Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Elizabeth woke to cold sheets and silence. No warmth beside her, no steady breathing, no presence at all. The fire had died to ash. Grey dawn filtered through heavy curtains, painting everything the color of old pewter.
Good. She could hardly face her reflection now, much less him.
She dressed with trembling fingers, yanking at buttons and laces.
Her gown from last night lay crumpled on the floor—evidence of how he'd stripped it from her body.
She found it by tripping over it. The fabric caught on her heel and she stumbled, catching herself against the bedpost. His scent rose from the sheets, his chocolate, autumn warmth. Instead of calming her, it alarmed her.
Panic clawed up her throat. She needed to leave. Now.
Elizabeth flew from his chambers without checking the corridor first. Fortune favored her—no servants stirred yet.
Her bare feet made no sound on the carpet as she ran, hair streaming loose behind her.
She didn't stop at her own room. Couldn't. If she paused, if she thought, she'd shatter completely.
Mr. Bennet's bedroom door stood closed. She knocked frantically upon the wood. Her father opened the door in his dressing gown.
"Papa, I need to speak with you. Privately. Urgently."
His eyebrows rose at her wild appearance—disheveled hair, yesterday's gown, feet bare on the cold floor.
"Lizzy? Whatever is the matter? Come in, come in."
She closed the door as soon as she darted inside. Leaned against it. Drew a shaking breath.
"I'm an omega." The words fell like stones into still water. "My presentation happened here at Netherfield. My heat—it's coming. We must leave immediately."
"Omega?" There was no room for more alarm on his face. "But you've always been—how long have you known?"
The lie came smooth as silk, practiced in her mind during that frantic run through the corridors.
"Only just realized last night. The symptoms." Her nails dug crescents into her palms. "Papa, please. We must go before—before anyone realizes."
Before she had to face Darcy again. Before she ruined a good man's character even further.
All traces of Mr. Bennet's usual languid manner was gone.
"I'll have the carriage brought round within the hour."
"Half an hour," Elizabeth pressed. "Please, Papa. I cannot—I cannot remain here."
Something in her voice, in her face, made him nod sharply.
"Half an hour."
The departure exploded into chaos. Mrs. Bennet's shrieks echoed through Netherfield's halls as servants scrambled to pack trunks and ready the carriage.
"But we were to stay another three days! Jane will be so disappointed! What shall we do for Christmas when I have not yet ordered anything? And the weather has finally cleared—"
"We leave within the half hour, Mrs. Bennet." Mr. Bennet's tone brooked no argument. "Lizzy has taken ill."
"Ill? She looks perfectly—"
"We. Are. Leaving."
Elizabeth avoided everyone, slipping back to her room.
She threw belongings into her trunk without care—stockings tangled with ribbons, books crushing bonnets.
The breakfast room lay between her and the entrance hall.
She knew he'd be there, maintaining appearances, enduring Caroline's simpering attention while she'd destroyed his peace forever.
Jane found her in the entrance hall, already wrapped in her travelling cloak.
"Lizzy!" Her sister pulled her into an embrace that smelled of berries and maple—suddenly cloying, too sweet. Elizabeth's stomach lurched. "My goodness, you're so pale."
Elizabeth nodded mutely, not trusting her voice. Jane's worried eyes searched her face.
"Papa told me… Is it true?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Oh, sister." Jane clasped her again. "All will be well. This will be something to celebrate—but later, later, of course."
The carriage wheels had barely started turning before Mr. Bennet informed them the true reason of their departure, and in the next breath, Mrs. Bennet's lamentations began.
"If only you had presented in front of Mr. Darcy, Lizzy!
Just think—ten thousand a year! Though I suppose it's for the best." She sniffed, adjusting her gloves with theatrical precision.
"He is such a disagreeable, proud man. Far too serious.
So severe! You'd never suit. No, you need someone with humor, someone who appreciates your impertinence. "
"Indeed, my dear. Mr. Darcy seems the type to expect his wife to be seen and not heard. All that brooding intensity. Most unpleasant in a husband."
"Still, ten thousand a year..."
Every word carved deeper. Elizabeth drove her nails into flesh until pain bloomed. Netherfield shrank into the distance. How desperately she wished to correct them—Darcy was everything good, everything honorable, everything kind. Instead she sat mute, suffering through each false accusation.
Soon, Elizabeth was staring at the worn coverlet on her childhood bed.
The room felt smaller than she remembered, its faded wallpaper closing in like a cage.
But a cage meant safety now—safety from herself, from what she'd become, from the shame that clung to her skin despite scrubbing herself raw in the copper tub.
"For your own protection," Papa had said, turning the key in the lock. The click echoed like a judgment.
She'd nodded, grateful for the excuse to hide.
The first hours passed peacefully enough. Elizabeth forced herself to eat the cold meat and bread Hill left outside her door, though every bite tasted like ash. She picked at the pages of Mansfield's Guide to Omega Physiology, a slim volume her father had procured from somewhere.
The omega's heat follows the moon's pull, typically lasting three to five days during first presentation...
Three to five days. This was day four. Soon it would end. Soon she could pretend those nights at Netherfield never happened.
She wouldn't think about dark chocolate and autumn leaves. Wouldn't remember gentle hands and desperate control. Wouldn't—
The book slipped from her fingers as afternoon shadows lengthened across the floor. That familiar ache began low in her belly, spreading like spilled ink through her limbs. No. Not yet. She had hours before sundown, before—
But her body knew better. The moon pulled at her blood like the tide, and she was drowning.
When the sun touched the horizon, Elizabeth pressed her face into her pillow to muffle her sobs.
This was worse—so much worse—than anything at Netherfield.
Her body remembered his touch with vicious clarity.
Every nerve screamed for what it had tasted and lost. She clawed at the sheets, at her own skin, trying to find some echo of relief.
Nothing helped. Nothing could help. Not without—
Better this way, she told herself through gritted teeth. Better to burn alone than destroy him.
Because that's what she'd done, wasn't it?
Forced a good man to compromise his principles.
Made him touch her when duty alone compelled him.
She'd begged—God, she'd actually begged—for his bite, his claim.
As if Fitzwilliam Darcy would ever willingly bind himself to a nobody from Hertfordshire who'd rejected him, insulted him, then thrown herself at him in heat like some common—
The thought cut off as another wave crashed over her. She bit her hand to keep from screaming.
Hours bled together. Time lost meaning beyond the rhythm of need and denial, fever and brief respite. When dawn came, Elizabeth lay limp as wet paper, barely able to lift her head when Hill knocked with breakfast.
Day five arrived with cruel mockery. The primer said her heat should be ending.
Her body disagreed. She dozed fitfully through the afternoon, too exhausted to read, too uncomfortable to properly sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, she felt phantom touches—his hands on her throat, his mouth on her skin, his weight pressing her into expensive sheets that smelled like him.
At least he was free. Whatever gossip Caroline spread, whatever speculation arose from their sudden departure, Darcy's reputation would survive intact.
No one would ever know how she'd degraded herself, degraded him.
He could marry some proper omega who wouldn't assault his control, who wouldn't make him hate himself for helping her.
She was contemplating whether she could manage to read when voices erupted downstairs. The front door, raised voices, her mother's shrill protests mixing with—
Jane.
Elizabeth forced herself upright as footsteps approached up the stairs. The lock clicked, and Jane eased through the doorway.
"Oh, Lizzy." Jane's gaze swept the disordered room—the twisted sheets, the untouched breakfast tray, the primer fallen beneath the bed. She crossed to Elizabeth in three quick strides, settling beside her on the mattress. "My dear, how are you managing? What can I do?"
"Seeing you helps immensely," Elizabeth said, forcing a smile.
Jane wasn't convinced. "Tell me really—how is it?"
The gentle concern in Jane's voice nearly undid her.
Elizabeth's forced smile crumbled, and she turned her face into her sister's shoulder, breathing in that familiar scent of berries and maple that had surrounded her since childhood.
How many times had Jane held her like this?
After scraped knees, after arguments with Mama, after disappointments both small and large?
"It's bearable," Elizabeth whispered against Jane's sleeve. "It should end soon."
Jane's arms tightened around her. "That's not what I asked."
Elizabeth pulled back, meeting those kind blue eyes that never held judgment, never held censure. The guilt rose thick in her throat.
"Jane, I—" Her voice cracked. "I've behaved so abominably. Under your roof. During your first days as mistress of Netherfield."
"Whatever do you mean?"