Page 71 of Bitten By Mr. Darcy

He looked back at the conflagration in the other room. It had consumed the bed. The flames were licking at the ceiling.

He shut the door to the sitting room so he didn’t have to see Mrs. Darcy’s frightened eyes. He rushed out of the front door and he ran.

CHAPTER TWENTY

MR. DARCY COULDfeel Elizabeth’s terror through the bond. He was swathed in blankets, speaking with the driver of the carriage, who was outside.

“If you can but guide me, I shall get her out of there,” he said to the driver.

“Sir, I am going on my own,” said the driver.

“No, no, I cannot ask you to run into a burning house,” said Mr. Darcy. “I do not pay you nearly enough for that.”

“Well, then, you will give me some more money if I manage it,” said the driver. “But I suspect that if I let you go out there, I may not have anyone to pay my salary.”

Mr. Darcy sighed.

“Ah,” said the driver, “here is your other carriage, sir.”

“Colonel Fitzwilliam!” cried Mr. Darcy.

“Yes,” said the driver. “I think all will be well.”

ELIZABETH HAD MANAGEDto get her hand free again and to get the gag out of her mouth. She was, even now, working at the knot that held her ankle to the couch. She thought she might have freed herself in only a few more moments.

But Colonel Fitzwilliam came in through the window in the sitting room, shattering the glass with a shot from his gun. He was across the room and cutting her free in seconds.

“We must go now, Mrs. Darcy,” he cried. “Not a moment to lose.”

She let him pull her through the broken window and they scrambled across the lawn. The house was burning very badly.

“We shall need to call for some help of some kind to try to put the fire out,” said the colonel, breathless.

“Lizzy!” called Jane, alighting from the carriage.

Elizabeth ran to her sister.

They embraced.

Then she ran for the windowless carriage. She banged on the door and said, “Do not open this door, Ty, but I am safe.”

“I could feel it in the bond,” came his voice.

“You are safe?” she said.

“I am,” he said. “You?”

“Caroline is dead,” she said.

“Bingley will be devastated,” he said. “Louisa, too.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t think she really meant it. She tried to take it back at the end, I think. I don’t think she would have ever actually hurt you.”

“Well, she was miserable,” said Mr. Darcy. “Perhaps it’s better, in the end, if her endless life was nothing but pain.”

“Perhaps.” Elizabeth turned to look at the house, which was in blazes, though people were rushing in—the drivers from both of the carriage, the colonel, Jane, and several others who seemed to be from neighboring houses—with buckets of water to throw upon the flames. “Perhaps indeed.”

“YOU MUST BELIEVEI had no knowledge of it,” Bingley was saying.