Chapter Eleven #2
Beside the paper lay Richard’s letter, folded once, then again, as if its contents might be reduced by compression. Ciudad Rodrigo had lodged itself in his thoughts regardless, its name incongruously lyrical for a place that demanded men be sent where they were most easily lost.
He set the pen down, drew a breath, and returned to his work. Whatever his cousin had been ordered to do, fretting would not alter it. What could be altered—what must be—was everything else still within his reach.
Miss Bennet rose from her chair once more. “I am so sorry, but I still feel I ought to look in on my sister. She has been quiet a long while.”
Before Miss Bingley could agree with her, Bingley protested. “Nonsense, you must not vanish just yet. Let us give you a bit of enjoyment before you retire. Come—Caroline, will you not play something? A reel perhaps? It would do Miss Bennet good to be diverted.”
Miss Bingley looked down at her hands as though noticing them for the first time. “I would, if I could,” she said regretfully, “but I have quite ruined my nail. See? It caught during dinner. I doubt I could manage a proper touch.”
“I am sure no one would mind a slight imperfection,” Bingley said earnestly. “And Darcy does not require perfection to be entertained.”
Darcy did not look up from his writing. If he had, he would have denied the charge.
Miss Bingley’s voice tightened. “Even so, the room has grown very warm. Dancing would only make it worse. Miss Bennet ought to be resting as well—surely we have done enough to excite her spirits for one evening.”
Miss Bennet hesitated, her hands clasped loosely before her. “I should only be a moment—”
“After you have sat,” Bingley insisted, drawing out a chair with easy good nature. “Five minutes. I promise not to detain you longer.”
She yielded, though her gaze strayed again toward the door.
Darcy’s pen slowed, irritation stirring not at the exchange itself, but at the familiar pattern of it: good intentions pressed into service of delay, comfort offered where none was wanted, and all of it circling the very thing no one seemed inclined to address directly. Darcy’s pen paused.
Miss Bennet hesitated, caught between inclination and courtesy. “Very well,” she said at last, and allowed herself to be guided back toward her chair.
Darcy returned to his letter, though the line he had meant to complete dissolved beneath his eyes.
Brutus should have been asleep by now, stretched before the hearth or stationed obediently at his heel.
Instead, the dog had chosen to sit at the base of the stair and would not be moved.
Darcy had called him twice. The second time, Brutus had looked at him deliberately, and remained where he was.
Ill-trained behaviour. Unacceptable.
Miss Bingley set down her embroidery with a sigh designed to be overheard. “It is quite admirable of you to keep such close watch over your sister, Miss Bennet. One would hardly expect it in a household with so… many sisters.”
Miss Bennet inclined her head. “Elizabeth has always been her own keeper,” she said. “I only assist when she allows it.”
“A charming arrangement,” Miss Bingley said. “Though I imagine it must be a relief to have her here, where one may be certain she is properly attended.”
Darcy’s jaw tightened. Properly attended. As though Miss Elizabeth’s collapse were a consequence of mismanagement rather than… well, he did not know what. The blank space where an explanation ought to be troubled him more than any faulty one offered in its place.
Miss Bingley had resumed her embroidery, the soft pull of silk through linen marking time.
Mrs Hurst lounged beside her, idly turning her bracelet so that the firelight caught each link in turn.
Bingley, restless in his concern, crossed the room and back again, pausing near the window before drifting toward the hearth, as though movement itself might resolve what conversation would not.
Mrs Hurst spoke first, her tone even and incurious. “If Miss Elizabeth wakes, she will hardly be alone. Mrs Nicholls is in the house, and the servants know where to find her.”
“Yes,” Miss Bingley added at once. “And Miss Bennet has already done everything that could reasonably be expected. One does not improve matters by hovering.”
Bingley’s chair creaked, and his voice sounded a little uncertain. “Quite right. Still, Miss Bennet’s instincts are laudable. I should not like her to feel as if she cannot go—”
“Miss Bennet is patience itself, but brother, you must not let her tire herself,” Miss Bingley said, lightly decisive. “It is far more sensible that Miss Bennet rest while she may. This has been quite an exerting day.”
Darcy’s pen slowed.
Hovering. Exertion. Words chosen not to comfort, but to conclude.
Miss Bennet made a small noise in her throat.
Bingley nodded, though without conviction. “I should hate to see you made uneasy, Miss Bennet. Truly, we enjoy your company, but if it will ease your mind to go upstairs—”
Miss Bennet had been listening with a politeness that grew more strained by the moment. She rose again, this time without apology.
“Yes, sir, I appreciate your hospitality. Very much, in fact, but I have been away from her two hours already,” she said. “If she wakes and finds herself alone—”
Darcy set his pen down, then hesitated with his hand still resting on the desk. Rising now would draw notice. Remaining seated after she left, and the party called on him for entertainment would draw more. He weighed the balance and found neither side comfortable.
“I shall retire as well,” he said at last. The words were ordinary enough to pass without comment. He paused, then added, as though the thought had only just occurred to him, “I mean to take an early ride. I will see Miss Bennet to the stair.”
It was the smallest courtesy. Entirely defensible. And yet he was aware, even as he spoke, of the faint resistance in himself, as though some other part of him had hoped the moment might pass without requiring decision.
Miss Bennet turned toward him, surprise giving way to gratitude. “Thank you, Mr Darcy. I should not wish to trouble anyone.”
Bingley brightened immediately. “That is very kind of you, Darcy. Miss Bennet, you see? We all wish your comfort, whatever you require. Do let us know if we can do anything, please.”
Miss Bingley’s reply came a fraction too quickly. “You need not inconvenience yourself,” she said. “The stair is hardly perilous, and you have had a long day.”
Darcy rose. The chair legs marked the floor with a soft complaint. “It is no inconvenience.”
He did not look at her as he spoke it. He did not need to. The justification was sufficient; the form was observed. If his patience had worn thin, that was his own affair.
Darcy offered his arm, and Miss Bennet accepted it with quiet relief.
They passed into the hall together, the warmth of the drawing room giving way to cooler air and the hush that followed evening’s retreat.
The lamps had been lit along the passage, their light steady, unremarkable.
Nothing in the house appeared out of order.
He told himself this twice.
Brutus was still guarding the stair. The dog sat squarely on the rug before the first step, his great head lifted, his body aligned with the stair as though he had been placed there deliberately. He did not rise at Darcy’s approach. He did not wag. He watched.
Darcy halted.
Miss Bennet’s hand tightened briefly on his sleeve. “Oh,” she said, and then, more softly, “I did not know he was here.”
“He should not be,” Darcy replied.
“He is a very large dog, sir. Is he quite safe?”
“Quite safe.” Darcy snapped his fingers. “Brutus. Here.”
The dog’s ears shifted, but he did not move. Darcy felt the faintest stir of irritation. “Come here.”
Brutus looked at him—held his gaze a moment longer than habit allowed—then turned his head slightly, not toward Darcy, but toward the stair.
Darcy’s mouth tightened.
“Brutus,” he said again, with more authority. “Heel.”
The dog remained where he was. His tail struck the floor once, a single heavy sound, neither greeting nor defiance. He merely extended one paw and licked it as if in meditation.
Miss Bennet drew a breath. “Perhaps he is injured?”
“He is not injured,” Darcy said, and then stopped himself. He could not say what the dog was, only what he was not.
He stepped forward. Brutus did not bare his teeth. He did not growl. But the dog rose to his feet, slowly and deliberately, and placed himself fully between Darcy and the stair.
Darcy froze.
This was wrong. Brutus had never barred his path. Never. The dog had been trained to yield, to obey, to trust instruction over instinct. Darcy had raised him with care, with consistency, and he had never needed to test this.
Miss Bennet shifted beside him. “Mr Darcy—”
“Stay,” Darcy said quietly, though he did not know whether he meant the dog or the lady.
He studied Brutus more closely now. There was no agitation in him. No alarm. Only attention. The kind of attention a sentry might give to a gate.
“This is absurd,” he said under his breath, and tried again. “Brutus. Away.”
The dog’s head lowered a fraction—not in submission, but in acknowledgment. He did not retreat.
Darcy glanced up the stair. The passage above lay empty, perfectly ordinary. No sound. No movement. Nothing to justify—
Brutus’s gaze followed him.
Not Miss Bennet. Not the stair itself. Darcy. The dog’s attention did not waver as Darcy shifted his weight or turned his head; it tracked him with a steady, unblinking focus that raised the fine hairs along his arms.
Darcy let out a slow breath. “Wait here,” he said to Miss Bennet. “One moment.”
He stepped aside, breaking the line between the dog and the stair. Brutus did not follow him. He held his position—still aligned with the steps, still watching Darcy, as though the space mattered less than the man approaching it.
A brief, unwelcome calculation followed. Calling the dog again would look foolish. Lifting a hand to collar him would require explanation. And Miss Bennet—already weary, already strained—stood waiting for him to decide what to do about a very large, very stubborn animal.
Darcy stepped back instead.
He paused, then added, as if only just considering it, “Brutus is not attending to you, Miss Bennet. He has taken some private objection to me this evening. I shall answer for it. Like enough, he has it in mind to oblige me to procure him another bone from Mrs Nicholls.”
She looked doubtful. “He is that clever?”
“Absolutely. See how his eyes never leave me? Take a step toward the stair, Miss Bennet.”
She nodded and did so. Brutus never even glanced at her.
“Ah, you see. I have him fairly, the old criminal.” The corner of his mouth lifted—barely. “You need not concern yourself.”
Miss Bennet hesitated, then inclined her head. “Good night, Mr Darcy.”
“Good night.” He waited until she had turned away before looking back at the dog.
Brutus remained where he was.
And Darcy turned back for the servant’s staircase.