anticlimactic when there was no collision with the door itself. Rather, the man had thrown his weight against one rickety side of the shed, and he burst through in a spray of splinters and old rotted boards. Darcy was unsurprised to see Wickham standing in front of him, and he rushed after the other man.
He tackled him to bring him to the ground, and Wickham turned, trying to hit him. They scuffled for a bit on the ground, and Darcy almost had the advantage when Wickham brought up his knee in a savage motion, driving it forcefully into Darcy’s groin. Pain like he had never experienced flared through him, and he couldn’t maintain his grasp on the other man.
Instead, he rolled to the side, allowing Wickham to gain his feet. He expected Wickham to kick him while he was down, or further try to incapacitate him, so he was doing his best to breathe through the agony and sit up, but Wickham must have deemed it more important to escape than to get revenge, because he ran.
Darcy was still in agony, but he had managed to get to his knees when Lizzy returned moments later in the company of Colonel Forster, with that bumbling Walters riding behind, complaining the whole way about this being a waste of his time when he was just about to eat dinner.
Lizzy had ridden with the Colonel, and he handed her down before she ran to Darcy. He couldn’t explain the warmth he felt inside when she knelt beside him, touching his shoulder. “What happened, Mr. Darcy?”
“Wickham is no gentleman when it comes to fighting.”
Colonel Forster ran right behind her, and he saw the man wince, clearly intuiting the meaning of his words. Dear Lizzy clearly did not, and she frowned. “I do not understand.”
“That is all right, Miss Bennet. I shall have a soldier said take you home while Mr. Darcy and I sort this out.”
“I am not going anywhere yet, Colonel Forster. I am the one who discovered the thief’s stash, and I deserve to see what happens.”
The colonel looked prepared to argue with her, but then he shrugged. “Did you identify the thief, Mr. Darcy?”
He watched her face, realizing she might not have understood what he was saying before when he called Wickham by name. “It was George Wickham, sir. I exchanged enough blows with him to be certain of that. You will find further proof of the fact because his nose is bleeding copiously.” He spoke to the colonel, but his gaze remained on Lizzy. He expected her to reject his claim, though she had seemed to believe his warning about Wickham once he’d explained the man’s true nature.
Instead, she was frowning down at him with concern. “You are bleeding from the lip, Mr. Darcy.” She reached boldly into his pocket, taking the handkerchief there, and turned her tender ministrations on him. He was surprised by how gently she dabbed his lip, and it caused an uncomfortable and unfamiliar sensation to squeeze his chest.
He found it almost difficult to breathe for a moment, but he finally managed to draw in a lungful of air and exhale raggedly. That caused his body to hurt again, particularly in his swollen anatomy, and he wanted for nothing but a tub full of ice. He doubted they could acquire enough at short notice to fill an entire tub, but perhaps at least a bagful.
The colonel still seemed sympathetic as he gestured for one of his men. Darcy listened while he authorized the man to send out troops to find Wickham and arrest him on sight.
Walters came forward then. “Do you still need me? I have dinner to get to.”
The colonel seemed as impatient as Fitzwilliam felt, and Lizzy had clearly reached the end of her perseverance with him as well. “You still have these belongings to return to people,” she said in a tight voice.
Walters seemed unconcerned. “That can wait ‘til morning, Miss Bennet. Perhaps the colonel can post a guard here if he’s worried about theft.”
With a sigh of disgust, the Colonel said, “Return to your post, man. I shall handle this.”
With a sigh of relief, Walters turned back to retrieve his horse. He mounted the swaybacked mare who had clearly seen better days and started cantering back to Meryton.
After discussing the situation with the colonel, sharing what they had both learned in the process, Darcy was finally able to gain his feet. He was uncertain about riding Goliath, but it was still the fastest way back to Longbourn and Netherfield, so he gingerly mounted the horse after lifting Elizabeth onto the saddle.
She was unhappy with the situation, but he didn’t feel like he could walk several miles in his current state, and of course, he couldn’t allow her to go home unassisted. The colonel was busy with the situation here, so it fell to him to do the right thing. He was surprised that she barely argued the issue, and she seemed slightly more at ease on Goliath’s back as they cantered slowly toward Longbourn. Darcy couldn’t handle a fast jolt at the moment.
“I am sorry he bested you, Mr. Darcy.”
He sighed. “As am I.” Particularly in the method Wickham had used.
“I mean that in a genuine way. It was not to highlight your inability to stop him.”
“I do think you for clarifying. I am never quite sure exactly what you mean, Miss Bennet, though I can always infer it is nothing complementary.”
She straightened again. “You did come when I asked you to, and you eventually saw reason and submitted to my plan. I must thank you for those things, for we would not know it is Mr. Wickham without you.”
“Your praise is most refreshing. Parsimonious perhaps, but I appreciate the gesture.”
She harrumphed at him, and he struggled not to smile. Despite the pain radiating from his lower body, he felt unexpectedly light. It was a motion he would identify as happiness if it weren’t caused by Miss Bennet, who bore him nothing but ill will. That he could enjoy her company, especially under these circumstances, was shocking.
When they returned to Longbourn, they found Mr. Bennet pacing frantically in front of the house. He came rushing forward, practically jerking Lizzy off the horse and hugging her in a tight embrace for a moment before stepping back. “Are you uninjured, child?”
“I am, Papa. Mr. Darcy did not fare so well.”
He braced himself for the shame of Elizabeth revealing the full extent of his
injuries, wondering if she even comprehended them herself. Despite the situation, he couldn’t help a hint of amusement at the idea of her explaining testicular injury to her father.
His amusement fled when he met Mr. Bennet’s gaze. The other man was enraged, and though Darcy wouldn’t have expected the man to have it in him, clearly, there was another side of Douglas Bennet that was more than the aloof, slightly sarcastic man. Darcy straightened his shoulders. “Nothing untoward happened, Mr. Bennet. We were caught up in the excitement of catching a thief.”
Mr. Bennet’s eyes widened. “Indeed? Is that true, Lizzy?”
“Oh, it is, Papa. Come inside, and I shall tell you.” She paused, looking at Fitzwilliam. “Would you like to join us, Mr. Darcy?”
The idea of ice and rest was far too tempting to lure him away from it, especially to explain the situation to Mr. Bennet. “I have every faith in your ability to truthfully convey what happened and to portray me in the most negative light possible, Miss Bennet. I shall bid you good evening.”
She surprised him with her lips trembling for a moment before she smiled. He quickly turned Goliath toward Netherfield, but he was unaccountably pleased that he had managed to get through her shell enough to make her smile with his comment. His aim had been to make her laugh, but that was close enough.
He touched the brim of his hat and bent his head in her direction and Mr. Bennet’s before turning and riding home to Netherfield.
Slowly.
Ever so slowly.
10
Lizzy repeated the story for Jane a couple of hours later, after Papa had given her leave to go to bed. He’d wanted to hear more than once how she’d put it all together, and he’d seemed pleased by Mr. Darcy’s contribution, though he clearly recognized Lizzy had done the lion’s share of the work. “You are my clever girl,” he’d said after pressing a kiss to her forehead before letting her leave his study. “Do not put yourself in unnecessary danger next time though.”
“I swear I did not at all, Papa. Mr. Darcy bore the brunt of the danger.”
Her father had winced unaccountably, though she couldn’t understand why. “Indeed, he did.”
Lizzy wanted to ask for clarification, but she sensed it would be useless. When she’d tried earlier upon relaying what Mr. Darcy’s words had been about his injury, her father had winced in a similar fashion, but he had refused to elucidate the subject for her. He’d simply placated her with the information that sometimes, there were things a lady would never understand and didn’t need to know.
Now, she wound down the tale, and Jane looked more frightened than her father had. Mr. Bennet had been more awed by the experience, whereas Jane was clearly letting anxiety get the best of her. “Oh, Lizzy, you could have been dreadfully injured.”
“Mr. Darcy was there to help me.”
Jane frowned. “You were alone with Mr. Darcy in the woods all that time?”
She flushed slightly. “Yes, but you do not need to reveal that part to Papa. I led him to believe it was more of an unexpected situation. Mr. Darcy and I had run into each other as I was leaving Meryton and he was heading that way, but he offered to walk me home. We came across a burglar entering the building, recognized the goods, and Mr. Darcy volunteered to stay behind to ensure he didn’t escape.” She lowered her voice. “You understand why I do not want the full story to get out. I do not wish to have people assume there was something sordid about it, nor do I want to be forced to marry Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
Jane tilted her head, giving Lizzy a look that was far too penetrative. “Despite your protests, I suspect you like Mr. Darcy.”
Lizzy’s eyes widened. “I never said I did not like him.” She flushed, recalling just how obvious her dislike had been after the assembly ball, and the number of times she had brought him up in an unfavorable light that evening and since. “I suppose I do not like him, but he is not as bad as I thought.”
“I am glad you are giving him a second chance.”
Lizzy frowned. “There was hardly anything to it, Jane. We simply united for a common goal. It is not as though we are going to become dear friends and spend hours together endeavoring to catch criminals. Besides, he would be an unsuitable partner. He allowed Mr. Wickham to escape.”
Jane frowned. “It seems to be through no fault of his own. Papa was sympathetic for whatever reason.”
Lizzy shrugged. “I agree, but if a man has an area that sensitive, he can hardly be relied upon for protection. Someone facing off with him would simply need to exploit the spot.”
Jane frowned. “What do you think the spot is?”
Lizzy flushed and looked down. “I do not know specifically, but I suspect it is something in the general region of…there.” She waved her hand over her pelvis, and Jane’s eyes widened. “Mr. Darcy was cradling that particular area when I found him with Colonel Forster.”
“I see. I wonder how a man is different from a woman? I suppose it would be a sensitive area, but do you think a woman can be incapacitated in a similar fashion?”
Lizzy shrugged. “I have no idea, and I am not eager to find out. Truly, I do not see such an occurrence happening again. This is most certainly a one-off, and Mr. Darcy would be the last person I would choose to partner with for such future endeavors even if I were to willfully seek them out, I assure you.”
“If you say so.” Jane seemed unconvinced, but apparently, she decided not to tease Lizzy. She must have recognized her sister’s exhaustion.
There was no denying it, and Lizzy laid down in her bed a short time later, fully expecting to fall asleep right away. Instead, the evening’s events played through her mind, and she was startled to find she was more concerned about Mr. Darcy than she’d expected, especially knowing the outcome. He was clearly going to recover just fine, so she did her best to banish him from her thoughts.
After some struggle, she managed to fall asleep, and she dreamed of walking with Mr. Darcy in the same meadow where they had stopped the burglar. This time, the sun was shining down upon them, her hand was tucked in his, and they were pressed far too closely together to be proper.
The dream caused her to wake with a smile, though she firmly refused to admit dreaming of him had left her in such a fine mood as she got up to prepare for the day. Whatever had occurred with Mr. Darcy was certainly never going to happen again.
This is the first book in a five-part series that needs to be read in order, just like Jane Austen’s masterpiece.
Look for Book #2 of the Crime & Courtship series, “Abduction & Acrimony,” coming soon.
Please sign up for Abbey’s newsletter to receive information about new releases. If you have any difficulties, email Abbey to request a manual add.
About the Author
Abbey is a diehard Jane Austen fan and has loved Fitzwilliam since the first time she “met” him at age thirteen upon borrowing the book from the school library. He is the ideal man, though Abbey’s husband is a close second. Abbey enjoys writing various steamy and sweet Jane Austen variations, but “Pride & Prejudice” (and Mr. Darcy) will always be her favorite.
