Chapter 11
Darcy had spent the better part of the evening surrounded by people.
Every chamber seemed full, every conversation too loud, every face turned expectantly toward him or his cousin.
Even the corridors echoed with laughter and the rustle of gowns.
He had borne it as long as he could, but when the press of company grew too close, he slipped away, seeking a moment’s quiet.
The smaller parlour lay at the end of a dim passage, removed enough from the ballroom that he hoped for peace.
He pushed open the door with relief, already imagining the stillness of firelight and shadows.
It mattered little whether the room was furnished with comfort; any place where he could breathe unobserved would suffice.
But the air that met him was thick with smoke. The chimney had failed, and grey plumes curled low across the ceiling. A young servant stood at the hearth, flapping ineffectually at the fire with a folded cloth, eyes streaming from the sting.
“You will choke the whole house this way,” Darcy said. He dropped to one knee, took the poker from the boy, and shifted the half-burnt logs. “Fetch fresh wood, and mind the damper as you pass the kitchen. The draft must be cleared.”
The servant bobbed his head and vanished, leaving Darcy with the smouldering heap.
He relished the occupation. It was almost a relief to be forced into simple, physical effort—something that did not require conversation or false smiles.
He stirred the coals until sparks leapt and coughed as another puff of smoke curled into his face.
The latch clicked. He turned, expecting the boy.
But it was Elizabeth who appeared in the doorway.
For an instant Darcy thought the smoke had conjured her—her figure outlined by the glow, her face half in shadow, half caught by firelight.
The illusion broke as her eyes widened. She stopped short, drawing back a step as though she had stumbled upon some forbidden scene.
Darcy’s pulse jolted painfully. Her nearness was more perilous than the smoke itself. “The smoke will be gone presently,” he managed, his voice rasping from disuse and the sting of the air.
Her gaze flicked to the hearth, then to the chair beside it. “I came only for my aunt’s shawl,” she said, pointing with the smallest tilt of her chin. “She forgot it earlier.” The words were confident, but her body leaned almost imperceptibly toward the door, as if flight were the truer desire.
He stepped aside at once, widening the space between them. “There,” he said, and hated how curt it sounded.
She crossed the room with quick, efficient strides, gathered the shawl, and clutched it to her breast. For a heartbeat, Darcy thought she might escape without another word—but the fire gave a sharp crack, coughing another billow of smoke into the room.
Elizabeth coughed, blinking against the sting, and set the bundle down again as her hands clawed for her burning eyes.
“Has no one stoked that fire properly?” she coughed.
“Indeed, I—”
Before Darcy could reach for the hook, Elizabeth had already snatched it up. She bent quickly to the grate, still coughing against the smoke, and jabbed at the vent with more determination than skill. “I may as well be useful,” she muttered, half to herself.
Darcy froze, startled by her sudden energy, then crouched beside her. The very air seemed charged, the closeness unbearable and intoxicating at once. “Allow me—”
“I have it,” she said, rather sharply.
The hook slipped against the iron, the smoke curling thicker.
“You were already coughing,” Darcy asserted. “Please, Miss Bennet.”
He reached past her hand, steadying it with his own. Their fingers brushed, the contact brief but enough to send a jolt through him as he took the poker from her. The fire leapt; so did every nerve in his body. She drew back at once, her colour high, leaving him to angle the tool into place.
The log broke apart under his touch; fresh flame licked upward, carrying the smoke with it. The draft caught, and the room cleared in a rush of heat and light.
Silence followed, heavier than the smoke had been.
Darcy was acutely aware of her nearness—the rustle of her sleeve as she shifted back, the uneven rise of her breath, the way she would not look at him but could not yet flee.
One more word, one more glance, and he might betray everything he had sworn to keep hidden.
He ought to have let her go without another word. Instead, his concern betrayed him. “Mrs. Gardiner looked fatigued this evening.”
Elizabeth’s head turned sharply, her eyes bright with sudden heat. “She bears more than anyone knows. But I suppose you mean it was ill-judged to bring her here at all.”
The charge struck him like a blow. “I meant nothing of the kind,” he said quickly. “She seems a… a very kind—”
“That is what people say about the pitiful, you know.” Elizabeth was staring at the fire as she said it—arms crossed, cheek flickering as if biting back a stiffer retort.
“Pitiful?” Darcy stared at her, but she refused to break and look at him. “That is not at all what I thought. Is it… what others say?”
She gave a sound that was neither laugh nor sigh, and her composure failed at last. Words tumbled from her, stuttered and hurried, as though once loosed they could not be recalled.
“My aunt has always longed for children,” Her gaze was still fixed on the fire, but her eyes were softer now—feeling.
“Each time we hoped, each time we prayed, and each time she bore the loss with quiet courage. But this—this last one—has been harder than all the others. And, according to the doctors, final.”
Darcy nodded slowly, still waiting for her to look at him. “I am sorry.”
Elizabeth’s throat bobbed, and finally, she turned slightly. “The body may mend, but what of the heart? This is why we were coming north, you know. To let her have a bit of happiness that did not remind her of her grief. Time with a friend who can help her recall herself.”
“Ah,” he breathed. “I had wondered why…”
“Why we hazarded the roads at this time of year?” She shook her head and took the fire poker back—more to fiddle with the handle than to mend the blaze.
“It seems to have done her more harm than good, for the journey wore her rather thin. And when she arrived here, she was so weary that people who just met her looked at her and saw only frailty. They speak to her kindly, but always as though she were some invalid. They cannot see that it is grief, not weakness, that has undone her, and how shall she make herself happy again when she is treated as a sick woman?”
Darcy scarcely breathed. Her voice cut through him with more force than any accusation ever had.
She was fire and steel, and grief, and he loved her all the more for it.
The fire snapped in the grate, but the sound of it seemed far away.
He could not look away from her face, lit unevenly by the flames, every word weighted with pain and defiance.
At last, she drew in a sharp breath, as if suddenly aware of herself, and gripped the shawl in her lap with needless force.
“I do not know why I tell you this. It can mean nothing to you, and I cannot imagine why I should think you would care. Only—I wished that someone might know my aunt for what she is, not what the world supposes.”
“Miss Bennet, I think… I hope, at least… that you know enough of me to think me capable of seeing a person for their substance, not superficialities.”
She turned to peer at him somewhat more intently. “Are you, Mr. Darcy? I had not yet settled that matter.”
Darcy’s throat closed. He wanted to speak, to assure her, to tell her that he cared more, saw more, knew more, than he had any right.
The words trembled on his lips, dangerous, desperate—but to speak them would undo them both.
Yet no words formed. To reveal so much would betray him, and to say less would make a mockery of her confidence.
She gathered the shawl at last, smoothing its folds with quick fingers. “Well. At least she will be warmer for this,” she said, her tone lighter, though her eyes did not rise to meet his.
He bowed his head, unwilling to trust his voice. She left the room, her step brisk, her shoulders taut.
Darcy remained by the hearth, staring into the fire as it burned clear and steady at last. The smoke was gone, yet the sting in his eyes endured. It was not the fire that blinded him now, but the truth he could not speak.
The air outside bit at Darcy’s face, but he welcomed the sting.
It cut through the fog of crowded rooms and false merriment.
Behind him, Kelton’s windows burned with candlelight, squares of gold against the snow.
Within those walls, he had stood too near Elizabeth, had heard her voice break as she spoke of her aunt’s grief, had watched her forced into a scene of public humiliation while he could do nothing but make it worse. Out here at least, the cold was honest.
A groom handed him a small hatchet, and Darcy set to work on a holly bough, striking harder than necessary. The thud of wood against blade steadied him. Richard appeared beside him, humming a tune, cheerful as though they had not been driven from the warmth by an overcrowded house.
“She seems altered,” Richard said at last, tossing a trimmed branch onto the growing heap. “Miss Bennet, I mean. I remember her in Kent—ready to laugh at anything, even Lady Catherine herself. I do not think I heard her laugh once today, not truly.”
Darcy’s hand stilled on the branch. The image of Elizabeth’s strained smile in the ballroom rose before him, and the echo of her forced levity struck him like a stone. He bent his head and struck the wood again, too cleanly this time, the cut biting deep.
“One might suppose,” Richard continued, “she feels out of place among so many strangers.”
“You know her better than that,” Darcy growled.
Richard sighed. “Indeed, I do, and I wondered if you still did. Then it is true—she hides her light under a basket for fear of shame?”
Darcy closed his eyes. “The one person in that house who deserves to be heard…”
“A word from you could mend that, you know. You have a way of silencing a room.”
Darcy ground his teeth. He imagined it—speaking in her defence openly, commanding silence from every whisperer.
It would cost him nothing; he had the authority to do it.
But to what end? To tie her name to his, when hers was already burdened?
To raise hope where he had no right to give it, no faith that she would even want it?
Richard hefted another branch. “Or, if she dislikes notice, I could contrive to keep the worst of the company away from her. An extra word here or there, a little diversion—”
“Enough.” Darcy’s voice cracked out, harsher than he meant, and the groom leading the next horse startled at the sound. Richard’s brows rose, but he said nothing.
Darcy gripped the hatchet until the leather of the handle bit his palm.
He turned away, fixing his eyes on the house.
Against the glare of firelit windows, he thought—perhaps only thought—that one shadow lingered at the glass of an upper chamber.
Was it her? Did she watch the yard below as he stood among grooms and branches, longing to go to her and knowing he must not?
He forced his gaze back to the holly in his hand. To hope was folly. She would not look for him now—unless it was to wonder why he had not warned her sooner, why he had failed her family as he had failed his sister.
Darcy swung the hatchet again. The branch split clean, but the weight pressing in his chest did not ease.
Richard studied him for a moment, then tossed his own bough aside. “You are not yourself, cousin. Seeing her again—” He broke off, perhaps gauging Darcy’s expression. “It cannot be easy.”
Darcy straightened, forcing the air deep into his lungs, forcing composure onto his face. “I am well enough.” The lie tasted bitter, but he would not confess more. Not here, not even to Richard.
His cousin frowned but let it pass, bending to gather the cuttings. Darcy turned once more toward the house, its windows blazing warm against the night. The shadow in the upper chamber had vanished. Whether it had been Elizabeth or only his imagination, he would never know.
What he did know was this: as long as they both remained at Kelton, every hour would be a battle between longing and restraint—and he was not certain which would undo him first.