Page 35 of Not Without Me, Miss Elizabeth

He said it almost absently, his eyes still moving over the street ahead, "North indeed. We are in Wales."

"Wales?" Elizabeth repeated, astonished, stopping mid-step.

"I can scarcely credit it myself." A small, tired smile touched his mouth. "Come, this way."

They walked the length of a long white building before he turned them down a side street. Rounding the corner, he pointed, something like triumph in the gesture. "There, the Bull Inn."

Elizabeth let out a breath of relief so complete it left her briefly light-headed. "Thank heaven."

Darcy glanced at her, smiling despite the exhaustion plain on both their faces, and patted the hand resting upon his arm, a small, unconscious gesture of reassurance he seemed to offer without quite thinking of it. She returned the smile, and together they climbed the steps.

The inn proved loud and cheerful within, well filled with custom, the warm clatter of dishes, the low roar of conversation, a fire crackling somewhere beyond view, and they made their way between the crowded tables to a tall desk at the far end, Elizabeth keeping close at Darcy's side, unnerved by so much noise and company after days of near-total isolation.

"Sut mae? What can I do for ye?" An older man at a desk asked the couple.

"Sir, my wife and I have met with an accident upon the road." Darcy delivered the falsehood without the smallest hesitation, his voice perfectly level. "We are in need of clothes, food, baths, and I must send an express as soon as may be."

"We can see to a room, supper, and baths readily enough, sir. The express office lies just down the way." The man gestured toward a building visible through the inn's front window, his eyes passing over them both with the incurious ease of a man who had seen a great many travellers in far worse states than these two.

Darcy gave the man a slight nod, "Thank you."

"That'll be a pound, five pence." He nodded toward Darcy expectantly, already reaching for his ledger.

Elizabeth had tried, the moment the wordwifeleft his lips, to slip her arm from his, but found herself unable to withdraw it without drawing further notice. She burned with mortification, unable to meet the innkeeper's eye, conscious of the falsehood so plainly told on her account.

Darcy paid the sum directly, and they followed the man up a narrow stair, away from the noise of the common room below. He stopped at the third door, unlocked it, and passed the key to Darcy.

"Bath'll be up shortly," the innkeeper said, before descending again.

***

Darcy ushered Elizabeth inside and shut the door behind them. The room proved modest but comfortable with a settee before the fire, a large four-post bed, a window overlooking the street, a wash basin, and two small tables.

He stood behind her a moment, uncertain how to begin, turning the room's single key over once in his hand before setting it down upon the table, as though its weight alone might somehow soften what he had to say.

She drew a steadying breath and turned to face him fully, her arms crossed before her, colour still high in her cheeks from the walk up. "What can you have meant, sir, by taking a room as man and wife? I might easily have passed for your sister!"

He was quick to reply to justify his fib. "A sister would have travelled with a maid, and you have none." He met her eyes squarely, though there was something almost apologetic beneath the firmness of his tone. "It seemed to me the more prudent course, under the circumstances. I shall sleep upon the settee; you shall have the bed. In that way I may watch over you, and see you kept safe through the night, whatever comes."

"Could we not hire some woman to attend me? We might, certainly, once your cousin arrives, but until then, you have no female companion for me at all. I will not have you sleeping unguarded while danger may yet find us. I must go and send word to my cousin and your father directly. Do you understand me, madam?"

"I understand a great deal more than you seem to, sir! I am an unmarried woman, about to share a room with an unmarried man. Whatever the cost to you, it will be a good deal worse than death to me. I require a chaperone, sir, or a room of my own, can you not see I shall be ruined? Cast from polite society entirely, through no fault of my own, but at the hands of a pack of villains! What do you suppose your cousin, or my own father, will make of finding us alone together in a single room? Sleep upon the settee or not, I am lost regardless."

His nostrils flared, and for a moment he looked entirely unlike the composed man she had come to know these past days. "Damn your reputation! I care a great deal more for your life! We are pursued by armed men who have already shown themselves willing to fire upon us, and I will not let you from my sight, not for the sake of what the neighbours might say of it!"

"Damn my reputation?" Her voice rose despite herself, shaking now with something that was not entirely anger. "How dare you say such a thing to me! Without my reputation I am as good as ruined entirely, cast off, unmarriageable, a burden upon my own family for the whole of my life! You, sir, standing there with your fortune and your name to shield you from everyconsequence, show the most selfish disregard for anyone's feelings but your own comfort!"

"Elizabeth Bennet!" he exclaimed, his temper thoroughly roused now, matching hers in kind. "I shall marry you, and we shall go on from there, your reputation entirely intact, madam, and the whole of this argument rendered entirely academic. Now, I beg you, let us havedonewith it!"

Flustered, and thoroughly confused by the suddenness of it all, she retorted, "I do notwishto marry you, Mr. Darcy! You are rude, and unkind, and you have not even the decency to ask me properly!"

"Rude and unkind! Might I remind you, madam, that I have rescued you from your captors, brought you to safety, and mean now to see you entirely free of them, and yet I am called unkind! If I am unkind, then you, madam, are unfeeling!" He stepped closer to her, furious and, for all that, unable to look anywhere but at her.

A soft knock sounded at the door, interrupting their dispute. And, rather than ignore it, Darcy wheeled around, wrenching it open, and bellowed, "What is it?"

A timid servant girl and a lanky boy stood outside, both plainly startled by his tone. The girl, gasped out loud, hardly daring to meet his eye, murmured that they had brought up the bath he had ordered.

His shoulders fell, and he exhaled slowly. "Bring it in." The pair carried in the supplies as quickly as they could manage and withdrew at once.