Chapter Nine
It had been a matter of days since I’d last seen Kitty, but the sight of her still took away my breath.
I’d been avoiding looking directly at her, delaying the moment until I knew I’d be able to focus solely on her.
She was hovering in the doorway, shuffling her weight awkwardly.
Even as Elizabeth said her name, she did not raise her eyes from the floor.
“Miss Darcy,” Kitty said, curtseying painfully formally.
Her tone was so void of affection, nothing like the Kitty from the shell grotto, not even like the Kitty I had first met in Pemberley’s drawing room.
All the hope that had been building in my chest came crashing down at once.
My throat was bubbling with things I wanted to say, questions I wanted to ask, but none of it could be voiced in the presence of our families.
I could not trust myself to say her name without my voice betraying me, so I greeted her with a nod. She still wasn’t truly looking at me.
If anyone noticed the strange way we were acting, they didn’t mention it.
Mary disappeared the second she was no longer being directly addressed, and Mrs. Bennet clearly found my brother of more interest than me.
She insisted on showing him to his and Elizabeth’s room herself, despite the house being one with which Elizabeth was rather familiar.
Left alone in the sitting room, Kitty and I sat in silence. She’d raised her gaze from the floor but now focused it on the door as if she was longing to leave through it. With my knee still injured, I wouldn’t have been able to stop her.
This was nothing like the way I’d envisioned it.
The second we were alone, I thought perhaps she might want to kiss me again.
Her letter had been so fond, but there was nothing in her demeanour that echoed the warmth of those words.
I had no idea what I could have done to upset her while not even in her presence.
I could only assume she’d had time to think things over.
Overt affection between women in that way wasn’t acceptable.
Anyone who dwelled on the idea would come to the same conclusion.
It was something I had come to terms with and elected to ignore, but if Kitty had decided otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair to judge her.
Trying to find the words to explain that I understood her decision, I fiddled with the cuff of my spencer. It was Kitty who broke the silence, speaking only after she had taken a deep breath and turned towards me. Her gaze still landed somewhere near my shoulder.
“How’s your leg?” she asked, gesturing to where it was stretched out in front of me.
I didn’t think about her pushing up my skirts, or touching my skin. I didn’t think about her kissing me, pulling the pins from my hair, leaving me breathless. The only person I was torturing was myself.
“Fine,” I said, but I couldn’t bear the silence that followed, so I added more words but no further information. “Better. It doesn’t hurt so much.”
“I’ll leave you to rest,” she said, fleeing the same way Mary had gone earlier.
I resisted the urge to cry, pulling a cushion into my lap to trace the inelegant needlework. Perhaps it was Kitty who was responsible for the clumsy depiction of roses. I certainly could not imagine Elizabeth sitting still long enough to get through more than one petal.
As much as I wanted to ask Darcy to allow me to return home, I’d need to explain why my visit had been such a short one when I’d been so determined to accompany him.
There was no way I could spin a story that avoided the truth but stayed in the realm of believability.
Things were getting so hopelessly tangled.
I was stranded at Longbourn House until my brother returned to Pemberley.
When I heard footsteps on the stairs, I couldn’t help the speed with which I looked up, hoping Kitty would come through the doorway. Instead it was Mrs. Bennet who bustled into the room, evidently done with settling in Elizabeth and Darcy.
“Right, my dear,” she said. “Jane and Mr. Bingley will be arriving this evening, so I’m afraid we’re running a little short on rooms.”
This was my chance to go home. I could insist to Darcy that my presence was the imposition he’d feared, beg him to let me return to Pemberley so the Bennet family wouldn’t have me under their feet at a time of great unhappiness and anxiety.
I was about to express my deep apologies to Mrs. Bennet and offer my solution, when she delivered the worst resolution I could have imagined in that moment.
“Kitty’s letters home mentioned how marvellously the two of you were getting on, so I’m sure you’ll have no problem sharing her room. Lydia’s old bed is still in there, and it’s all made up for you.”
I had to force myself to remember to express my gratitude for her hospitality, all the while my lungs were threatening to choke me in their hurry to circulate air.
An hour ago, I would have been unspeakably thrilled at the idea of sharing a room with Kitty.
There was little chance of sneaking away to the library together for late-night conversation in a house so bursting with people, but we wouldn’t need to sneak anywhere if we were already in the same room.
Except something had clearly changed. Kitty didn’t want me there.
If I couldn’t flee to Pemberley and we were going to be in such close quarters, I could not simply ignore Kitty, even if she sought to ignore me.
Perhaps I had misread the tone of her letter, but I was certain I had not imagined her kiss.
I would not pursue something she didn’t desire herself, but we both needed confirmation of secrecy from the other.
When Mrs. Bennet offered to have me shown to my room, to Kitty’s room, I accepted.
If the last person I wanted to see turned up at my house, I would hide myself in the room in which I felt safest. Kitty had never spoken of having a particular affinity for any potential parlours or libraries that Longbourn House might have so, particularly considering the absence of her younger sister, I imagined Kitty’s more desperate escapes would be made to her bedroom.
Sure enough, when the Bennets’ maid knocked on the door before calling out and pushing it open, Kitty was scrambling off her bed.
She shook out her skirts in an attempt to calm the wrinkles one got in their clothes from curling up into a ball.
“Miss Darcy, miss,” the maid announced me, before curtseying and taking her leave.
I’d meant to ask her to check on how Emma was settling in amongst the Longbourn staff, but she was gone before I got the chance. Kitty seemed minded to race after her, inching towards the door.
“I will not tell anyone,” I assured her quickly. “If that is what’s concerning you. I have just as much to lose.”
If not more.
I didn’t verbalise the addendum, but we both understood it even so.
I wasn’t entirely sure it mattered. I had a fortune and a higher social standing, but we would both end up in the same place if we fell.
We risked ostracization from our families, with no friends to take us in.
Without money or shelter, it was a bleak reality at best and a short one at worst. I could hardly blame Kitty for fearing it.
I assumed the floorboards had been the same for the entirety of Kitty’s residence in the room, but she still seemed to find them greatly more fascinating than she found me.
“Are you going to ignore me forever?” I asked, tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. “I’m sorry. I never meant to… I… Please, Kitty. If I made you uncomfortable, please forgive me. I won’t… I won’t talk to you, won’t even be alone with you if you’d rather it that way.”
It wasn’t a promise I was entirely sure I’d be able to keep, given the proximity of the bed I’d been allocated, but I would have said anything to get her to look at me. Yet she still didn’t. Instead she clenched her fingers around the fabric of her skirts, her knuckles turning white from the force.
I thought perhaps she meant to ignore me until I left, but then she reached out and took my hand.
A far cry from the strength with which she’d gripped her dress, her touch on my skin was featherlight and almost reverent.
Her fingers ghosted over mine as she coaxed my hand to her mouth, gentle lips brushing against my knuckles.
I felt a crackle of something warm and exciting at the contact, and I was unable to stop the smile that tugged at the corner of my mouth.
Until I realised her touch wasn’t doting affection.
The shift of the angle of her neck allowed me to get a glimpse of her face.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, dripping to the floor when they reached her chin.
If she was scared, confused, or overwhelmed, I understood entirely—it had all felt the same when I was coming to my own conclusions about myself.
I brushed away the droplets with my spare hand, cupping the curve of her face.
“It’s all right,” I reassured her, although of what I wasn’t entirely sure. “If you need to cry, you can cry, but I promise nothing is wrong we cannot fix.”
When I received no reply, I began to wonder if she’d taken a vow of silence. She let go of my hand, letting it fall to my side. As she stepped away, my other hand slipped from her jaw.
“Are you in trouble?” she asked, finally letting me hear her voice. I would have been thrilled, if she didn’t sound so concerned. “Is that why you came? Because your brother wanted to keep an eye on you?”
“I asked to come. I wanted to see you, and I thought you wanted to see me, too. I received your letter.”
A fire of panic ignited in Kitty’s eyes.
“Did you show it to anyone?” she asked, desperation colouring the words.
I shook my head. It was carefully tucked into the lining of my valise, as it felt safer to bring it with me than leave it unattended at Pemberley, but no one else’s gaze had fallen across it.
“No, of course not.” I tried to take a step towards her, but she took one away. “I have said nothing to no one, about any of it. My brother only knows I fell and hurt my knee.” But I thought over that evening in my mind and realised I was not entirely being truthful.
“What?” Kitty asked, picking up on the way I flinched and the guilty bite of my lip.
“I said nothing exact, but I… I was not entirely in my right mind when I returned to the house and found you had left. I was afraid and in pain and it was not possible to contain all of it and—”
“What did you say?” Kitty pushed, her voice acidic. “Who did you tell?”
“Emma, my lady’s maid, connected my state to your absence. But she’s as trustworthy as the most loyal steward, I swear it. I confirmed nothing specific, and she would never tell my brother, or your sister.”
Kitty’s legs appeared to collapse from under her, and she settled onto the edge of her bed, chewing at the side of her cheek.
Tentatively, I sat on Lydia’s bed. It was barely five feet away, all too close to be to someone who wasn’t happy with your presence.
But my knee was starting to protest, and at least Kitty and I would be at eye level if I sat, too.
“Your maid has kept this kind of secret for you before?” she asked.
I wondered what answer she was truly after.
Was she solely concerned with Emma’s trustworthiness, or did she instead seek to enquire after my history of kissing girls under the cover of darkness?
From the intensity of her fears, I imagined my total in that arena to be greater than hers only because her experience was evidently limited to me.
I had already experienced some of the worst repercussions of that particular sin.
“No,” I said, honestly. Since Emma had become my maid, I’d had no active secrets she would need to have kept. She’d been hired precisely due to the extended consequences of my first foray into kissing another girl.
“Then what makes you sure she will keep your secret now?” Kitty asked, clearly frustrated. She got to her feet and started to pace the room. “We should never have done it.”
That hurt more than I anticipated. I’d never gotten to dissect a kiss after it happened before, but I imagined both parties were supposed to be feeling far happier with the situation.
Like Kitty had seemed in her letter. Like how I’d imagined she felt, for a moment, as she kissed my hand not minutes earlier. It was enough to make my head spin.
“Well, we needn’t do it again,” I said, softly.
Kitty’s resulting look was far from the relief I expected.
She seemed anguished at the resolution, lacing her fingers together and pulling tight.
If things had been different, I would have taken her hands and teased out the tension until I could separate her fingers and wind them with my own.
Nothing about the situation suggested she wanted that.
Except she had kissed me, in the grotto.
She had written me a letter so full of fondness it alone had summoned me to Meryton.
Some part of her must have wanted to do those things, as I was certain I’d never forced her.
The connection I’d felt in the library at Pemberley was not one-sided.
But this entire thing was too fragile to be encouraged in someone hesitant.
When Kitty left the room without another word, I gave in to the urge to lie back on the bed, shifting so I could prop up my leg.
It hurt less if I could elevate it, and although I felt guilty for taking Kitty’s own room hostage, I needed to close my eyes for a few moments and process everything that had happened.
I couldn’t stop the tears that fell or the sobs I muffled with the back of my hand.
Kitty’s presence in Pemberley had felt like a dream.
Each smile I’d earned from her was a gift, and every time she’d touched me, my skin felt hot in her wake.
I had sworn I would never again give in to the tug I felt to pretty girls like that, but I’d been unable to refuse myself the chance to follow what felt like signs of affection from her.
But nothing had changed. Pretty girls with soft smiles and soft curls and soft hands were still a bad idea.