Pride and Premeditation (Jane Austen Murder Mystery #1)(64)

“No, I merely refused to answer you. For an aspiring barrister, you can be thick at times.”

She wanted to shove him from his seat then, but his pistol was still pointed at her. Besides, she was not confident enough in her ability to grab the reins, and then she truly would be at the mercy of the panicked horses. Instead, she swallowed a new wave of fear. She had to attack this problem with logic, not fear. The first step—figure out where they were headed. Wickham seemed to be circling back around the way they came from, to throw off their pursuer.

As if to confirm this, Wickham elbowed her. “Is Darcy still following us?”

Lizzie took a moment to strengthen her grip on her seat and gather her courage. Please let him be behind us, she prayed. Despite the gravity of her situation, the irony of hoping that Darcy would appear did not escape her. But she had nothing on her person that would prove a match to Wickham’s pistol.

She peeked around the edge of the carriage and for one heart-stopping moment felt herself sway too close to the edge. She looked down, and the ground was a dizzying rush. Wickham yanked her back.

“He’s still there,” she reported, unsure whether this would madden him and worsen her situation.

But Wickham sounded merely surprised as he said, “Is he now?”

Lizzie swallowed hard and tried once more to reason with Wickham. “It’s not right that he should shoot you, or even duel you in the first place.”

“Why? Because I’m lower-class?”

The disdain in Wickham’s voice made Lizzie realize her misstep. “No. Because it’s illegal.”

“When I first met you, your idealism was charming,” Wickham said. “Now, it’s just intolerable.”

He seemed determined to resist all of Lizzie’s attempts at reason, so she switched tactics. “If anything happens to me, my family will be very displeased.”

The threat felt weak even before it left her mouth, and Wickham laughed. “Your father would have to close a book long enough to figure out where you’ve gone, and your mother would be overjoyed—one less daughter to marry off.”

The insult stung, but more than anything Lizzie was shocked by his callous tone. Wickham was unveiling his true self, and she couldn’t believe that she had been fooled for so long. “This is not a crime you can walk away from.”

“They’ll have to catch me first.”

Lizzie’s spirits began to falter. They were drawing closer to the docks—the docks, of course! He didn’t need to lose Darcy. He just needed to outrun him long enough to escape London. By water was the safest bet. A single man could slip away down the Thames.

But what did he intend to do with her?

She supposed it amounted to two options: she would leave London either over the Thames or under it. Just like Abigail.

For the first time in her life, Lizzie accepted that the time for talking had passed. She pushed away the image of poor Abigail pulled out of the water, hands bound together. She would come back to her, but for now she needed to figure out how she was going to get away. Perhaps what she needed wasn’t brute strength but cunning. If she could throw him off, distract him, surprise him, just long enough to escape and run for cover . . .

They pulled out of the narrow side street to one that opened out to the docks. Ships bobbed gently in the water, and lanterns glowed from distant decks. Lizzie sucked in a breath to scream but felt the pistol nudge her ribs. She looked down at it.

“Don’t,” Wickham warned.

Lizzie kept silent. But looking down had reminded her—she was wearing Jane’s brooch! Not much of a weapon at all, but if she could work it off her jacket, the sharp end could be jabbed at just the right moment. . . .

“Where are you taking me?” she asked Wickham, hoping to distract him.

“You’ll see,” he grunted, and her hand crept up to her breast and began working the brooch’s clasp.

“How long will it take to get there?”

“I said, you’ll see. God, you’re aggravating!”

But Lizzie noticed him beginning to pull back on the reins and deploy the brake, easing into a trot. The poor horses’ sides were heaving, slick with sweat. Lizzie looked to the water, trying to discern which ship they’d board. In the distance, she heard the clop of horse hooves and the creak of wheels. Darcy in the chaise! Lizzie craned her neck to see how far off he was, but she couldn’t see him at all.

“Darcy is persistent,” Wickham remarked. “I had no idea he was so fond of you.”

“I’m sure it’s just the horses he’s invested in,” Lizzie said, and the brooch clasp released. She used the moment that Wickham’s gaze was fixed behind them to swiftly remove it from her spencer and hold it concealed in her left hand.

“Somehow I doubt that.” Wickham glanced back at Lizzie, who was now the picture of terrified innocence, her hands clutched in her lap. “I’ve never seen him care this much about a woman’s well-being, aside from his sis— Ahhhhh!”

Lizzie had taken advantage of Wickham’s momentary distraction and plunged the sharp end of her brooch into his thigh. She yanked it back as she leapt from the carriage, which had slowed to a gentle roll. The force of her landing sent a sharp jolt of pain through her right ankle, but she didn’t let that stop her. With Wickham’s cry of pain and fury echoing after her, she began to run—well, more like hobble at a brisk pace—in the direction they had just come from.