she’d passed through when, suddenly, a pair of tall stone pillars emerged from the fog ahead, flanking an unpaved side road.
Eliza grinned at her own impatience. “Sorry, Clem,” she apologized in absentia to the friendly Hertz guy. “They’re big stone gates, just like you said.”
She guided the Toyota onto the side road and proceeded another quarter mile through a tunnel of overhanging trees. Emerging from the forest, she encountered a second set of gates: the real ones. They were heavy wrought iron gates intricately scrolled with an intertwining PF on each, probably created by a slave artisan right here on the plantation. Standing maybe ten feet tall and attached to brick pillars, they were secured by a large padlock. The pillar on the left held what Eliza assumed was the Darcy family crest or coat of arms or whatever they were called. The plaque on the right pillar appeared to be of patinized bronze. She slowly read the words spelled out in old English lettering, Pemberley Farms, Established 1789, then whistled softly to herself, “Oh my God!” she breathed, “I’m beginning to think that Thelma may actually have stumbled onto something here.”
Leaning out of the car to examine the formidable barrier in her path, she jumped slightly, startled by the cultured tones of a deep baritone voice in this seeming wilderness. She swiveled around in her seat to find an elderly black man looking politely in at her through the passenger window of the car.
“Good morning, miss, I’m Lucas. May I help you?”
“Yes, I, uh…” she stammered, caught completely off guard. “That is,” she began again, “can I drive in to the, uh, farm?”
The old gentleman, whom she noticed was dressed in a neatly pressed black suit, a snowy white shirt that matched his hair, and a black tie, looked regretful. “Oh, I am sorry, miss,” he answered, “but there’s no cars allowed up at the farm on the weekend of the Rose Ball.”
Eliza tried to go with the flow. “Oh, sure, of course, Lucas!” she said, all but slapping her forehead in an overdone attempt to convince him that she knew what he was talking about. “How idiotic of me. I completely forgot about the Rose Ball.”
If Lucas detected the patent phoniness of her response, he was too polite to betray any sign of it. “If you’ll just drive your car around behind the gatehouse there,” he said, gesturing to a fairly large stone cottage among the trees that she had somehow overlooked, “I will call up to the Great House for a guest carriage.”
“A guest carriage?” Eliza had a quick vision of her impromptu meeting with Darcy going straight down the tubes as her brain filled with images of a phone call to the “Great House,” whatever that was, followed by queries as to who she was and what business she had there. “Well, that’s awfully sweet of you, Lucas,” she quickly answered, “but I think I’d just like to walk on up to the house and, uh, admire the scenery along the way.”
Lucas seemed unruffled by the request. “Certainly, miss,” he replied. “Whatever you like.”
Smiling graciously, the relieved Eliza drove around the gatehouse and was surprised to find several luxury cars and two pickups parked in a large, grassy meadow. Parking the red Toyota as inconspicuously as possible between a BMW and a classic Jag, she shouldered her handbag, grabbed a small portfolio from the backseat and walked to the gates. Lucas already had them open for her.
He raised his eyebrows and smiled as she stepped through. “You have a nice walk now, miss,” he said as she moved past him and started up a drive that vanished into another thick stand of trees.
“How far is this house anyway?”
Despite the lingering coolness of the morning air and the movie-set fog swirling about her ankles Eliza was perspiring as she trudged wearily along the endless drive. Around her the landscape had gradually changed from dark woods to rolling meadows, then to woods again. But her destination was still nowhere in sight and her feet were beginning to seriously hurt.
“The problem with this place,” she grunted as she followed the drive down a small hill, across a picturesque wooden bridge, and then started up another steep incline, “is that there’s never a taxi around when you need one.”
Almost before she had finished uttering those words, a deep, thundering sound rumbled at her back. Whirling around to look back at the fog-shrouded bridge, she listened for a heart-stopping moment as the thunder reached deafening proportions. Then, like magic, a rider on a magnificent black horse burst out of the mist at a full gallop, bearing directly down on her.
Screaming in terror, Eliza hurled herself into the muddy ditch at the side of the drive, to avoid being trampled. She landed facedown in three inches of soft brown muck and felt a paralyzing jolt of pain as her left elbow connected solidly with a moss-covered rock protruding from the mud.
She rolled over and sat up in time to see the rider leaping from his mount and pounding back down the drive toward her. “My God! I’m terribly sorry,” he apologized. “Are you all right?”
Stunned by the force of her fall, Eliza blinked and stared groggily into his face…a face that seemed somehow familiar. “I…think so,” she answered, still more aware of the gooey muck clotted in her hair and smeared across her face than of the injured elbow, which had gone mercifully numb.
“Let me help you up,” said the horseman, stepping gallantly into the mud with his high, shiny boots and helping her to her feet, then gently pulling her back up onto dry ground. He stood there helplessly, regarding her filthy clothing and hair. Then he saw her badly skinned and bleeding elbow. “You’re bleeding,” he exclaimed. “That arm could be broken.”
“I guess it was my own fault,” she grumbled. “I thought they ran the Derby in Kentucky,” she added, trying for a bit of humor.
She did not resist as he pulled a spotless white silk scarf from around his neck and fashioned it into a makeshift sling for the injured arm. That done, he bent and peered into her eyes, obviously searching for additional signs of trauma.
Then he surprised her by asking, “Have we met somewhere?”
Eliza looked back into his unforgettable sea green eyes and felt the breath catch in her throat. “Darcy!” a voice was screaming from some distant corner of her brain. “This guy is Darcy, you nitwit!”
Suddenly it all made a weird kind of sense to Eliza: the e-mails, the oh-so-knowledgeable man at the library, his rumored purchase of another Jane Austen letter. Eliza blinked and looked at him again, dimly aware that he was speaking to her.
“Your elbow looks awful,” he said, looking worried. “I’d better ride up to the house for help.”
“No, please…” Eliza’s feeble protest was intended to prevent him from going to any more trouble. But from the expression on his face she saw that he completely misunderstood her motive.
“Of course, you’re right,” he said in a how-could-I-be-so-stupid tone. “I can’t leave you alone here. You might go into shock.” He looked around the deserted landscape and his eyes settled on the large black horse, which was placidly munching grass a few yards away by the side of the drive. “Do you think you can ride?”
Eliza stared at the huge animal. “On a horse?” she asked with a nervous little laugh. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve never been on one before,” she added, by way of explaining. “So maybe I’d better walk.”
He shook his head. “It’s almost a mile to the house,” he informed her.
“Oh!” Eliza could think of nothing more to say. So she watched in silence as he brought the horse over to her, then knelt at her side and made a stirrup with his hands.
“There’s nothing to it,” he assured her in his soft, slightly accented voice. “Just grab the saddle with your good hand and put your leg over when I push.”
Eliza stared wide-eyed at the horse. Up close it was even more enormous than she had previously thought. “I don’t think I can do this,” she protested.
“Come on,” he urged, “just give it a try.”
Feeling more than slightly ridiculous, she placed her left foot in his clasped hands and grabbed the saddle with her right hand. And suddenly she was looking down at him from a great height. “Who do you like in the fourth race?” she quipped in an attempt to cover her abject terror.
Laughing, Darcy retrieved her purse and portfolio from the mud, wiped them on his riding breeches and handed them up to her. She smiled appreciatively, “Thank you.” Smiling back he swung easily up into the saddle behind her. Reaching around for the reins, he urged the horse into a slow walk up the drive.
Acutely aware of his body moving maddeningly against her back and buttocks as her legs tightly gripped the powerfully muscled back of the horse, Eliza managed a breathless grin. “You could get arrested for doing this in
