Chapter 15
Elizabeth's needle had not moved in a quarter hour.
She sat before the fire in the small parlour, her embroidery forgotten in her lap as she watched Hill feed another log to flames that seemed to devour fuel as fast as it could be brought in.
The wood hissed and spat. Beyond the frosted windows, nothing stirred.
From somewhere above came the halting notes of Mary at the pianoforte, the same passage she had been murdering since breakfast. Each stumbled chord grated against Elizabeth's nerves like a blade drawn across glass. In the drawing room, Mrs Bennet's voice rose in its familiar key.
“We shall all perish from this cold; I am certain of it. My nerves are quite shattered. Quite shattered, I tell you. Can you imagine the nerve of that woman?” she added in considerable distress.
“Why, our Lizzy is the most respectful girl in all of Hertfordshire. After her visit yesterday, sleep evaded me all night long!”
Kitty coughed from the sofa, a dry, rattling sound she had been producing at intervals since yesterday.
Lydia groaned theatrically and flung herself against the cushions.
Jane's murmured reply floated through the doorway, too soft to make out, and Mrs Bennet subsided into wounded silence that would last, Elizabeth knew from long experience, no more than a quarter hour.
Elizabeth pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
Lady Catherine's voice echoed through her mind, sharp and imperious. The words had been nonsensical, of course. There was no understanding between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy. There could be no understanding. Not only had she rejected his proposal, but she was now promised to Malcolm.
Miss Elizabeth has conducted herself with absolutely perfect propriety throughout circumstances that would severely challenge individuals with far greater social advantages and resources.
Mr Darcy's voice, cutting across his aunt's tirade as he defended a woman who had once refused him in the most insulting terms imaginable.
Elizabeth pressed her cold fingers against her temples.
Like her mother, she had lain awake half the night turning it over in her mind, examining it from every angle, and she was no closer to understanding what it meant.
Why had he done it? What had possessed him to speak so?
And why, when she ought to have felt only gratitude for his intervention, had she felt something else entirely, something that fluttered beneath her ribs and would not be still?
The sounds of boots stamping in the entrance hall jostled her out of her reverie.
“Forgive the cold that I’m bringing in, Mrs Hill,” came Malcolm’s voice. “Pray, have you seen Miss Elizabeth? I need to speak to her.”
“I just saw her in the small parlour, sir,” came the housekeeper’s reply. “Why don’t you join her? I shall ask Miss Bennet to chaperone, and I will be right there with a cup of tea to warm you up.”
Elizabeth's stomach tightened. She had not seen him since Lady Catherine’s departure the previous day. He’d retired to his chamber almost at once and not come out. She set aside her embroidery and rose, smoothing her skirts with hands that had gone unsteady.
Malcolm appeared in the doorway a moment later, greatcoat dusted with frost, cheeks raw from the cold. Ice crystals clung to his dark hair where his hat had failed to protect it. He smiled when he saw her, but there was something guarded in his countenance.
“I brought you something.” His voice had softened, grown almost hesitant. “Like the ring, this too belonged to my mother. I wanted to give it to you on our wedding day, but I find I cannot wait any longer.”
Elizabeth unwrapped the cloth. Inside lay a brooch of silver, oval in shape, its surface worked with Celtic knotwork surrounding words she could not read. The metalwork was old, worn smooth at the edges by generations of hands.
“Dìleas gu bràth.” Malcolm leant forward to trace the inscription.
“It means faithful forever. My father gave it to my mother on their wedding day. She wore it every day of her life, until the very end.” He looked up at her, and for a moment something raw flickered in his gaze.
“I should like you to wear it now, Elizabeth.”
The brooch sat heavy in her palm.
“I am honoured.” After a second’s hesitation, she pinned it to her bodice. The metal was cold through the thin fabric of her dress. “I shall treasure it, Mr MacKinnon.”
Across the room, Jane looked up from her book. Elizabeth caught something like concern in her sister's gaze before Jane dropped her eyes back to the page.
Finishing the tea Mrs Hill had brought in moments prior, Malcolm set down his cup with a small, precise click.
“Elizabeth. I should like to speak with you,” he started seriously. “I find myself troubled by Lady Catherine de Bourgh's visit yesterday.”
“As were we all.” Elizabeth folded her hands in her lap to keep them still. “Her conduct was inexcusable.”
“Her conduct, yes.” His gaze fixed upon her face, unblinking. “But I am more interested in her meaning. She implied there exists an understanding between you and her nephew. I should very much like to know what prompted such an assertion.”
“Lady Catherine's delusions are her own invention,” Elizabeth said emphatically. “There is no truth in anything she said, Mr MacKinnon. I trust you shall not allow yourself to be swayed by her character assassination.”
“Is there no truth at all to her words?” He leant forward, elbows braced on his knees.
“I have observed certain things myself, Elizabeth. Mr Darcy calls at Longbourn with remarkable frequency. He accompanies his sister for the French lessons, yes, but he remains long after they have concluded. I have watched the two of you speaking together. There is, I have come to understand, no need for him to accompany Miss Darcy anymore, as her attended has now joined them at Lucas Lodge.”
Her hands had begun to tremble. She pressed them flat against her skirts.
“Mr Darcy escorts Miss Darcy for Moira's benefit. Mrs Annesley only joined them yesterday, as I understand it, having stayed at Perkins before then. As you know quite well, the lessons take place in the morning room where I supervise them, as propriety demands. If we have conversed, it is because two people in a room will naturally converse. There has been nothing improper. Nothing.”
“Nothing improper.” He turned the words over slowly, examining them as one might examine a coin suspected of being counterfeit.
“And yet yesterday he defended you against his own aunt with a fervour I found most remarkable. He spoke of your character as though he possessed intimate knowledge of it. As though he held some particular claim upon you.”
Elizabeth felt her face flush at the memory. “He defended me against insult. Any gentleman of honour would have done the same.”
“Would he?”
“Yes.”
Malcolm's lips thinned. He sat back in his chair and regarded her with eyes she did not recognise. His easy charm had vanished. In its place was something cold and still and watchful, like a predator waiting for its prey to make a fatal mistake.
Malcolm's gaze moved past Elizabeth then, drifting across the room, and stopped. She followed it and felt her stomach drop.
Mr Darcy's gift sat upon the small table near the window where she had left it that morning, a slim book lying open where she had been reading.
Malcolm rose from his chair. He crossed the room in three long strides and lifted the volume, turning it over in his hands.
“This is new.” His voice had gone very quiet, very soft. “I do not recall seeing it before.”
Elizabeth rose as well. Her legs felt unsteady beneath her. “It was a gift. From Mr Darcy. A token of thanks for supervising the lessons, through Miss Darcy.”
“A token of thanks.” His fingers tightened on the volume. “A book. For informal French lessons.”
“It was kindly meant,” Elizabeth insisted. “There was nothing improper in it.”
“Nothing improper.” He laughed, a short, harsh sound that held no mirth whatsoever.
“Elizabeth. Can you truly be so blind? It is entirely improper for a gentleman to present such a gift to a woman promised to another. Entirely. In any society, in any county. But most particularly here, where I am watched and measured and found wanting at every turn. Where I am the Scottish interloper, the foreign heir, the outsider who dares to claim what others believe should rightfully belong to an Englishman.”
“Mr Darcy intended no slight to you. I could not have refused the gift without giving offence.”
“Could you not?” He set the volume down upon the table with a sharp click. “How singular. You find it quite impossible to give offence to Mr Darcy, whilst offending me seems to present no difficulty whatsoever.”
She sprang to her feet. “Mr MacKinnon, I am sorry, but you are being terribly unfair.”
“Am I?” He turned to face her, and she took an involuntary step backward.
There was something in his eyes she had never seen before, something hard and bright and dangerous.
“Tell me what is fair, Elizabeth. Tell me what is fair about watching another man court my betrothed under my very nose. Tell me what is fair about standing silent whilst my own future wife accepts gifts and whispered conversations and passionate defences from a man who looks at her as though she belongs to him.”
“He does not look at me—”
“Do not.” The word cracked across the room like a whip.
“Do not insult my intelligence by pretending you have not noticed. I have watched his eyes follow you across every room. I have watched you colour when he speaks to you. Lady Catherine did not pluck her accusations from thin air. Someone gave her cause to believe there was something worth investigating.”
In the corner, Jane had risen halfway from her chair, her face bloodless. Elizabeth shook her head, a tiny, desperate movement, and Jane sank back down, but her hands gripped the armrests as though she might fly apart at any moment.