Page 33 of Not Without Me, Miss Elizabeth

He swore under his breath, low and vicious, and she looked back at him, helpless, tears of frustration pricking at her eyes.

"Mr. Darcy!" she cried again, unable to keep the desperation from her voice.

"Come. We must not stop." The words came before she could say more, clipped short, his voice sharp with something very close to fear.

He moved to her side at once, bracing his hip against her and wrapping a strong arm about her waist, half lifting and half dragging her forward toward the cottage. She moaned with the pain of it, but he did not slacken his pace, driving them around the last hedgerow until a small stable came into view, and with it a sturdy Welsh pony grazing just outside.

We shall take the pony;the new plan seized him at once.

"Elizabeth, we are nearly there, nearly there," he said, though she scarcely registered the words, consumed entirely by the effort of fighting through the pain still gripping her foot, aware only that they meant to stop, and that stopping might bring some relief.

They came onto a rough, stony lane, the noise of their approach startling the pony into a sharp cry of alarm, its head tossing in warning.

Darcy, who had handled horses all his life, knew it was hardly the most promising introduction, but he knew too that Welsh ponies were hardy creatures, his cousin Fitzwilliam had ridden one himself as a mounted officer in an early engagement of the wars.

Reaching the animal, he freed its tether and all but lifted Elizabeth onto its back. Riding without a saddle would be no easy matter, but he did not doubt he could manage it. He jumped, attempting to swing his leg over, and failed. He tried again, with the same result, cursing under his breath as his frustration mounted, before a third attempt finally succeeded, and he settled himself behind her, arms braced around her waist and thighs as he leaned forward to seize the reins.

"Oy! What d'ye think yer about!" a voice called from the cottage, only a few hundred paces off.

"Sir, forgive us, we are in the direst need of your pony. I give you my word, it shall be returned!" Darcy called back, already urging the animal forward onto the lane.

"Come back, ye thief!" the farmer shouted after them, but Darcy did not look back. Elizabeth clung to the pony's mane for dear life as he pushed the animal into a full gallop, her foot still throbbing, her heart pounding wildly.

Sighting the road ahead, Darcy veered right, with no notion of where it led, only the hope of finding some place of safety for her. They had gone only a little way along it when the sharp report of a pistol rang out behind them, followed by the whine of a ball striking the stone wall lining the road ahead.

"Good heavens! They are firing upon us! Elizabeth, get down!"

Elizabeth was already bent low over the pony's mane when the shot came, and at his frantic command she pressed herself down further still, her face nearly buried against the animal's neck. She screamed despite herself as she felt his weight come down over her, flattening himself as best he could against her back, his ragged breath loud in her ear. Terrified beyond words, she could do nothing but cling to the pony and pray.

CHAPTER 18

Another shot rang out from the hillside. Mr. Darcy held his breath; Elizabeth cried out, "Mr. Darcy!" A moment later he saw the ball graze the top of the wall very much wide of them, perhaps several yards off. He judged the man must be firing from a pistol to lose two shots so quickly, and was grateful, at least, that it was no shotgun.

"You are safe, Elizabeth! They cannot reach us now!" he called into her ear, breathless from the strain of the last few minutes.

He could feel her trembling beneath him. Pressing his heel to the pony's side, he urged it faster still along the road. "Get on!" he called out, three times over, driving the animal to the fullest speed it could manage.

After half an hour of hard riding, he allowed the pace to ease somewhat, his eyes scanning constantly for any sign of village or town. They had entered a stretch of dense wood once more, obscuring whatever lay around them, and with only the one road before them, he had little choice but to follow it, settling himself into a steadier seat as he did. Elizabeth had ceased trembling by then, and felt the shift of his weight behind her.

They had both been given over entirely to survival these past minutes, neither sparing much thought for the impropriety of their situation. Two riders sharing a single mount was common enoughbetween parent and child, but wholly unacceptable between an unmarried man and woman. Still, they pressed on down the lane, seeking whatever safety and shelter might be found.

Darcy hoped to find some town of sufficient size to conceal them properly, from which he might send an express to his cousin, somewhere with enough coming and going that two strangers, however bedraggled, would draw no particular notice. A small village, he knew, would leave them dangerously exposed; everyone would know everyone, and a stranger's face would be remarked upon within the hour.

"Elizabeth, we are safe for the moment, but we must keep on. We need a town large enough to hide us." He had an urgency in his voice, and Elizabeth thought, completely unaware of how he used her first name thus.

She made no answer beyond a small nod, clinging still to the pony's mane with both hands, her knuckles white against the coarse hair, worn through entirely with the aftermath of fear and the shock of gunfire aimed so near them both. Speech, just then, felt beyond her.

Some twenty minutes later, he spoke again, his voice pitched low with cautious hope. "Miss Elizabeth, look there. I believe I see something."

She lifted her head, forcing her eyes to focus past her own exhaustion. "I see it too, Mr. Darcy."

"We shall go around it. It looks too small to be safe." He said it with evident reluctance, as though the decision cost him something.

She felt a sharp pang of disappointment at the thought of pressing on past any hope of rest, however small, but she trusted his judgment entirely now, without question, her own survival bound up so wholly with his that she could no longer imagine weighing his choices against her own.

As the village drew near, he turned the pony off the road and into a thicket, then dismounted with the same economical, purposeful movement he brought to everything now. Elizabeth, without needing to be asked, passed him the reins, and he led the animal carefully through the trees, his eyes constantly moving, hoping to skirt the village entirely unseen by its inhabitants.

As they walked, he brushed absently at the dust and grime that had gathered thick upon his riding coat, the very one he had worn the morning of his capture, now scarcely recognisable for the state of it.