Chapter Thirty #2
“No physician approved those concentrations,” Fitzwilliam replied, and something in his expression told Anne he knew she was lying.
“Nor would any reputable doctor prescribe substances that left you too foggy to think clearly. Aunt Catherine was quite outraged when Lady Matlock and I discussed those ‘tonics’ with her and explained what they would have been doing to you. Or rather, to Elizabeth.”
He moved closer to the bed, not quite within arm’s reach but near enough that Anne had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. His face showed no anger, no heat that might suggest his feelings could be swayed. Only cold certainty and grim purpose.
“Darcy has arranged a house for you in Bath,” Fitzwilliam continued, and Anne’s chest constricted at the mention of Darcy’s name.
Her Darcy, who should have been her husband, who should have been showing her Pemberley instead of conspiring with Elizabeth to destroy Anne’s future.
“You and Lady Catherine will remove there within the week, ostensibly for your health. The mineral waters are thought beneficial for consumptive complaints.”
Bath. They were sending her to Bath, away from London and any chance of accessing the resources she needed.
“My mother would never agree to such an arrangement,” Anne said, hearing her voice rise despite her best efforts at control. “She is far too attached to Rosings to consider residing anywhere else.”
“Your mother is in complete agreement with this course of action,” Fitzwilliam replied, and the gentleness that crept into his tone somehow made his words more terrible.
“She is genuinely concerned for your health, Anne. Your collapse yesterday frightened her badly. She believes the stress of London society has been too much for your constitution, that you need a more beneficial environment even than Rosings, access to the best doctors who reside in Bath, caring for the invalids there.”
Of course Lady Catherine believed that. Of course she had accepted whatever story they had fed her about Anne’s wellbeing. Her mother had always been easy to manipulate when it came to concerns about Anne’s health.
“Mrs. Jenkinson is being sent overseas,” Fitzwilliam added.
“India, I believe, where she has been secured a position as companion to a diplomat’s wife.
The voyage will take several months, and the position is expected to last for years.
She will not be returning to England any time soon.
And frankly, she should consider herself fortunate, but Lady Catherine was determined to do something for her, in return for her years of loyal service to the de Bourgh family. ”
Anne felt something crack inside her chest, some last fragile hope. India. They were sending her to the other side of the world, ensuring Anne would have no access to the one person who truly understood what she had tried to accomplish and why.
“You had no right,” Anne whispered, her voice emerging raw with emotion she could no longer contain. “No right to dismiss my companion, to arrange my life without consultation, to conspire against me.”
“We have every right,” Fitzwilliam replied, his tone hardening slightly. “You are unwell, Anne. Your judgement has been compromised by your illness and by the desperation it has bred. The arrangements being made are for your own protection as much as anyone else’s.”
The words were carefully chosen, Anne recognised. Designed to sound like concern while actually announcing her imprisonment.
“The new staff in Bath have specific instructions,” Fitzwilliam continued, and Anne heard finality in his voice.
“They are to ensure you take only approved medications, that you are never left alone for extended periods, that any unusual requests or behaviours are reported immediately to either Darcy or myself. You will be comfortable, Anne. But you will be watched.”
Anne’s breathing had grown ragged, her lungs struggling to process air through the tightness in her chest. They had thought of everything.
Had anticipated every possible avenue she might use to attempt another body swap and closed them all systematically.
The grimoire was lost, Mrs. Jenkinson removed, her mother convinced this was all for Anne’s benefit, new staff installed who would monitor her every move.
She was trapped. Not just in this failing body but in a situation designed specifically to keep her powerless, to ensure she could never again attempt what she had so briefly achieved.
Anne’s hands had begun to shake, and this time the trembling had nothing to do with the weakness that plagued her.
Fury coursed through her veins with heat that made her skin flush.
She pushed herself upright again, ignoring the protest of muscles, ignoring the spinning in her head that warned of imminent collapse.
She would not lie here docile and accepting while they dismantled her life. Would not submit to imprisonment in Bath while Elizabeth lived the future that should have been Anne’s.
Anne swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet finding the carpet. She tried to stand, pushing herself up with arms that shook violently under the strain. For a moment she succeeded, her knees locked and her body upright through sheer force of will.
“This is wrong,” Anne said, hearing her voice emerge too loud, too shrill, hysteria breaking through the careful control she had maintained.
“You are all conspiring against me. Elizabeth has poisoned you, turned you all against someone who only wanted what she had wasted, what she took for granted.”
Her voice rose with each word. “She had everything! Health, strength, a body that worked as bodies should work. She could walk without assistance, could breathe without conscious effort, could exist in the world without constant awareness of mortality hanging over every moment. And what did she do with those gifts? Nothing! She wasted them on provincial society and walks through muddy fields and impertinent refusals of men who were far above her station. She did not even like Darcy, the stupid girl, too stubborn to recognise that he loved her!”
Anne’s legs began to buckle, but she fought against the weakness with everything she had left.
“I would have made something of that body. Would have lived the life it deserved, would have been mistress of Pemberley and mother to Darcy’s children and everything I was meant to be if not for this cursed flesh that has imprisoned me since birth.
She stole that from me! She and her sister with their conspiracy to keep me trapped in this dying shell. ”
The words poured out of her now, unstoppable, years of resentment and rage finding voice.
“Darcy was mine! He was always meant to be mine, promised to me since childhood, the one thing my mother assured me would be worth surviving for. And Elizabeth took him with her witchery and her supposedly fine eyes and her impertinence.”
Anne’s vision had narrowed to a grey tunnel, her hearing muffled as her strength failed, the last of it consumed by her rage.
But still she continued, her voice raw now, breaking on words that emerged as much sob as accusation.
“It is all her fault. She should have died in my body as she was supposed to, should have accepted the fate I arranged for her and left me in peace to live the life I earned through years of suffering. But no. She had to fight back, had to find impossible ingredients and brew impossible potions and steal back what I had claimed fairly through my own cleverness.”
Her knees gave way entirely then, her body crumpling despite her desperate attempts to remain standing.
Anne fell more than sat back onto the bed, her slight weight bouncing once before settling into the pillows that had been arranged to support her.
The impact drove what little air remained from her lungs, leaving her gasping like a landed fish while black spots danced across her vision.
The rage that had sustained her through the outburst drained away as quickly as it had come, leaving only exhaustion so complete that even keeping her eyes open felt impossible.
Anne’s chest heaved with the effort of drawing breath, each inhalation bringing insufficient oxygen no matter how desperately she pulled air into damaged lungs.
Her heart hammered against her ribs with an irregular rhythm that suggested it might simply give up entirely, stop beating and end this nightmare of returned imprisonment.
Perhaps that would be better, Anne thought distantly.
Perhaps death would be preferable to living the rest of her abbreviated life under constant surveillance in Bath while Elizabeth enjoyed everything that should have been Anne’s.
At least death would be final, would end the suffering that had defined her entire existence.
“Are you finished?” Fitzwilliam asked, his voice coming from somewhere near the foot of the bed. He did not sound angry or disturbed by her outburst. Only patient, as though he had expected exactly this reaction and had waited for it to run its course.
Anne made some sound that might have been agreement or might have been simply another desperate gasp for air. Her body had begun to shake again, this time from exhaustion and oxygen deprivation rather than fury. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead.
She heard Fitzwilliam move closer. The bed dipped slightly as he sat on its edge, far enough away that their bodies did not touch but near enough that Anne could feel warmth radiating from him.
It made her want to weep, that casual display of vitality that he took completely for granted while she struggled simply to remain conscious.
“Open your eyes, Anne,” Fitzwilliam said quietly.