CHAPTER NINE
Elizabeth sat alone before the crackling fire, Jane’s letter, now crumpled from repeated readings, resting in her lap. Her thoughts, however, were not solely on Jane and Mr Bingley. Instead, her mind kept drifting to the images of Darcy and his family in the portrait gallery.
His father, his mother, his sister. It seemed he had suffered such loss in so short a time.
The thought was a disquieting one. It did not excuse his condescension and his often high-handed treatment of her, but it did offer a different perspective. A glimmer of understanding, perhaps even a reluctant sliver of sympathy, began to penetrate the thick walls of her own resentment.
This new understanding subtly altered the landscape of her own emotions.
Her irritation towards him was now tinged with a complex element.
It was easier to despise a man one believed to be merely proud and unfeeling.
It was far, far more difficult to despise a man one suspected was masking deep pain.
So for the first time since arriving at Pemberley, her mind considered their failures at training in a different light, one unclouded by churlishness and anger.
His power was immense, disciplined by years of training and by an iron will. Her power was equally potent, she suspected, but utterly untamed, an almost sentient thing that resisted all attempts at conventional direction, often with explosive results.
Like the incident with the water. His request for a ripple had resulted in a drenching deluge. He sought to impose order on her energy, and it had rebelled.
But what if, she mused, her mind latching onto a new thought, what if the approach was entirely wrong? What if, instead of him trying to teach her control, a task that seemed as doomed as teaching her mother not to gossip, they approached it as a true union of complementary forces?
He possessed the structure, the discipline, the framework. She, the raw, abundant energy. Could it be that simple?
The idea, once formed, felt startlingly, intuitively right.
A glance at the ornate mantel clock confirmed the lateness of the hour; its gilded hands trudged steadily towards midnight.
Sarah, her maid, had long since been dismissed, and Elizabeth felt a near certainty that Darcy, too, had retired.
To seek him out now, at such an unseemly hour, was tantamount to insanity, an egregious breach of the icy protocols that governed their cohabitation.
And yet, the idea, now that it had taken root in her mind, possessed a desperate urgency. It could not, would not, wait for the cold, rational light of morning.
She could scarcely present herself at his door in her nightgown, or even the relative modesty of a dressing gown; the mere thought sent a flush of unbecoming heat to her cheeks.
With a haste born of her newfound, and probably reckless, resolve, Elizabeth searched her dressing room for a simple dress, one whose fastenings she could manage without assistance.
She undid the neat plait of her hair and pinned it up in a knot at the nape of her neck.
Then, after flinging a heavy shawl around her shoulders, she determined to act.
The candle in her hand cast long, dancing shadows on the papered walls as she entered her sitting room.
Their sitting room, though she had never before allowed herself to think of it as such.
There, her gaze fell upon the door.
She had known of the door’s presence since her arrival at Pemberley. She was in the mistress’s chambers, and he, the master’s. They had separate bedrooms, separate dressing rooms, but they shared one sitting room which connected their two spaces.
In practice, however, by some unspoken agreement, Darcy had never once crossed its threshold since her arrival. The door to his bedchambers had remained firmly, almost aggressively, closed these past few, interminable weeks.
She did not even know if it was locked.
Under the flickering light of her candle, with only the barest glow of moonlight filtering through the window, she found herself uncertain whether the door looked more intimidating now, in the dead of night, or by the unforgiving light of day.
Before her courage could desert her entirely, before the whispers of propriety, of fear, of the almost certain likelihood of a disdainful rebuff, could dissuade her, she swiftly crossed the room.
Drawing a nervous breath, she raised her hand and knocked twice, the sound echoing with an alarming loudness in the stillness of the sleeping house.
For nine very frantic beats of her heart, there was no response. Then she heard footsteps on the other side of the door, purposeful footsteps, moving closer, closer.
And in an instant, her nerve, so recklessly summoned, abandoned her completely.
A wave of panic washed over her. She turned as if to flee, to retreat back to the safety of her own chambers, to pretend it had all been a mistake, there had been no knock, it was just a sound of the night.
But the door opened. Just a crack, at first, a sliver of warmer, brighter light spilling into the dimness of the sitting room.
Gathering the scattered remnants of her courage, Elizabeth forced herself to face him.
Through the opening in the door, she could see the cheerful fire still burning in his room. Her gaze, drawn by the light, registered the substantial, masculine furnishings of the room behind him, before it snagged, with a sudden, almost physical jolt, upon Darcy himself.
It appeared he had already changed into his nightshirt, a soft linen that hinted at a vulnerability she had never before witnessed.
Though, she noted, he must have hastily thrown on trousers, and even his boots.
His waistcoat, too, was in place, though not fully buttoned, as if donned in some haste.
And he wore no cravat. And Elizabeth found herself swallowing, a strange tightness in her throat, as her gaze, against her will, against every engrained instinct of propriety, was drawn to the unexpected sight of his bare neck.
“Is something amiss?” Darcy asked, his voice pitched low, though it still seemed entirely too loud and too close in the deep quiet of the night.
Thankfully, his expression, though undeniably wary, held no trace of any other assumptions, clandestine or unseemly, that he might have made.
The thought nevertheless made a fresh wave of heat rise to her cheeks and she quickly said, “I had a theory to discuss with you. A matter of some urgency, I believe.” She gestured, perhaps a little too emphatically, towards the sitting room that lay between their chambers. “Can we speak now?”
He subjected her to a long, searching look, seeming to probe the very depths of her intent. Elizabeth held her breath, bracing herself for a dismissal. Then, with an almost imperceptible nod, he acquiesced, stepping fully into the sitting room and closing the door to his own bedchamber behind him.
Elizabeth, her legs still feeling strangely unsteady, seated herself on the edge of the sofa, the one nearest the darkened hearth. Darcy, after casting a brief, almost curious glance at the flickering candle she had placed aside, made a small gesture towards the cold fireplace.
A cheerful crackling blaze erupted from the logs, instantly chasing away some of the room’s chill.
That settled, Darcy looked around the room as if he had never seen it before.
He did not avail himself of the armchair opposite her, nor did he choose the other end of the sofa.
Instead, he remained standing, that careful distance between them, his posture radiating guarded formality as he waited for her to elaborate on whatever urgency had driven her to breach this divide.
“Mr Darcy,” she began, in a voice steadier than how she felt, “As you have doubtless concluded for yourself, any efforts at teaching me to control my magic have been largely unsuccessful. So I propose a different approach.”
He nodded slightly, a signal that he was, at least, prepared to listen.
“We are not using our strengths. You possess undeniable control. Your magic is a perfectly honed instrument at your disposal. Yet I believe in terms of sheer power, I possess the greater amount, regardless of how unruly it is.” She paused here, curious if he would challenge that assertion.
When he remained silent, she pressed on, “But what if, rather than persisting in the futile endeavour to make mine like yours, we utilised our individual strengths as one?”
His expression shifted to an almost reluctant intellectual curiosity. “You propose a conscious merging of our magical efforts? You, as a conduit of power, and I, the director?”
“If you must put it in such terms,” she said, a hint of a smile in her voice, “then yes.”
“But it cannot be done. One cannot wield another’s magical power. That is a fundamental tenet.”
His words stung, but as Darcy continued to look deep in thought, she realised that his response reflected not immediate dismissal of her words, but rather weighed in the consideration of established arcane theory.
“Perhaps customarily it cannot be done,” she said, “However, our circumstances are anything but customary. We possess a connection between us, do we not? A bond forged by the Concordance.”
He felt it too, she saw that in the sudden tension of his posture. That constant thrum of energy that was always present between them.
Darcy tilted his head to a side, a gesture of intense, inward focus on his face, and she sensed the slight probing of his mind against the fabric of that arcane connection, testing its strength, its nature, and its almost terrifying potential.
“I do not believe such a thing has ever been documented,” he said, with the air of one attempting to recall every text he had ever read on the subject, “Even the ancient texts detailing the Concordance make no mention of it.”
“But is that not the nature of true scholarly pursuit? To question the established? To venture beyond the comfortable boundaries of what is known and deemed possible?”