Chapter 13
The storm had not broken, but the house glowed as if it meant to defy it.
Voices rose from the great hall—half of them tuneful, the rest merrily uncertain—as guests clustered round the pianoforte to rehearse Christmas carols.
Someone dragged in a ladder, someone else a fresh armful of mistletoe, and the crowd broke into laughter when the branches showered snow across the floor.
Elizabeth wound her way through the bustle, balancing a basket of hymnals.
She was halfway to her aunt when Colonel Fitzwilliam appeared before her, grinning like a man with a plot.
“Caught you again, Miss Bennet! You must lend your aid—we cannot have a proper rehearsal without the music books, and Darcy here has just offered his help as well, though I daresay he thought to attend the matter all himself. A bit of clever help never went amiss, eh?”
Darcy. The name struck her like a door closing.
He stood beside his cousin, polite to the point of cruelty—no warmth, no disdain, just the calm reserve that left her guessing what it cost him to stand there. Her breath caught before she could stop it. There was no graceful escape; refusal would draw notice, retreat would look like fear.
Colonel Fitzwilliam was already dividing the books, unaware of the small disaster he had set in motion. “There—half for you, half for Darcy. Between the two of you, we’ll have order in no time.”
Elizabeth’s hand went to the topmost stack just as his did.
The motion felt inevitable. She snatched hers back too quickly, an instinct born of every moment she’d ever stood too near him.
Her sleeve brushed the wool of his coat, and the contact—barely a whisper—burned hotter than any true touch could have done.
He hesitated, as if to apologise, but no words came. His eyes flicked to hers—one swift, searching glance that asked something she could not bear to answer.
Elizabeth turned back to the books, heart hammering in her throat. “I believe we will manage without a colonel’s supervision,” she said, meaning it for lightness, but her voice wavered.
“Indeed,” he replied quietly. The word fell between them like a stone dropped into deep water.
A silence followed—too deliberate to be comfortable. She could feel his attention without seeing it. Somewhere behind them, Colonel Fitzwilliam was entertaining Miss Montford with a story loud enough to rattle the china.
Elizabeth drew a breath. “I think he means to be kind,” she said softly. “It is only that his kindness has a way of making conversation impossible.”
“I know the feeling,” Darcy said. His tone was even, but the corner of his mouth tightened, betraying more than he meant.
She risked a glance toward him. “You bear it better than I do.”
“Not always,” he said. “Last night, for instance, I thought I had borne it badly enough.”
The words caught her off guard. She turned another book just to have something to hold. “You mean—Miss Kendrick?”
He hesitated. “I mean my own tongue.”
That silenced her again, but not with anger. The confession—small, strained—sounded almost like apology.
“I am sorry,” he said at last, so low she could scarcely hear him. “I would have spared you that evening if I could.”
She shook her head. “It is not yours to spare. The world will talk, Mr. Darcy. It amuses itself by measuring how little we deserve its notice.”
“And yet,” he said, his voice roughening, “you must bear the notice, while I am permitted to say nothing in your defence.”
She met his gaze then, sharp and searching. And she might have asked—might have probed a little more about what he might have said, but that the colonel’s laughter flared from the other corner, startling them both. Elizabeth turned back to the shelves, pretending to compare bindings.
“It is a mercy,” she said, forcing composure, “that he enjoys his own stories too much to notice when others fall silent.”
Darcy’s reply came low, almost a whisper. “Then perhaps we are safe—until he runs out of them.”
“Which may be never.”
He almost smiled. “Then let us be civil until the next interruption.”
“Civil,” she repeated, arranging the last book in its place. “Yes. We have grown quite expert in that.”
For a moment, their eyes met again—tired, wary, unwilling to look away. It was a truce only by necessity, yet the air between them hummed with everything civility could not contain.
A sudden chord burst from the pianoforte—too bright, too eager—and laughter followed.
Voices rose with God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, the melody swelling until the air itself seemed to hum.
Elizabeth reached for another stack of books, more for the motion than the need.
The titles blurred; her hands felt clumsy, aware of every inch between them and him.
Darcy passed a hymnal to a waiting guest, his sleeve brushing the fabric of her gown. The faint rasp of wool against muslin startled her—soft as breath, enough to set her pulse tripping. She drew back at once, the space between them colder than it should have been.
He shifted the last book toward her. “Miss Bennet—”
The words tangled. A heartbeat passed.
“You were prevailed upon to sing at Rosings last Easter,” he said finally, each syllable placed with care. “I remember my aunt—”He stopped, eyes flicking away. “She remarked on your performance.”
The effort was so careful, so deliberate, that her own composure settled in reflex.“I recall her remark very well,” she said. “She found my choice of song tolerable, though ill-suited to my style. It was, I think, the kindest thing she ever said to me.”
His mouth tightened. “She was unjust.”
“She was herself.” Elizabeth squared the corners of the stack, aligning them precisely. “I did not expect otherwise. For the most part, I went as unnoticed by her as anyone possibly could.”
Darcy hesitated. His thumb traced the edge of a hymnal he seemed to have forgotten he held. When he spoke again, his voice had roughened. “No. Underappreciated, perhaps. But you were not unnoticed.”
Elizabeth’s hand stilled. He had not looked at her when he said it, yet something in the tone—the weight behind those four words—stopped the air in her chest. She did not dare look up. The hush between them trembled with everything neither dared say.
She forced herself to laugh—too bright, too quick. “Then I am sorry for whoever noticed. It cannot have been a profitable observation.”
He gave a faint exhale, not quite a sigh. “I should not agree.”
Her throat went dry. She busied herself with the last stack, pretending confusion over where to place it. “You are very good,” she murmured, not meaning the words and hating that they sounded like surrender.
He looked as if he meant to answer, but Miss Hinton’s voice cut across the table. “Miss Bennet, you must join us—one cannot rehearse properly without every voice.”
Elizabeth caught the basket by its handle, grateful for the interruption, though it burned her pride to admit it. “My aunt is expecting me,” she said, already half turned.
Darcy shifted, his hand lifting a fraction, as if to step aside—or to stop her. But he let it fall.
The sound in the room swelled again: laughter, the clatter of benches, the harsh cheer of the next carol starting too high.
Elizabeth’s pulse still beat with the rhythm of their aborted talk.
She gathered her courage, but Colonel Fitzwilliam’s return scattered it—his easy good humour filled every gap, and the chance was gone.
She slipped back to her aunt’s side, the basket light on her arm, her body heavy with everything she had not said. Mrs. Gardiner smiled up at her, and Elizabeth found a seat beside her, willing her own face calm.
When she risked a glance once more, Darcy was across the room.
He stooped to gather a pile of fallen music, speaking to the flustered maid who had dropped it.
His hand steadied the weight in her arms, a brief, wordless kindness that passed unnoticed by everyone but Elizabeth. He had not looked her way—not once.
And yet that quiet, ordinary gesture caught her breath more surely than any compliment could have. He was a man of silences, but this one felt different—like something held back rather than withheld.
The music around her blurred into noise.
Once, he had spoken to her with warmth and wit—thought it had taken her some while to recognise those qualities.
Now every look, every silence, seemed an exercise in self-denial.
She told herself it was better this way—safer, wiser—but when the laughter rose again, she could not tell whether it was the crowd or her own heart that sounded the lonelier for it.
The storm had made the house a cage. Every room hummed with talk and laughter, but for Darcy it was only noise—too bright, too constant, too far from peace.
He was no gamester, no flatterer to hover over the ladies and pretend contentment.
His hands itched for something to do; his thoughts refused to obey. Wherever he looked, he found her.
Elizabeth.
She moved through the crowded rooms like a quiet current—never idle, never still, always just beyond his reach.
She bent to her aunt, helped overworked maids carry tea trays, shared a word here, a smile there.
To everyone else, she looked composed. To him, she looked as though she were holding herself together by will alone.
He saw everything: the moments she turned away before their eyes could meet, the way she laughed a beat too late, the little pause before she spoke—as if weighing what was safe to say within earshot of him.
Darcy crossed to the window, though he hardly saw what lay beyond it. Snow poured over the land in long, endless veils, erasing every line and path. They might be trapped here for days, perhaps longer. He felt it in his chest—not dread, not exactly—but a fever that had nowhere to go.
He could not stop looking for her.