yet. I have friends and family in Paris, though, people I would like to see again and people I would like you to meet.’
‘You have never spoken of them before,’ she said curiously.
‘There was never any need. But you will like them, I am sure, and they will like you.’
‘I have never been to Paris,’ she said musingly. ‘I have never been out of England.’
‘Paris is changing, but it is still a city of great elegance and the Parisians are charming. Sometimes too charming,’ he said, and a shadow crossed his face. Then his mood lightened and he said, ‘I will have to guard you well.’
Chapter 2
The Darcy entourage was a large one. Behind Darcy and Elizabeth’s coach was a second carriage which contained Darcy’s valet, Elizabeth’s maid, and trunks of clothes. There were footmen to guard the party from attack and outriders to go ahead of them and pay the tolls, so that when the Darcys arrived, the turnpike was open and the coach could pass straight through.
It was all very different from the journeys Elizabeth had taken with her family in the past. Then, she had been subjected to all the delays and discomforts which accompanied a less luxurious style of travel. She had been packed in with six other people who had laughed and squabbled, exclaimed or complained all the way.
The coach soon left Hertfordshire behind and they began to travel in a south-easterly direction. To begin with the road was familiar to Elizabeth. She had taken the same road the previous Easter when she had visited Charlotte at Rosings Parsonage. This time, however, she did not break her journey in London but continued straight on to Kent. The coach passed through towns and villages, but for the most part, it rolled through the countryside, which was rich with autumn fruitfulness. Blackberries glistened in the hedgerows, and apple trees, laden down with fruit, grew in the fields.
Darcy said little on the journey. He appeared to be thinking about something and Elizabeth did not like to disturb him. His look, at least, was not tormented, merely abstracted, and she found herself wondering if he were prey to strange moods.
She asked herself how much she knew of him, really. She had seen him at Netherfield and Rosings, and at his home in Derbyshire, but there had always been other people present and she knew that, in company, men were not always what they were alone. She had been alone with him as they had walked through the country lanes around Longbourn after their engagement, and yet even then they had not been truly alone: there had always been a neighbour going shopping, a farmer going to market, or a servant on an errand. But now it was just the two of them and Elizabeth found herself both excited and disturbed at the prospect of learning more about him. She wondered what other new facets of his character would be revealed over the coming weeks; she also wondered what further changes of plan there might be before the end of her wedding tour.
This thought led to another and she smiled.
Darcy looked at her enquiringly.
‘I was just thinking that I seem destined never to visit the Lake District,’ she said. ‘I was meant to be going there last year with my aunt and uncle, until my uncle’s business concerns made us change our plans. And now, the plans have been changed again. I wonder if I will ever see the lakes?’
‘I promise you we will go there, but if we don’t take the chance to visit the Continent now, then it might be years before we have the chance again. Napoleon might talk of peace but I have seen men like him before, and whatever they say, they think only of war. There is a small break in the hostilities. We must make the most of it.’
The light soon began to fade. Although the day had been warm, it was October and the days ended early. Darcy pulled down the blinds in the carriage but Elizabeth, eager to see the sunset, moved to stay his hand. He continued with his work, saying that they would be warmer when the blinds were drawn. There was something in the way he said it, some unusual quality in his voice, that made her unwilling to go against him.
They travelled on in silence and Elizabeth thought, with a vague sense of unease, that this was not what she had expected. She had been looking forward