“Yes, miss. I’ll try my best.” Simmons climbed up onto his horse and was on the point of leaving when a troop of a dozen mounted Royal Marines thundered by on the road to Chawton Great House. The dust of their passage had not yet settled when a heavy coach went past, traveling in the same direction. Inside, the two astonished watchers glimpsed the flushed face of Captain Francis Austen.
“Oh Lord!” Simmons breathed. “They’re coming for him.”
“Go to Mr. Darcy now and warn him that my brother has returned,” Jane ordered. “Hurry, Simmons! Please hurry. And tell him that I shall be waiting at midnight in the wood behind the cottage.”
Simmons dug his heels into the ribs of his horse and rode off at a fast gallop across the fields.
Still stunned by the unexpected and potentially deadly development of her brother’s return Jane stood trembling by the gate until Cass, who had heard the commotion of the passing troop, came out and touched her shoulder. “Jane, what is it?” she asked.
“Oh, Cass,” she cried, turning to look at her sister with tear-filled eyes, “I think I have killed him with my foolish meddling.”
Sitting in the lonely forest clearing with Lord Nelson grazing nearby, Darcy had nothing to do but anxiously wait for Simmons to return with a message from Jane. For there was little doubt in his mind that she would respond to his urgent note with one of her own.
Darcy pictured her reading his scrawled words, then dashing off a few hurried lines of her own, reaffirming her desire to meet him at midnight in the quiet wood. The only question in his mind was whether he should actually go to the appointed place, assuming, of course, that Frank and his squad of marines did not find him in the meantime.
In fact, Darcy actually believed that the possibility of his being captured by Jane’s brother was fairly remote. Instead, he guessed, that when he didn’t return to Chawton Great House by nightfall, Edward and Frank would simply assume that he had done the logical thing and fled to nearby London, where he could easily lose himself among the masses of the great teeming city that Jane had described in detail for him that afternoon.
Somehow the American doubted seriously that her two aristocratic brothers would waste very much time searching for him in the dark among the scattered fields and hedgerows surrounding the estate.
If all went well, then, he decided, and no sign of an organized pursuit had developed by midnight he would still go to Jane. Of course, he told himself, he would approach the appointed meeting place with the greatest possible caution. And only after he had ruled out the possibility that her brothers were lying in wait for him would he go to spend the few precious hours until dawn with her.
Though Darcy still worried about the possible physical dangers that their meeting posed to Jane, as well as the emotional effect that his leaving might have, especially should their relationship become more intimate than it already had, he was determined to carry out her wishes and go to her.
Far too often since he had entered her world, Darcy reminded himself, he had been guilty of making false and arrogant presumptions.
He was determined not to repeat that same error again. For Jane Austen had made it crystal clear that she wanted to be with him, if only for a little while. And God knew he wanted to be with her one last time as well.
He allowed himself a grim smile. Because, of course, he was assuming—had to assume—that, come the dawn, he would ride Lord Nelson to the arched tree limbs above the stone wall where, by the same unknown process that had brought him to the year 1810, he would magically leap back into his own time.
And if he could not return?
If his trip into the past had been a one-way ticket?
Darcy’s conscious mind refused to seriously contemplate the unthinkable answers to those questions. Although he realized that it was recklessly irresponsible of him not to have made some basic plan for the very real possibility that he might be permanently locked into this world, he could not in fact even bear to consider the reality of such a fate.
If he was doomed to remain here, he knew, he would not dare to approach Jane Austen again. For he would be an outlaw, a marked fugitive relentlessly hunted by her vengeful brothers, forced to run to the farthest outposts of civilization merely to survive.
Darcy could imagine only one fate worse than returning to his own chaotic and frenzied time without Jane Austen, and that was to be trapped in this one, where she still lived and breathed, unable to be with her.
He was shaken from his grim reverie as Lord Nelson abruptly stopped nibbling at the shoots of tender spring grass growing around the wall of the ruined hut and raised his magnificent head, snorting softly in the breeze.
Alarmed, Darcy looked up at the agitated horse. Then he, too, heard the sounds that had startled the animal. From somewhere in the distance came the faint drumming of hoofbeats and the cries of shouting men. Feeling his blood suddenly run cold, the American got to his feet and, pushing aside drooping branches and tangled brambles of undergrowth, he walked a little ways through the trees. At the edge of the wood he stopped and cautiously peered out into an open meadow.
To his horror Darcy saw a line abreast of perhaps a dozen armed-and-uniformed men riding directly toward his hideaway, their sabers extended, the polished blades flashing brightly in the orange rays of the setting sun.
Without a moment’s hesitation Darcy retreated back through the wood, making his way in seconds to the collapsed hut. Leaping onto Lord Nelson’s back, he shouted to the great black stallion, urging him into a full gallop.
Branches and small limbs lashed his face and arms as he drove the powerful horse crashing through the trees. Breaking out into the meadow, Darcy angled sharply away from the approaching horsemen, praying they would not see him in the dying light. Before he had gone ten yards, however, he heard a new shout raised behind him.
Turning in his saddle, Darcy recognized the flushed features of Frank Austen at the head of the military formation. The captain was pointing his saber directly at him, rallying his men to follow. The line of horsemen wheeled about, urging their mounts to the chase. From the corner of his eye the fleeing American saw two of the mounted soldiers unslinging long flintlock rifles from their shoulders.
Without waiting to see any more Darcy aimed Lord Nelson toward a low hedgerow and prepared to jump. A shot rang out, then another, as the horse leaped and landed awkwardly in the next field.
Crouching low in the saddle Darcy pushed the speeding stallion onward, pressing his face hard against the animal’s muscular neck. “Come on, Nelson, old boy,” he shouted into the wind, “give it everything you’ve got!”
The magnificent creature increased his stride, swiftly pulling away from their pursuers until he splashed through a muddy ditch and into another meadow and was suddenly slowed by the softer ground.
Looking ahead Darcy saw the fiery ball of the setting sun blazing through the distinctive arch formed by the pair of tall trees overhanging the low stone wall. “There it is, boy!” he shouted as a full volley of shots rang out behind them, tearing muddy gouts in the turf to either side. Turning back to look over his shoulder he saw Frank Austen at the head of the pack not fifty paces behind him and quickly closing the gap. The captain’s face was contorted with rage and he was screaming an epithet that was lost in the thunder of hooves.
Darcy raced across the emerald green turf to the very verge of the field bounded by the low stone wall, riding hell-bent into the sun. Though he assumed it was impossible to leap back into his own time before sunrise, he prayed that a jump through the narrow arch might at least intimidate and slow his pursuers, who would have to follow in single file.
The wall was approaching fast. At the last possible instant and with no more time to think, Darcy leaned forward, forced to squeeze his eyelids shut to avoid being blinded by the dazzling light.
He braced himself as he felt Lord Nelson’s hooves leave the ground.
They were airborne for several instants, during which he clearly heard the thumping of his own heart over Frank Austen’s screamed warning for him to stop or be shot dead.
The sound of Austen’s voice died away, as if someone had quickly dialed down the volume on a too-loud radio. Lord Nelson’s front feet hit the ground with a bone-jarring jolt and Darcy opened his eyes. Reining the huffing horse to a halt he turned and looked back over the wall that they had just cleared. In the final rays of the dying sun he saw nothing but dissolving shadows filling an empty meadow.
In the distance he heard the rumble of an engine and turned to see a yellow-painted farm tractor coming
