Free Elizabeth Bennet's Excellent Adventure: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary by Regina Jeffers Page A

me.
    “Even if Mr. Darcy crawled upon hands and knees and begged my forgiveness, I would never bend to his will.
    “Tomorrow, I shall send for Papa and request his assistance. Mr. Darcy’s actions placed me in a world of isolation. No man will think me worthy of his hand. The assumption will be that I am a woman of loose values for why else would a man call off a marriage he sought? I will grow old as the favorite aunt of my dear sisters’ children. Yet, before that time I mean to see something of the world. To experience a bit of life before my future is so timely ripped from my grasp. I will know something of what makes others smile.
    “I shall claim an adventure to last me a lifetime. With no concern for propriety’s dictates, I want to enjoy the society of others. To know something in life of my choosing. Something beyond the walls of Longbourn. I shall tell Papa I wish to visit with Aunt Gardiner until this shame knows an end. I shall explain to Mr. Bennet that I require time to salve my disappointment.”
    Elizabeth turned from the window and paced the short distance to the door.
    “Instead, I shall go to Brighton or Tunbridge Wells or Bath or any place, which will permit my heart a bit of freedom from the strictures I shall suffer until my dying days. A bit of fun and excitement and something from the ordinary before I return to Longbourn to tend my parents in their old age and before I beg for Mr. Bingley’s benevolence when the Collinses claim Longbourn out from under me.”

Chapter Five
     
    Darcy spent nearly three days in the woods before he found assistance in the form of a hound that first set up a howl upon discovering Darcy and then licked Darcy’s cheeks with an exceedingly wet tongue.
    All he accomplished the first day was to stumble into several trees and to trip over more roots than he thought possible. It was in the first night’s middle when he finally loosened the kerchief enough for it to slip down his cheeks to encircle his neck. By rubbing his cheek against a smooth rock Darcy earned his sight. In that particular instance, he did not curse his tumble to the leaf-covered earth, but in all the others, Darcy wished Sloane and his men to the Devil.
    Freeing his hands proved more problematic. Darcy realized he could not walk without supporting himself with his hands. Moreover, his injuries kept him from walking upright. So, despite wishing to speed his search for assistance, Darcy meticulously contorted his body to work his legs through his arms.
    He sat upon the ground, his wrists tied behind his back. Then with determination, he edged backward to sit upon his fingers. The movement cost him dearly for in theory, his body should move easily through the flattened circle his arms formed, but the oval was not wide enough to accommodate the width of his hips. His long coat brought him to more than one moment of frustration for it caught on the binding holding his hands. Until he worked his way clear, Darcy imagined hunters finding his skeleton and wondering how any man could lie down and die in such a position.
    Perhaps the task would not be so difficult if the slightest twist of his torso did not send shooting pains that robbed Darcy of his breath and his strength.
    “Just think of Elizabeth,” he repeated aloud. “She must be beyond worried, and your lady requires your protection.”
    With a string of curses and more than one cry for Divine intervention, Darcy prevailed. As dawn arrived on the day following his kidnapping, Darcy stood with his tied hands before him, rather than behind his back. He considered the change a victory declaring his survival. He used his fingers to free his private parts to relieve the need to urinate, a fact that baffled him.
    “I had nothing to eat or drink since breakfast yesterday,” he grumbled half aloud.
    Even with his new mobility, finding his bearings was not an easy task. The woods were thicker than he expected. In his mind’s eye, his kidnappers did not