“No, you should not have,” Lady Catherine declared.
Elizabeth wished Darcy would not assume the entire blame for Mr. Crawford’s disappearance. The man himself bore responsibility. “Darcy is too honorable a gentleman to have predicted that another would so degrade himself as to flee rather than face the consequences of his actions.”
“Mr. Crawford is a despicable coward,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam.
“A coward,” said Mr. Archer, “and an accused felon who faces hanging if convicted.”
The colonel made a sound of disgust. “Let him face me on a field of honor, and I will save the courts their trouble.”
This was a side of the colonel unfamiliar to Elizabeth. “You would duel with Anne’s husband?”
“No one knows whose husband he is at present, not that he is a prize any woman should covet. A pistol shot would decide the matter cleanly. Both his wives would be free of him.”
“I would rather win that satisfaction myself,” muttered Meg.
Despite Mr. Crawford’s head start, the men resolved to ride out in search of him. With only a few hours’ daylight remaining, they left directly and took separate paths.
Meg was agitated as she watched them depart. As they crested the hill out of the village, she headed toward the stable. “I’m going, too.”
Lady Catherine snorted in derision. “I hardly believe that necessary.”
“I think it is,” she said.
“Can you even ride?”
“If someone will hire me a horse. It seems I can no longer rely on my husband to assume my debts.”
Elizabeth attempted to dissuade her. No woman ought ride about unfamiliar countryside on a strange horse unaccompanied, particularly as dusk approached. She could meet rough terrain, or even rougher highwaymen. What if she encountered a wild animal, or a band of gypsies?
“I can take care of myself,” Meg assured her. “With my husband gone for months at a time, I have had to learn. What I cannot do, is sit idle.”
As Elizabeth silently debated the wisdom of hiring a mount for Meg, Lady Catherine declared she would do so. The offer stunned Elizabeth.
“Thank you, ma’am!” Meg exclaimed. She patted Lady Catherine’s arm. “I will be quite safe. Don’t you worry.”
“I am not at all concerned for your safety.”
As Meg rode off, Elizabeth turned to Darcy’s aunt. “You have been surprisingly generous toward Anne’s rival.”
“It is not generosity; it is an investment.”
Elizabeth raised a brow.
“Should Mrs. Garrick actually find Mr. Crawford, she does me a service.” Lady Catherine produced a handkerchief and wiped her arm where Meg had touched it.
“And if misfortune finds her first,
Meg was the first to make her way back to the inn, entering the courtyard at dusk. Elizabeth observed her arrival from the window of her chamber and met her as she reached the top of the stairs. “Did you find any sign of him?”
Meg shook her head. The wind and exercise had loosened her hair, and a large red lock hung down one side of her face. “I expect he is halfway to wherever he’s going by now.”
“Have you any notion where that might be?”
“A day ago I would have said the sea. Now I wish him at the bottom of it.” She pushed the hair behind her ear, revealing a long, fresh gash on the back of her hand.
“Mrs. Garrick, are you all right?”
“I cannot answer to that name anymore. Call me Meg. As for my hand, it’s merely scratched. I passed a stray hedge branch too closely.”
“Surely it hurts. The apothecary is presently with Mrs. Crawford. Perhaps he can provide a salve to ease the sting.”
“Don’t trouble him. I can manage.”
“It is no trouble.” Elizabeth moved to rap on Anne’s door, but Meg stayed her hand.
“Please don’t.” Anxiety creased her expression. “I haven’t any money to pay for such things. I spent all I had just getting here in hopes of finding John, and he is not coming back.”
“The men have not yet returned. They may find him.”
“Even if they do, a scratch is the least of my troubles.”
She withdrew to her own room. Elizabeth stood staring at her closed door for several minutes, debating whether to make a gift of the salve or let the matter drop. Meg was right: Her difficulties far exceeded anything an ointment could heal. Deceived by the person she should most have been able to trust, she now found herself alone in a strange village with no friends and no funds — precarious circumstances indeed.
Precarious enough to make a person desperate.
Darcy returned after the grey light of dusk had faded to black.
The moment he entered their chamber, Elizabeth knew that his hunt had proven futile. His countenance — nay, his entire demeanor — declared the news more loudly than could any town crier. He sagged into a chair, rested his head against its back, and closed his eyes.
“You are slumping,” she said.
“I am.”
“You must be my other husband, then. Fitzwilliam Darcy never slumps.”
“He does today.” He remained thus another minute, looking worn out from the day’s events in a way that went beyond physical. Just as Elizabeth began to wonder if he were going to speak again or fall asleep in that position, he sighed and opened his eyes. “If this ‘other husband’ of yours is Mr. Crawford, I entreat you to produce him, as I had no luck locating him myself.”
“Mr. Crawford has not leisure to slump. His trips to the altar consume all his time.”
“I begin to think they must. It would not surprise me if that is where he is now — in another village, with another woman.”
“For a man who only pretended to be a sailor, he does seem to have a girl in every port. I believe, however, that he will not be mooring again in this particular harbor. Anne has not asked for him, and Meg is so angry that she set off in pursuit of him after you departed.”
“On horseback?”
“She rides fairly well, actually — not that I am the most discriminating judge of horsemanship. I believe Lady Catherine was unpleasantly surprised by her competence, as she furnished the mount in partial hope that Meg would meet with some accident.”
“That is a severe indictment of my aunt.”
“I merely repeat her own admission. She resents Meg’s existence almost as much as she does Mr. Crawford’s. Meg, however, had the effrontery to return unharmed.”
“And the others?”
“Neither Colonel Fitzwilliam nor Mr. Archer have yet come back.” A knock sounded on their door. “Though perhaps I spoke too soon.”
It was not one of the gentlemen, but Lady Catherine.
“Mr. Darcy, I knew I heard your voice.” She attempted to maneuver her way into the room without invitation, but Elizabeth prevented her from fully entering. Though Elizabeth’s tolerance for Lady Catherine’s arrogant behavior had by necessity increased during her ladyship’s residence at Pemberley, that tolerance fast approached its limit. Darcy’s aunt would have to settle for speaking to him from just within the doorway.
Darcy rose and came to stand behind his wife. “How is Anne?”
“Resting. She was so overwrought when she awakened that I asked the apothecary to administer more laudanum. How long did you intend to lounge in here before reporting to me?”
“Until I finished speaking with my wife.”
“What has she to do with the matter of Mr. Crawford’s disappearance? Any news you have is of far greater import to me. I should have been apprised of it first.”
