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She’d seen his long arm rise toward the clouds, followed by the pop of pistol fire mere seconds after she’d jumped in front of him. Suddenly, everything was buzzing in her ears, and distant shouts echoed, a strange warmth blooming across her bodice just as her knees buckled. She’d felt his arms the moment they’d wrapped possessively around her, the panic as he yelled her name. But she held her eyes and lips tightly closed, as the smell of gunpowder and grass filled her nostrils. And of course, the scent of him, sandalwood and something earthly akin to the first moments after it rained. She had memorized it this past week while keeping his handkerchief tucked away in her dress to breathe him in when alone. Her body felt the ground shaking as the thud of more boots came closer.
“Elizabeth!! Elizabeth!! Answer me! Can you hear me!? Elizabeth!!” his voice shaking with emotion.
She still refused to unscrunch her eyes, pain radiating from her body now. She hears and feels fabric ripping, a pressure against her skin, but her eyes stay tightly closed.
“Fitzwilliam!! Get the carriage!! We need to get her back to the house. Elizabeth, speak to me!”
Finally opening her eyes, she sees the terror in his as her mouth opens to speak, but nothing comes out beyond a cry of pain. She squeezed her eyes shut again, tears rolling down the sides of her face.
“Oh my love, I know it hurts!! Just hold on! Fitzwilliam will be right back to help me quick as can be!”
The pain was increasing. Her bodice felt sticky now, and still, there was the pressure near her arm. Everything around her ceases for just a minute, or perhaps it was a hundred minutes. She feels multiple sets of hands and air around her. They seem to be moving her when everything ceases again.
When she finally opens her eyes next, his face is above hers, tears barely contained at the edges of his beautiful brown eyes. From the rocking, she knows they must be in the carriage. She can hear the Colonel whispering, but is unsure what he is saying. Another voice she doesn’t recognize is speaking back to him. She continues to focus on her beloved’s familiar, stern brow and plush, turned-down lips. She used to think him so churlish, but those features are a comfort to her now.
“Elizabeth, my love, what in the world were you thinking?” she hears Mr. Darcy whispering as he gently runs his fingers through her curls. The words lingered somewhere between chiding and disbelief. But most importantly, they were laced with love and worry.
Her face crumples at her foolishness, tears beginning to spill from her own eyes again, but this time as much from embarrassment as the radiating pain. She gives him her bravest attempt at a smile through the pain, but says nothing; she knows she had acted impulsively.
He pulls her hand up to his lips to kiss it as the carriage continues to rattle her aching body toward their destination.
“You do know what this means, don’t you, my little knight?” he suddenly teases, trying to break the tension.
She gave him a questioning look, raising an impertinent eyebrow, “No.”
“You must arrange the banns to be read and marry me at once to save my delicate reputation. I was completely and thoroughly compromised today. What will the men at my club say once they hear of it?” He grinned at her in the most becoming way as he played with an unruly curl. “In fact, my reputation is in such danger that you should probably obtain a common license so we might be wed within a fortnight. I may never be able to show my face again in London.”
Despite the paleness of her skin, her cheeks immediately flamed. “Is that so?” she whispers, trying not to laugh, knowing how much he truly prefers Pemberley to town as it is.
“Indeed, my little Knight-errant,” as he awkwardly leans to kiss her forehead. “Completely and utterly ruined.”
“Ahh, I see,” she replies as her eyes drift closed again from the pain. Just as she started to slip back under, “Well then, perhaps you could lend me a few coins to pay for it?"