Page 12 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“Not if I simply skip the rail and vault myself over the wall,” Darcy called back. “I believe you have well cleaned me out of sixpences.”

“Then we race to the duck pond, just beyond the wall.” Darcy, poor man, had no inkling of what awaited on the far side, nor why the stile was the only dignified passage, precarious though it might be. The moment he set off, Elizabeth slipped into the copse and took a path known only to those who had spent their childhoods in such mischief, halving the distance with ease. She arrived well before him, and concealed herself against the trunk of an ancient oak.

“Miss Bennet,” Darcy called, vaulting himself over the low wall. “I believe I have bested you, for I do not see you at the duck pond.”

Elizabeth waited until his footsteps drew near, until he was just past the tree.

“Boo!” She sprang up from her hiding place, not given away by her brown bonnet.

Darcy made a strangled sound, not quite a shout or a yelp. He startled, stumbling backward, arms windmilling. For one glorious moment Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley was suspended in midair with the expression of a man who had never expected gravity to apply to ten thousand pounds a year.

He landed in a mud patch with a sound that was half splat, half squelch, with the ducks quacking indignantly.

Elizabeth doubled over with laughter, barely able to speak.

“Mr. Darcy, I believe you have lost another sixpence.”

“Miss Elizabeth,” he sputtered, wiping mud from his face to no avail as he was sitting in the mud. His immaculate coat, the one that probably cost more than her quarterly pin money, was decorated with Hertfordshire muck, and his previously pristine cravat and waistcoat had been entirely sullied.

“I am so sorry!” She put her hand to her mouth. “I did not mean to⁠—”

“You absolutely meant to fleece both my dignity and my pocket.” He reached into his waistcoat for a silk handkerchief, shaking it out and no doubt realizing the extent of damage. “Do not suppose, Miss Elizabeth, that your antics would curtail my pursuit.”

“Was there perhaps a hare you were chasing across the stile?”

“You know very well what I mean.” He brushed off as much of the mud as he could, turning his white handkerchief into a dull shade of brown. “Had you worn that bright pink bonnet of yours, I would have spied you lurking beneath the hedgerow.”

“But Mr. Darcy, the mud was all your doing. You did not have to fall. It was a gift from Providence.” She could not help chuckling at how easily she had downed the dour Mr. Darcy.

“Providence.” He attempted to rise, slipped, and sat back down in the mud with an expression of profound resignation. “Is this how you treat all prospective heirs, Miss Elizabeth, or am I receiving special consideration?”

“Hertfordshire is perfectly hospitable to those who approach it with humility, Mr. Darcy. Perhaps that is where your difficulty lies.”

“You will find, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, his voice dangerously even, “that I am not so easily discouraged.”

She ought to help him up. Any woman of decency would. Yet the spectacle of Fitzwilliam Darcy, mud-bespattered, cravat awry, and dignity in ruins, was far too delectable to curtail just yet.

“You are sitting in a mud puddle insisting on special consideration due an heir. You have been insufferable and haughty, and the mud of Hertfordshire has granted you due recompense.” But she extended her hand anyway, because the mud was cold and even she was not heartless enough to leave him sitting in it indefinitely. “Come. The Millers are expecting us, and I cannot present you to them looking like a creature from the bog.”

He took her hand. His grip was firm, his palm warm even through her glove, and something fluttered in Elizabeth’s chest that she attributed firmly to the cold air and nothing else.

He released her hand the moment he was upright, stepping back to shake off the more egregious chunks of mud.

“Thank you,” he said, wiping his gloves on a dry branch.

“There is nothing to thank me for. I put you in the mud; the least I could do is retrieve you from it.”

The Miller cottage presented a grimmer prospect than the Turners’. The roof sagged. The chimney leaked smoke from a crack that had been patched with rags. And when Mrs. Miller answered the door, Elizabeth saw immediately that something was wrong. They did not even blink at the mud-encrusted man who accompanied Elizabeth into their tiny home.

“Miss Lizzy.” Mrs. Miller’s face was drawn, her eyes red-rimmed. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

“I’ve brought Mr. Darcy to introduce him to the tenants. But Mrs. Miller, what has happened?”

“It’s the baby, miss. Little Tom. He’s taken poorly. The fever came on two days ago, and it won’t break, and the physician—” Mrs. Miller’s voice cracked. “The physician wants a shilling just to look at him, and we haven’t got a shilling, miss, not with the rent owing.”

Elizabeth did not hesitate. She reached into her pocket, extracted the small purse she carried for precisely these emergencies, and pressed two shillings into Mrs. Miller’s hand.

“Send for Mr. Jones immediately. Tell him I will settle the account. And if he requires more for medicines, you will send word to Longbourn.”