Chapter 27
Elizabeth startled awake with an ear-shattering slam.
An insect buzzed by her temple, and she swatted at it. A buzz that did not belong in her bedchamber crescendoed, pushing all but one thought out of her mind.
Bees.
Another bee buzzed by her face, then two, three, more than she could count.
Her pulse galloped, choking her with panic.
Calm. She needed to calm herself. Bees reacted to aggression.
Shaking her head to discourage the bees from landing on her, she shrank under her covers, pulling the blankets over her and tucking the edges under firmly.
Relax. Relax and listen, she repeated to herself over and over.
She was not dreaming. The beehive in her bedchamber was not a figment of her imagination.
Her father had told her that bees react to panic and abrupt movements.
She needed to maintain calm and act sensibly — difficult when she felt an insect crawl down her bare arm.
Muttering an apology, she wrapped her fingers around the blanket’s fabric and squished the intruder, praying that it was not the queen for her father’s sake.
She could shout for help.
As soon as she thought it, she knew the plan was not a good one. Whoever opened her door was certain to get stung, and the house would be infested with bees.
If she could slowly make her way to the window, she could open it and the bees would leave. She would give them plenty of time — an hour? Two? — then she would cross her room to the door and pray she had waited long enough to lift her covers.
If only her bed were closer to the door or to the window, her decision would be much easier. But her bed was in the middle, the window to the right, the door to her left.
Where was the hive? Logic told her by the window. Between her bed and the window, where someone had tossed it. On purpose.
Someone really did want her dead.
Fear squeezed the air out of her lungs, coiled in her stomach. She could not breathe. Could do nothing with the heavy blankets stifling her. She kicked her feet free, a prick and the throbbing of flesh on her ankle recalling Elizabeth to her senses.
To remove the blanket meant certain death. But she could not endure this panic and uncertainty for hours.
Risking a few more stings, she wrapped the blankets as firmly as she could around her and lowered herself to the floor.
Inch by agonizing inch, she shuffle tucked shuffle tucked over to the door, feeling for the familiar grooves through the blankets.
When she found the crack between the frame and the wall, she leaned against it and pounded her fist, praying the maid or Mrs. Hill would hear the muffled sound.
Elizabeth pounded until her arm fell heavy at her side, and her longing to inhale fresh air overwhelmed her.
Pressing her ear against the door, she listened. Nothing.
Calming her heart and inhaling what stagnant air she could, she pounded more. Until her body was slick with sweat.
Gasping in the stifling heat trapped with her, she listened again, crying out when she heard Mrs. Hill’s heavy footstep approaching. The latch rattled and the door pressed against her, but Elizabeth leaned harder against it. “Mrs. Hill, please fetch Papa—”
“Miss Lizzy? Are you well? I cannot hear you, and something is blocking the door.” Another shove Elizabeth braced herself against.
Shouting through the covers, Elizabeth repeated, “Fetch Papa! Only Papa! There is a beehive in my room.”
That, Mrs. Hill heard. She exclaimed all the way down the hall to the tempo of her swift staccato steps.
Elizabeth exhaled, leaning limply against the door, her relief draining her more than the door-pounding.
Another few minutes passed before her father tapped on the oak barrier. “Lizzy, I am here. You say there is a beehive in your room?”
“Yes. Do not attempt to open the door,” she shouted.
A moment of silence, then, “I will have to extract the hive from outside. Can I reach the hive from the window?”
“I cannot see past the blankets protecting me.” She wrapped her hand around her throat. Her voice would give out soon.
“No matter, my dear girl. Stay where you are. Do not move. I will extract the hive.”
She waited and waited. And waited. Hours passed, or what felt like hours, when finally, she heard a thud from the other side of her room.
The ladder. She thought she heard her father grunting and imagined him reaching for the hive, protected with coarse, white canvas and gauzy bridal lace. Her hero.
He mumbled the entire time, his soft voice soothing his precious subjects of study and her nerves … until her fear abated, allowing space to return to more sinister realizations.
Fitzwilliam had been right to worry about her. Papa was right.
A few stings were nothing, but hundreds were deadly.
This assault was directed at her. In her bedchamber. The carriage sabotage, while seemingly impartial, must also have been meant for her.
To keep her from marrying Fitzwilliam? Who despised her enough to want her dead?
She pondered, the buzzing dwindling as the minutes ticked. For all Elizabeth knew, a day had passed since the slam of her window startled her awake.
A tap vibrated her door. “Lizzy, I have put the hive inside my experimental skeps. It is not how I hoped to attract the swarm, but the queen is alive, so there is a chance they will accept their new residence.”
Was that what had taken him so long? Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Is it safe?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“You will need to allow me inside to look.”
Elizabeth inched away from the door, feeling the edge press against her and hearing the brush of her father slipping through the narrow opening, then the click of the door to the passage closing. Still, she waited to remove the blanket. “Is it safe?” she repeated.
“If you are calm, I would say so. There are only a dozen or so more bees remaining to find their way through the window. Did you suffer many stings? I brought wax and liniment.”
Slowly, she pulled the blanket over her head, her first breath tasting like heaven and reviving her wilted limbs.
Papa held the melted candle over the feverish red bumps on her feet, pouring the wax and blowing on them before peeling away the trapped stingers. The liniment wreaked of camphor, but Elizabeth would have bathed in it for the relief it provided.
“You were fortunate,” he said. “Only five stings. Do you feel any others? I can send for Mrs. Hill to help you.”
“No. That is all of them.” She had had plenty of time to feel for painful bumps.
He cupped her chin in his cold hand, not saying anything, just looking at her.
Tears burned Elizabeth’s eyes. She tried to blink them away, feeling foolish for crying now that the ordeal was done.
Papa released her chin, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “It would seem that Mr. Darcy was wise to be cautious. First, the carriage. And now, this … this savage attack, this … brutal attempt to murder.”
A violent shiver shook Elizabeth from head to toe, and she burrowed into her father’s side, seeking solace. Sanity. Safety. Was she willing to risk her life to marry a man she could not remember?
She knew the answer the instant the question crossed her mind.
Yes.
Elizabeth did not understand how her heart remembered what her mind held under lock and key. She was not certain it mattered anymore, and Elizabeth was too weak to deny admitting what she had known all along.
She had never stopped loving Fitzwilliam Darcy.