She had crossed the road and taken her first steps south when she heard the rattle of carriage wheels and horses from behind her. She moved to the edge and halted, prepared to amiably greet whoever was approaching, but her brilliant smile froze on her face when she beheld the leering visage of the Marquis of Orman.
He reined his chaise to a halt next to her. “Why, Mrs. Darcy, what a delightful surprise this is! May I inquire as to your health this fine afternoon?”
“I am quite well, thank you, Lord Orman. I trust you are the same?”
“Perfectly delightful, I daresay. What errand brings you out here unescorted, Mrs. Darcy?”
“Merely walking on this fine afternoon, as you pointed out, and collecting dewberries for Mr. Darcy.”
“What a thoughtful wife you are, Madame. Darcy is a fortunate man indeed.”
“We are mutually fortunate. I shall not delay you any further, Marquis. Good day to you.” Lizzy curtseyed and turned to resume her walk.
“Mrs. Darcy, may I offer the services of my carriage? It is warm today and you appear quite flushed.”
“I assure you I am fine and, if you remember, I revealed to you that I enjoy walking, so thank you, but no.” She took several steps before she realized that he was alighting from his vehicle.
“Mrs. Darcy,” he called to her and she stopped, “I would like to take this opportunity, if you will allow, to apologize for my behavior at the Masque. It was inexcusable and I am deeply remorseful. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
She glanced at him, flushing at the reference to that horrible event, and extremely uncomfortable. Nonetheless, Lizzy was by nature a forgiving person and, despite Darcy’s assertions as to the exact nature of Orman’s character, she wanted to believe he was truly repentant. She smiled slightly and again briefly met his eyes. “Let us not speak of that occasion, My Lord. It is best to put such unpleasantness behind us.”
“Excellent!” he exclaimed cheerfully, “Then, as all is forgiven, you can accept my offer for a ride. Come, Mrs. Darcy.”
“Again, thank you, sir; however, I honestly do prefer to walk. Good day, Marquis.”
She curtseyed yet again and began to turn, flabbergasted afresh when he grasped her elbow firmly. “I must insist, dear lady. Your feet are drenched with mud and your face is ruddy and perspiring. You appear unwell. What manner of a gentleman would I be to leave an ailing woman stranded on the roadside?” His smile was lecherous, and Lizzy was seriously apprehensive but also angry.
“Lord Orman, unhand me at once and leave me be. I wish to walk, and Mr. Darcy would certainly not be pleased to hear of your attentions.” She shook her arm but he tightened his grip painfully.
“Is Darcy the only man worthy of your attentions, Mrs. Darcy?” He roughly pulled her toward him while leaning into her body and she realized with dawning horror that he intended to kiss her! Without conscious contemplation, Lizzy acted. She resisted forcefully and swung the wooden bucket with astonishing velocity and accuracy, smashing it into his head. He yelled and released her elbow. Lizzy spun and bolted into the woods without a backward glance, dropping her bucket of purple berries on the road.
Lizzy ran in a blind panic for some fifteen minutes as she zigzagged among the trees and heavy underbrush. She wasted no effort on glancing behind her to see if Orman followed, her mind conjuring an image of him capturing her in the emptiness of the wood so terrifying that she was spurred by a burst of energy.
However, as young and athletic as Lizzy was, even she eventually reached the end of her endurance. Gasping and wheezing, she stiffly plastered her body to the rearward side of an enormous pine and cautiously peeked behind her. Nothing. The wood, except for her panting, was silent. Nonetheless, she remained still for another ten minutes as she caught her breath and slowed her erratic heartbeat.
Only as her terror of Orman subsided was she able to contemplate her current predicament. Lizzy was gifted with an excellent sense of direction, so even though she had careened crazily and the tall trees effectively blotted the sun, she felt fairly certain she had taken a roughly easterly course. This meant she would need to turn to her right, south, to reach the Pemberley thoroughfare. She did not think she had crossed the deer trail in her wild dash, so hopefully she would find it now. It was getting late in the afternoon and, with the thick trees, darkness would fall rapidly in the wood. With a last careful inspection of the area behind her, she set off.
For a half hour she walked. The forest was damp, murky, and far colder. The sweat on her skin cooled and she began to shiver. Just as the edges of panic crept over her, she stumbled upon a deep ravine with a briskly flowing river at the bottom and the straight outlines of a trail running clearly alongside. Lizzy inhaled loudly and closed her eyes in relief.
She stood there for a spell, breathing deeply of the mingled aromas of earth and pine. Her mind now unclouded by panic, she allowed herself to meditate on all that had transpired over the last twenty-four hours. William’s treasured face floated before her and she smiled. She ached to hold him. She was humiliated by her actions and comprehended the magnitude of forgiveness she did not deserve from him, yet knew he would grant without hesitation. Such is the love he bore for her.
Tears sprung freshly to her eyes at how blessed she was to have him in her life. She closed her eyes once more and imagined his fingers touching her face and his lips on hers. She could hear his voice in her head and she trembled. Her hands spread over her abdomen and she wondered. Oh, please, Lord, she thought, let the root of my sickness and moodiness be a blessing. She fleetingly pondered how she would tell him about Orman and then pushed the thought aside. No unhappy thoughts, Lizzy. Just William.
Her heavenly reverie was sharply interrupted by a crashing from behind her, accompanied by a hideous warbling sound. She pivoted in fright and involuntarily took a step backward, one foot catching on an exposed tree root at the edge of the ravine while the other slipped in the loose mud. She flailed her arms but there was nothing to grab. Her last conscious thought as she tumbled over the edge of the ravine, her shoe violently wrenched from her foot, was how William would laugh at her being spooked by a turkey.
“Mr. Darcy! Mr. Darcy!”
Darcy glanced up from where he was standing in the yard before the cotton mill and into the frantic face of a young stable boy named Mathais, who was galloping full tilt toward him. He frowned as Mathais reined in, nearly pitching over the head of the horse. He grabbed at the bridle. “Whoa, girl! Steady there. Mathais what is the…”
“Sir, you must return to Pemberley immediately! Mrs. Darcy is missing!”
All the color drained from Darcy’s face, and only decades of contending with disasters and grief kept him from collapsing. “What do you mean, ‘missing?’” His voice was controlled and only someone who knew him well, like Mr. Keith, would detect the note of hysteria.
Mr. Keith yelled to saddle their horses and a dozen men leapt to comply as Mathais launched into his tale. “According to Miss Darcy and Mrs. Langton, Mrs. Darcy left to take a walk at about half past two. She was going to the berry thicket on the main road.” Darcy glanced at his pocket watch; almost five-thirty. Mathais was continuing, “Miss Darcy became concerned after several hours and a groom was sent to the patch. He found the bucket of berries along the road and footprints heading into the woods.”
Darcy swore, sensing violent tremors and raging panic threatening to overwhelm him. One hand instinctively moved to the breast pocket where he daily secreted the pouch with her lock of hair. Only movement, action, could prevent him dissolving in a puddle of desolation and anguish. He yelled for his horse, although Parsifal was already saddled and heading his way, and turned again to the boy. “What is being done?”
“Mr. Thurber and Mr. Clark were organizing the stable staff and groundsmen for a search of the woods. I was dispatched to you, so I know nothing else.”
Darcy barely heard him. He mounted Parsifal and in a flash was gone.
Dusk was
swiftly waning to full darkness by the time Darcy and Parsifal raced into Pemberley’s drive. Darcy was hailed instantly by Mr. Thurber, who was supervising the search, pending his master’s return.
“Mr. Darcy, we have been searching for three quarters of an hour, thus far to no avail. I directed one group from the road where Mrs. Darcy’s footprints were seen entering the wood. Unfortunately, the prints disappeared some hundred feet in where the underbrush and leaves obscured any tracks. Another group set off along the deer trail in hopes that Mrs. Darcy would have happened upon it. I have several other smaller groups spaced at intervals methodically edging their way inwards.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Sir, we found this.”
He handed Darcy one of Elizabeth’s simple cloth bonnets, torn and muddy. Darcy stared at it, tears welling and throat constricting. Mr. Thurber looked away, heartsick for his master, and for all of them, truth be told. The entire staff had grown to admire Mrs. Darcy and the thought of her coming to any harm had them all in varying states of sorrow.
“I… .” Darcy swallowed, tucking the bonnet in his coat pocket, “I need to help. You are in charge here, Mr. Thurber.” He remounted Parsifal.
“Mr. Darcy, here is a whistle. It is the established signal.”
Darcy nodded and spurred toward the bridge. A knot of men stood at the deer path entry with others spaced along the edge. There was no new information. Darcy nodded solemnly with jaw tightly clenched as he heeled Parsifal into the forest. He questioned every searcher he found as he made his way further along the trail. Several men gathered where the path met up with the ravine rim, carefully examining for any sign and shining their lamps into the deep shadows of the ditch. Suddenly the clear trill of a whistle sounded from further up the path. Darcy dashed to the site of some ten men grouped in a knot and was off Parsifal and over the brink so rapidly it was a miracle he did not break a leg.
Elizabeth’s body lay pressed against a fallen log at the edge of the creek. A stable man was gingerly turning her onto her back when Darcy fell to his knees in the mud next to her. “She is alive, sir,” he said, gazing at Darcy with watery eyes. “I am so sorry, Mr. Darcy. We passed this spot three times, but the darkness and her position camouflaged her presence. It was only Stan spying her shoe caught above that finally alerted us.”
Darcy nodded, unable to speak, as he bent to examine his unconscious wife. He could easily understand why the searchers had not seen her. The log, which had fortuitously prevented her from landing in the water, had also effectively blended with her dark hair and dress, rendering her nearly invisible. Most of her hair had come unpinned during her frantic run and tumble down the twenty-foot slope, and her dress ripped in a dozen places.
Darcy managed to croak out an order for more light and to send for the physician, duties that were hastily executed. Darcy was no stranger to death and maiming. Managing an estate as vast as Pemberley unfortunately included the occasional catastrophe, such as what had occurred at the shearing shed today when a hoist had broken, crushing two men under the plummeting bales of wool. Of course, none of those previous disasters had involved someone precious to him. Horror clutched in his soul—fear tormented—and only years of stringent self-possession and a steely backbone kept him thinking rationally.
He noted first a gash above her right temple where blood had caked with the mud, forming an ugly mess in her hair, but the wound did not appear to be actively oozing. Her skin was cold, the pulse in her neck rapid and thready, but her respirations regular and unlabored. Her bare right foot was swollen and bruised at the ankle. He did not palpate any obvious broken bones or other lacerations. In fact, the primary damage seemed to be to her head. She was wet and shivering, so he called for a blanket. Lifting her carefully into his arms, he navigated, with assistance, up the slippery slope and onto his horse, returning to Pemberley Manor slowly.
The house was a flurry of activity and blazing lights. Darcy carried Elizabeth to their bedchamber, in retrospect a time-consuming inconvenience, but it only seemed fitting. He was firmly but gently pushed away as Mrs. Reynolds and Marguerite took over. He retreated to the foot of the great bed, clasping one pillar for support and watching the women begin the task of cleaning and examining his wife. It was several minutes before he marked the splotch of blood staining the front of his shirt. He puzzled over it for a bit, inventorying his person for a wound of some kind, when his befuddled and agonized mind grasped that it had come from Elizabeth. He must have articulated an exclamation of some sort because all eyes turned to him, Mrs. Reynolds’s face grim as she nodded.
Darcy was confused and suddenly felt weak. The outer door opened as the physician and maids with fresh water buckets came in. Voices erupted with inquiries and explanations. Darcy heard “unconscious” and “ankle” and “bleeding” and more, but it all seemed to come from far away and through a fog. He vaguely heard his name called but as if from a million miles away. The room started to spin, his vision blurring as he tightened his grip on the bedpost.
“Master Fitzwilliam!” It was Mrs. Reynolds’s authoritative snap, calling him by a title he had not worn since a young boy, that partially restored his clarity. She was right before him, face stern but loving. “Mr. Darcy, you must sit down.” She took his elbow and guided him unresistingly to the chair by the fire.
“But…” he began.
“Listen to me! We must attend to Mrs. Darcy. We cannot afford to have another patient on our hands! Do you understand? Stay here and put your head between your legs.” She patted his head affectionately, gestured to Samuel who hovered at the door, and returned to the bed. In seconds Samuel was by Darcy’s side, pressing a glass of brandy into his slack fingers and ordering him to drink.
After what felt like an eternity of waiting with only sporadic glimpses of Elizabeth, but was in fact only an hour, the doctor approached Darcy where he sat slumped in the chair. He jerked to his feet, swaying slightly, face creased with misery and entire body filthy with dried mud and blood.
“Mr. Darcy, let us speak in the sitting room.”
The two men sat facing each other, Darcy deliberately sitting where he could espy his wife through the open door.
“As you undoubtedly noted, your wife suffered a blow to the head, perhaps several as she fell, but one of which lacerated her right temple. The wound itself is superficial, only requiring six stitches. We cleaned it thoroughly so it should not fester. Luckily, it is well into her hairline and will not leave a visible scar. As for the head trauma, sir, the truth is I simply do not know.
“At this early juncture, her unconsciousness is actually a good thing. She would likely be in a great deal of pain, and sleeping through all this allows her body to deal with it and protects her mind. We have found that these states of suspended awareness generally reap no lasting damage if they persist for a few days. Since we have no way of seeing inside her head, I cannot say with any certainty if there is injury internally.”
“Can you hazard a guess?” Darcy asked.
The doctor spread his hands. “I hate to do that, Mr. Darcy, as there is so much we do not comprehend about how the brain functions. However, considering her relatively good condition overall for falling down what I am told was a twenty-foot, mud-soaked, and rocky embankment, and recognizing her youth and perfect health in general, my guess, and it is only a guess, would be that she would recuperate without deficiency.”
Darcy nodded, “Thank you, sir.”
The physician continued, “There is more, Mr. Darcy. Mrs. Darcy suffered a sprained ankle. It is not broken, and the muscles and tendons feel to be intact. I have wrapped it and instructed the women to keep it elevated. It should heal nicely, although when she does waken, she will need to stay off it for two weeks at the very least. I have examined her thoroughly and, although bruised and scraped, she has no broken bones or cuts that will scar or likely fester.”
He cleared his throat and glanced away briefly, alarming Darcy, before he continued, “The next matter is of a personal
, sensitive nature, and I apologize ahead of time…”
Darcy laughed harshly without humor. “In light of all this,” he waved his hand vaguely toward his bedchamber, “I rather doubt you could offend me. Speak frankly.”
“Had you or Mrs. Darcy suspected that she might be with child?”
Oddly, Darcy was not the least bit surprised. He had not knowingly linked the blood on his shirt with the possibility of a miscarriage, but it suddenly fit. “No… that is, we had not discussed the possibility, but it had occurred to me. She is… was… three weeks or so late for her cycle, and,” he sighed deeply and closed his eyes as the turmoil of the past days abruptly crashed over him. “She had said nothing to me, but she has been extremely irritable lately, although I do not know if that means anything.”
“Oh yes, it certainly can. My wife was horr…” the doctor paused and flushed slightly and Darcy laughed faintly, surprised at the strange humor of the situation.
“Well, that is good to know, I suppose,” he whispered. “So, she has… lost… the baby?”
The physician frowned, “The truth, Mr. Darcy, is that I cannot be sure. She bled, a great deal, but not as much as normally seen with a miscarriage. However, if she was very early in her pregnancy, that may be why. I do not wish to submit her to an examination of that nature at this time. My gentle palpations proved nothing. The bleeding has mostly stopped, also unusual in a miscarriage. I have instructed Mrs. Reynolds in what to watch for. We can pursue the matter in a few weeks when she is fully recovered. In the meantime,” he rose, and Darcy rose as well, “the women will care for her needs. I shall return in the morning. You must rest and attend to your own health, Mr. Darcy. Your wife needs you so you cannot allow yourself to become ill.”
Darcy returned to their bedchamber where Mrs. Reynolds was covering Elizabeth with a blanket. Everyone had left for the time being except the two of them.