For the next three days, the party traveled on towards Scotland stopping each night as the apothecary had recommended.
Mr. Bennet showed Lydia's portrait at each stop. She was easily recalled for her laughter and love of dancing. Elizabeth fumed to know Lydia was behaving as though her elopement was some romantic adventure instead of the disaster it truly was for her family. But at least Mr. Bennet had better color in his cheeks and a nice appetite.
“Papa,” Elizabeth said as they neared the end of their seventh day of travel very near to a home Mr. Darcy's family owned, “The tonic seems to have been a great help. You must continue to take it every night once we are home again.”
Mr. Bennet smiled at his favorite daughter. “Indeed, Lizzy. Mr. Jones will surely know how to prepare it for me.”
There was some commotion outside and their carriage stopped with a lurch. Mr. Bennet held onto Elizabeth's arm to keep her from falling forward.
They heard Captain Denny and Mr. Darcy as they rode to the front of the carriage. The loud sound of a pistol startled Elizabeth and Mr.Bennet pushed her to the floor of the carriage with haste.
He threw the blanket she'd tucked around his legs over her and urged her to remain quiet. “I’ll have a look and see whether Mr. Darcy and the Captain might require some assistance.”
Elizabeth tugged upon his coat, but he pushed her hand away and was out the carriage door before she might speak.
She heard Mr. Darcy shouting to Captain Denny and then peeked out the carriage window terrified of what she might find.
Their driver lay motionless upon the ground with a dark pool growing beneath him. Elizabeth covered her mouth and looked away quickly to see Mr. Darcy and the Captain race off after whoever had attacked them.
The shadows of evening were gathering and Elizabeth meant to call out for her father when the footman, who had come to stand by the carriage door, found himself set upon by another bandit.
Elizabeth meant to do something other than hide when the door opened and the bandit appeared. He saw her before she could duck back under her father's blanket. For a moment, the bandit and the young lady froze. In the blinking of an eye, the bandit had climbed inside and Elizabeth scrambled backward.
He reached for her but some unseen force hauled him backward. She thought the footman must have rallied from their earlier skirmish, but it was Mr. Bennet who warned the bandit to leave his daughter alone.
Elizabeth screamed as the criminal lunged for her father. She was halfway out of the carriage when she saw Mr. Bennet raise the blade he had been hiding and hold it out as the bandit ran himself through to the hilt.
Mr. Bennet crumpled to the ground, his own bravery spent. Elizabeth rushed to him, gingerly stepping over the bandit's limp form, her whole body trembling at the thought of what could have happened to all of them.
The footman helped to keep Mr. Bennet sitting upright as Elizabeth searched her reticule for his tonic. She did not know how she had managed to keep hold of it, but it mattered little as she held the bottle to his lips.
“Papa, we must not linger here in the road. Another bandit may be nearby.”
Mr. Bennet wiped his mouth with his sleeve and breathed deeply. He gave a chuckle that helped steady Elizabeth’s nerves. “I suppose I might have just the strength left to dispatch with another.”
The footman helped Mr. Bennet to stand and then pulled Mr. Bennet’s blade from the bandit before he rolled the body out of the road. “Pardon sir, but we are close to Mr. Darcy's home in Carlisle. I could drive the carriage, but perhaps we ought to wait for him and the Captain to return?”
Mr. Bennet clapped the footman on the back and sent him to light the carriage lanterns as he retrieved his blade from the young servant. “We will surely meet them on the road ahead. Pray they cannot both have fallen to the other bandit if I have dispatched the one myself.”
Elizabeth turned her head away as the footman, now finished with the lights, rolled the poor driver’s body out of the road as well. Her father patted her hand. “Mr. Darcy will have a wagon sent for the bodies and arrange a proper burial.”
He placed an arm about her shoulders as the carriage began to roll forward toward Carlisle. Elizabeth leaned against her father and hoped the exertion of killing the bandit would not weaken him further, though she could not see how he had managed so well.
Mr. Darcy and Captain Denny met them not much more than a mile down the road and the carriage came to a halt again. Elizabeth had kept her composure with her father in the conveyance, but when she saw Mr. Darcy and Captain Denny were safe, she was overcome. Mr. Bennet patted her back patiently as she cried softly against the front of his coat.
The Captain returned to the rear of the carriage as Mr. Darcy instructed the footman. They would go to his home in Carlisle and pass the night there. On his way to join Captain Denny, he stopped his horse and looked into the carriage window on Mr. Bennet’s side.
The two men exchanged meaningful glances and Mr. Darcy spurred his horse on to their post so that they might arrive very soon to Carlisle.