Chapter Ten
They settled onto the bench together, the narrow seat forcing them closer than Elizabeth could bear, Anne’s stolen shoulder pressing against hers with casual familiarity that felt like violation.
Elizabeth’s borrowed hands trembled as she placed them on the smooth ivory keys, Anne’s fingers lacking the strength and dexterity Elizabeth had always taken for granted.
The parlour behind them hummed with conversation, Lady Catherine’s voice rising and falling with its characteristic authority, punctuated by Mr. Collins’s obsequious agreements.
Elizabeth could feel Darcy’s gaze on her back still, but she forced herself to ignore it.
She must do something, must keep up the appearances of being given instruction, lest Lady Catherine grew impatient with the silence.
Elizabeth pressed down on middle C, the note ringing out clear.
Her finger trembled against the key, Anne’s body betraying her even in this simple gesture, but the sound carried well enough.
She moved to the next note, then the next, building a simple ascending scale.
The repetition created a rhythmic pattern, each note distinct but the overall effect monotonous enough that the company behind them would lose interest quickly.
Under the cover of that simple music, Elizabeth leaned slightly closer to Anne and spoke, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Why did you do this?”
Anne’s stolen hands remained folded in her lap, and she did not look at Elizabeth directly, keeping her gaze fixed on the keys. But Elizabeth saw her own mouth curve into a smile, an expression of scornful amusement that Elizabeth had never worn. That looked utterly wrong on her face.
“Why?” Anne’s voice emerged just as quietly. “Because you had everything and you were wasting it.”
Elizabeth’s fingers faltered on the keys, striking B when she meant to hit C, the wrong note jarring. She forced herself to continue, to repeat the scale, to maintain the pretence.
“Everything,” Anne continued, and her tone carried genuine bitterness beneath the mockery.
“Health. Strength. The ability to walk across a room without trembling, to climb stairs without gasping for breath, to move through the world without being treated like fragile porcelain.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped even lower.
“You had a body that worked, Lizzy. And you took it entirely for granted.”
The use of Elizabeth’s familiar name from her own mouth felt obscene, a violation beyond even the theft of her body. Elizabeth’s hands shook harder, making the next attempt at the scale emerge choppy and uneven.
“That does not give you the right,” Elizabeth whispered fiercely.
Anne laughed, the sound emerging quiet and cruel.
“Right? What is right, except what power allows? I had the knowledge, the skill, the determination to take what I needed.” She turned her head slightly, just enough that Elizabeth could see the profile of her own face.
“I saw my opportunity and I seized it. That is all there is to right and wrong in this world.”
Elizabeth’s stomach turned at the casual callousness, at the complete absence of remorse. Anne spoke of theft and deception as though they were merely practical decisions, as though Elizabeth’s suffering meant nothing weighed against Anne’s desires.
She forced her fingers back to the keys, starting the scale again with deliberate slowness. Her mind raced even as her borrowed body struggled. She needed Anne to keep talking, needed to understand the full scope of what had been done to her and why.
“You could have had any number of bodies, I think,” Elizabeth said, keeping her voice steady with effort. “Why mine specifically? What did I do to earn your particular hatred?”
“Hatred?” Anne’s laugh came again, that same quiet cruelty. “I do not hate you, Lizzy. I pity you. All that beauty and vivacity, all that wit and charm, and you were too blind to see what was right in front of you.”
Elizabeth’s fingers struck several wrong notes in succession, the scale dissolving into near cacophony before she caught herself. She stared at the keys uncomprehendingly. What had she been blind to?
“You had Fitzwilliam Darcy dangling after you like a lovesick puppy,” Anne continued, and her voice carried genuine scorn now.
“The master of Pemberley, one of the finest estates in England, ten thousand a year and connections to half the nobility. He could not take his eyes off you. Could not stop talking about you. Could not rest until he had contrived to be wherever you were.”
The words struck Elizabeth with enough force that her hands fell away from the keys entirely, landing in her lap with a soft thump.
She sat frozen, her mind refusing to accept what Anne had said even as pieces began clicking into horrible place.
Darcy’s frequent presence at the parsonage.
His walks in the grove where he always seemed to encounter her.
His attention during dinner. His cousin’s attempts to speak well of him.
Charlotte had speculated on his possible interest, months ago in Hertfordshire, but the idea had seemed so absurd that Elizabeth had dismissed it.
“You are lying,” Elizabeth whispered, but the words emerged without conviction.
“Am I?” Anne turned to look at her fully now, Elizabeth’s own face displaying mocking pity.
“Then why does he seek out your company constantly? Why does he watch you with that hungry, desperate look when he thinks no one is observing?” She paused, letting the questions hang between them.
“He is in love with you, Lizzy. Utterly, completely, hopelessly in love. And you were too proud and blind to see it.”
Elizabeth’s lungs struggled to draw breath, Anne’s weak chest heaving with the effort.
Her mind spun, rejecting Anne’s claims even as evidence accumulated in support of them.
Darcy had been oddly attentive, had sought her out repeatedly, had shown signs of interest that Elizabeth had misinterpreted as disdain.
But love? The proud, disagreeable Mr. Darcy in love with her?
It was impossible. It had to be impossible. Yet Anne’s words carried the weight of informed observation, of someone who had been watching closely while Elizabeth had been oblivious.
“Even if it were true,” Elizabeth forced out, her voice emerging rough, “that still gives you no right to what you have done. To steal my body, my life, to trap me here while you take my place.”
“Rights again.” Anne shook her head with that same mocking expression. “You keep speaking of rights as though they mean something. I saw what I wanted, what I deserved, what should have been mine if fate had not cursed me with this failing body. And I took it. That is all there is.”
She reached out with Elizabeth’s strong, healthy hand and pressed down on middle C, the note ringing out clear.
“I will be Mrs. Darcy. I will be Mistress of Pemberley. I will have the life I was always meant to have, the life you were wasting through your stubborn pride and wilful blindness.” Anne’s smile widened into something terrible.
“And you, dear Lizzy, will fade away in the body I no longer need.”
Elizabeth’s vision swam, spots dancing at the edges as the full horror crashed over her. This was not temporary. Anne had no intention of ever reversing what she had done. She meant to keep Elizabeth’s body permanently, to marry Darcy in Elizabeth’s form.
“I will tell someone,” Elizabeth whispered desperately. “I will expose you. Will make them see the truth.”
“Will you?” Anne’s expression showed only amused contempt.
“And who will believe you? Mrs. Jenkinson already knows, but she will never speak of it. My mother will have you committed to an asylum if you start raving about body swapping and witchcraft. And Darcy...” She paused, her smile turning cruel.
“Darcy will be relieved to have an excuse to avoid marrying the mad Anne de Bourgh. He will sign the papers gladly and never think of you again.”
The truth of it settled over Elizabeth like a shroud. She tried to respond, tried to form some argument or threat, but her throat had closed with unshed tears, Anne’s body betraying her once again. She turned back to the pianoforte and placed trembling fingers on the keys, striking notes at random.
Behind them, someone laughed at something Lady Catherine had said. The pleasant sounds of after-dinner conversation continued, entirely oblivious to the nightmare unfolding at the pianoforte.
Anne’s smile widened further, Elizabeth’s mouth stretching into an expression of triumph. She leaned closer, her voice dropping to barely above a breath.
“I am going to enjoy this,” Anne whispered, and the words carried genuine pleasure beneath their cruelty.
“Being who I was always meant to be. Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Mistress of Pemberley. The woman who has everything: wealth, position, beauty, health, and a husband who will adore her until the day he dies.”
Elizabeth’s hands had begun to shake harder, the trembling spreading through Anne’s arms until her entire upper body quivered. She forced herself to stop striking random keys, to place her palms flat against the ivory to steady them.
“What about me?” The question emerged broken, barely audible. “What do you expect will happen to me?”
Anne tilted her head, studying Elizabeth with detached curiosity. “You will die, of course. That body has perhaps six months remaining, a year at the outside. The damage is too extensive to repair.”
The words landed with brutal simplicity, no softening, no false sympathy.
Elizabeth stared at Anne, at her own stolen face displaying calm certainty about Elizabeth’s death sentence, and felt something crack inside her chest. Six months.
Perhaps a year. Anne spoke of it as though discussing the weather.