Chapter 14
The cold of that morning was of the sort that burned, rather than numbed, the inside of the nose. The air tasted clean, unsullied by the residue of anyone’s expectations.
Elizabeth walked away from Rosings Park at a speed barely short of undignified, hands balled in her sleeves and mouth set in a line meant to repel all curiosity.
The frost, which the sun had not yet wholly bested, encrusted the lower fence rails and the brittle grass tips, so that every step offered a satisfying crunch. Her feet did not, at first, register the pain of it; she had learned to ignore far worse.
As Elizabeth rounded the bend by a hedge of hawthorns, she heard the double rhythm of a second set of steps, a heavier tread which was approaching fast.
She did not slow. If it were a servant, they would yield. If it were anybody else, she would outrun them.
If it were the one person she both most and least wished to see, she would deal with it as she always did: by not flinching first.
“Miss Elizabeth,” said a voice behind her—so close, so suddenly, that she startled before recovering her stride. She did not turn.
“Mr. Darcy.” She made it sound like an accusation.
He caught up, falling into step at her left without so much as a courtesy bow. He was bareheaded, hair mussed by wind; his greatcoat was unbuttoned and wet with dew across the hem.
For several paces they walked in a kind of mutual siege: she, marshaling her words into a defensive line; he, waiting for the first breach.
Another fifty yards passed in silence. She could feel his energy, an anticipation that made the air between their shoulders vibrate.
She was determined to keep her eyes forward, to focus on the thin strip of lane between two frost-capped hedgerows, but she failed: a sidelong glance caught him watching her not as a puzzle, or a threat, but with a tension that was almost embarrassment.
She wondered, briefly, if he was also replaying the scene that had just passed. If he also heard, on repeat, the part where Lady Catherine accused her of “rejecting a proposal that would have secured your family’s future, out of pride or, some might say, vanity.”
Elizabeth searched for a speech that would explain, but her mind would only serve her this: the phrase that had lodged like a barb in the flesh of her pride.
“She was speaking of another.” She blurted it out, hating the way it sounded—simultaneously an explanation and a plea.
He stopped short, boots scraping the gravel. “I beg your pardon?”
She stopped, too, but did not turn to face him directly. “Lady Catherine. When she accused me of rejecting a proposal. I told no one. She was not referring to you.”
He made a sound, halfway between a grunt and a gasp. “Who, then?”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, letting the morning air freeze her lashes. “Mr. Collins.”
The silence that followed was so complete she thought that even the birds had suspended their songs.
At last, Mr. Darcy rediscovered language.
“Mr. Collins?” he repeated, as though the words themselves required it. “That toad of a man—” He cut himself off. She suspected the rest was not meant to be said in mixed company.
Elizabeth laughed, sharp and involuntary. It splintered the cold and, for a moment, even the tension. “He is my cousin, and the next in line to inherit Longbourn when my father passes.”
Mr. Darcy’s face, which had been a study in horror, now collapsed into incredulity. “And he—”
“At first, his interest was directed at Jane,” said Elizabeth. She tasted the oddness of this, even as she explained it. “My mother told him she was already spoken for. So, he tried for me. But I could not bear—” She spread her hands, unable to finish.
Mr. Darcy stared at her, unblinking, and then—quite suddenly—laughed. Not a full-throated thing, but a sound so honest and unprepared that she found herself staring at him as if she had never seen a man laugh before.
“I am sorry,” he said at once, trying to smother it. “But the very notion—”
She joined in, though hers was more of a snort. “It is quite ridiculous.”
“No,” he said, “it is exactly as I should have expected of your family’s circumstances, though I am not proud of my own expectations in this matter.”
Elizabeth felt the heat in her cheeks, but this time it was not mortification, only the unfamiliar sensation of being understood without cost.
They stood like that, facing each other across three feet of frozen mud, until a rider appeared around the curve of the lane. It was not a postman—too well-dressed, too controlled in the seat—but a servant of some standing, the livery unfamiliar.
Mr. Darcy moved toward the lane, signaling him with a lift of the hand. The rider slowed, then stopped, dismounted, and produced a small package from the bag at his side.
“For you, sir,” he said, offering it.
Mr. Darcy took it. At once Elizabeth knew—this was the Bow Street report.
She felt her pulse in her ears. The object was in plain wrapping, neatly tied with cord, sealed with red wax.
Mr. Darcy examined it but did not open it.
He turned to Elizabeth, voice lower. “Would you walk with me? I prefer to open this out here.”
She nodded, unable to muster sarcasm or even a token protest. The two of them left the lane, taking the narrow path that ran along the edge of the Rosings’ south lawn, and followed it in silence to the little bench beneath the dead oak—shielded by the curve of the hedge and left them nearly invisible from the house or road.
Mr. Darcy brushed the frost from the seat, motioned her to sit, then took the place beside her. The proximity was intimate in a way that neither had prepared for, and yet, neither flinched from it.
He held the package out to her. “Would you?”
Elizabeth took it, fingers numb with cold and something more complicated. She found the knot at the end of the cord, tugged it loose, broke the seal, and let the brown paper fall away.
Inside was a folded sheaf of paper; the sheet was not sealed, bearing the heavy hand of a coroner’s report.
The text was brief and factual. Bow Street had examined the contents of the tin and confirmed that it contained cyanide in sufficient quantity to kill within an hour of contact with the lips.
Elizabeth read it in silence—twice—before passing it to Mr. Darcy, who read it with the same attention, his lips tightening at the confirmation.
When he finished, he closed the report and rested it on his knee. He said, “It was exactly as you reasoned.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “It was exactly as we reasoned, Mr. Darcy. I could not have managed any of it alone.”
He turned toward her, and she saw his expression was wholly unguarded.
“Nor I,” he said. “I do not think I ever did anything important in my life with another person. Even the guardianship of my sister, though Richard is technically co-guardian, he usually leaves decisions up to me. It is an entirely new sensation.”
Elizabeth found herself smiling. It was not a triumphant smile, nor even a particularly happy one, but it was real, and it lasted.
They sat, side by side, as the sun’s early light finally climbed the hedge and found them.
The evidence was complete. The case, at least on paper, was closed.
But neither of them seemed inclined to rise, or to break the silence that now stretched, gentle and connective, between them.
For the first time since she had come to Kent, Elizabeth felt the weight in her chest begin, ever so slightly, to lift.
They did not speak for some time.
The thin April sun had cleared the hedgerow. Mr. Darcy’s gaze was fixed on the horizon, somewhere above the distant sweep of the east lawn. Elizabeth watched the mist rise from the moss at her boots, thinking about the moment when a suspicion becomes certainty.
She drew in a slow breath and looked down at her hands.
“Cyanide in the lip salve. Death by her own hand, but only in the most literal sense.” Elizabeth paused, then asked. “Let us begin again so there is no mistake.”
Mr. Darcy nodded. “The note drew her out. However, the instrument of her death—” He glanced at the report, then met Elizabeth’s gaze. “She would have applied the lip protectant just before leaving the house, leaving her no chance to notice the taste or scent was wrong.”
“Even if she did, if it were new, a slight difference would not have been unexpected.” Elizabeth found herself nodding.
“Which means it was someone who knew this was something she would do. Someone who watched her habits.” She felt the pieces click into their final places within her mind.
“It had to be someone who had access to her personal effects at Willow Grange, or someone who could send her a fresh tin without her questioning it.”
Mr. Darcy finished the thought. “And who could prepare it without attracting notice from the rest of the household. Or, if they did, whose involvement would never be remarked upon, because it was part of their duty.”
Elizabeth turned on the bench to face him directly. “We know the method. We know the occasion. The motive, then: why would someone murder Mrs. Blackstone?”
Mr. Darcy was silent, but his dark, watchful eyes never left her face.
She said, “Mrs. Blackstone was a companion. No family of her own, apart from a brother and the cousin who wrote her threatening letters. She was not a rival in love or in money.”
“Who is to say she was not a rival in love?” Mr. Darcy asked.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “Do you know something that I do not?”
He stood and began to pace before her, not meeting her eye.
“For some odd reason, Lady Catherine has always insisted that Anne and I were destined to marry. My father and uncle have both told us that my mother never promised such a thing, though my aunt insists she did. Neither Anne nor I have ever had any intention of marrying—I mean, of marrying each other.” He cleared his throat.
“At the start of this visit to Rosings, I believe we finally got through to her.” Now he turned to Elizabeth.
“Immediately, my aunt re-directed her focus wholly upon Mr. Haldridge as Anne’s future husband, convincing herself it was the perfect match.
That the estates border the other would result in merging the properties into the largest estate in Kent.
And Mr. Haldridge is the younger son of an earl.
” He smiled mischievously. “Holding an even higher status within the ton than I.”
Chuckling, Elizabeth’s attention sharpened. “You believe Mrs. Jenkinson shifted her focus for Miss de Bourgh’s benefit, as well?”
He nodded.
She looked out across the lawn without really seeing it, then said, “Did Mr. Haldridge show any interest in Mrs. Blackstone?”
Mr. Darcy lifted his chin. “I do not believe he ever showed a preference in my presence. However, I noticed she seemed to watch him too closely whenever I saw them together. She also would react a bit too readily any time he spoke.”
Elizabeth felt her eyebrow rise. “Are you saying that Mrs. Jenkinson might have thought of Mrs. Blackstone as a threat to Miss de Bourgh’s future happiness?”
“I would not have surmised such a thing myself. But someone more used to observing others’ interactions, as she is, might have assumed a more tender motive to her behavior.” He began pacing again.
“It must be Mrs. Jenkinson.” Elizabeth considered every moment she had spent watching the woman, the way she positioned herself always a half-step behind, the way she watched the room, the way she managed Miss de Bourgh as if the girl’s body and mind both belonged to her.
“She has access to every room in the house. She alone is permitted in the stillroom without supervision. She manages the compounding of every cosmetic used by Lady Catherine, her daughter, and any lady guest. She has the skill to prepare it, the authority to gift it, and the expectation of not being questioned.”
Elizabeth let herself feel the weight of the conclusion. It was ugly, but it was perfectly neat.
Mr. Darcy joined her on the bench once more.
At last, he said, “You are remarkable.”
The words, so simple and so completely without precedent, startled Elizabeth more than any confession of guilt ever could.
She smiled, and it felt like something had come untethered in her.
“I could say much the same of you, Mr. Darcy,” she replied.
At length, Mr. Darcy rose and offered her his arm.
Elizabeth hesitated only a moment before accepting it.
Together, they walked back along the hedgerow toward the parsonage beneath the rising sun.
Neither spoke again.
Once, silence between them had been burdened with misunderstanding. Now, it was companionable.