Chapter Fifteen
Darcy shut the door of his chamber with care and stood for a moment where he was, hand still on the latch.
Brutus crossed the room at once and dropped heavily at the foot of the bed, turning a slow circle before settling with a sound of contentment that Darcy did not return.
“Yes,” Darcy said under his breath. “You have done very well indeed. What the devil is with you and Miss Elizabeth?”
Brutus only stretched and offered a low groan as his eyes closed.
Darcy shook his head and crossed to the writing desk, then drew out the letter he had begun earlier. One page only. A careful opening. Polite. Circumspect. Entirely unsatisfactory.
He read it once, lips pressed thin, then folded it decisively and crumpled it for the fire.
He took a fresh sheet and seated himself, pen poised. For a moment, he stared at the blank page as though it might offer instruction. When it did not, he wrote, anyway.
My dear Uncle,
Your letter reached me this afternoon, and I would have answered at once had I not wished first to consider it properly. I thank you for your candour—
He stopped.
That was already untrue. He had wished first to dismiss it properly.
Darcy crumpled that paper, too, and began again.
My dear Uncle,
I received your letter today and am obliged to you for writing so plainly. You will not be surprised to hear that I have spent the better part of the evening attempting to determine whether you are correct in supposing that recent oddities of weather or herbage are anything more than coincidence.
He paused, considering the word “disturbances.”
It was serviceable. Vague. Noncommittal.
In Hertfordshire, I have observed nothing that cannot be explained by weather, neglect, or the ordinary inconveniences of rural management. That said—
His pen hovered.
“That said.”
Always the pivot to something unpleasant.
Brutus shifted at the foot of the bed, nails rasping faintly against the floor as he rolled upright and swivelled his head to stare at the wall as if he could see through it. Darcy glanced up despite himself. “What is it now?”
The dog gazed, unblinking. Darcy twisted in his seat. Either Brutus had suddenly taken an interest in the portrait of someone’s departed grandmother on the wall, or he sensed someone moving in the room beyond.
Darcy watched him for another moment, then returned to the page.
That said, I have lately encountered a number of small irregularities which, taken separately, would merit no attention at all. Taken together, they have proven more resistant to easy dismissal.
He read the sentence twice, then nodded once. Acceptable.
Several features recorded in earlier surveys do not answer to their stated purpose. A minor watercourse appears never to have carried water, and nearby growth remains unusually green for the season, despite no corresponding advantage in soil or drainage.
He stopped again.
So, what did any of that matter? It seemed a trivial thing to bring to his uncle’s notice. Lord Matlock was grasping at straws, and it was likely foolish to give him more meaningless notes to fret over.
He considered striking it through, but decided to add a clarification instead.
I am inclined to wonder whether some irregularity beneath the surface—an old shift or settling of the ground, long since stilled—may account for both observations.
Better.
Safer.
He continued for several lines—about hedgerows, about drainage, about a warmth in the soil that had no business being there so late in the season, with no proper frost yet. He kept his tone dry, professional, almost bored.
Only then did he hesitate.
There was one more matter.
Darcy sat back in his chair, the pen balanced loosely between his fingers, the page before him no longer quite in focus.
He had not intended to write of it. He had been perfectly resolved not to. And yet the room refused to supply him with anything else to consider.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet had come downstairs under her own power.
The thought arrived without invitation and lingered, resistant to dismissal.
Not carried. Not urged. Not pale in the manner of one determined to prove fortitude at the expense of sense.
She had been tired, yes—but present, alert, with that quick turn of expression that suggested she was already measuring the company she found herself in and finding it wanting in small, amusing ways.
She had spoken lightly. Too lightly, perhaps. As though careful words were an inconvenience rather than a necessity.
The house has been very obliging.
It was an odd phrase. He had noticed that at once. Too precise to be accidental, too casual to be deliberate. The sort of remark one made without fully examining why it had chosen itself.
He turned the pen between his fingers, gaze dropping to the desk, then lifting again without his quite noticing the movement. There had been colour in her face. Not the flush of fever, nor the brittle rosiness of false cheer, but something brighter. Awake.
Her eyes had been…
Darcy stopped.
This was pointless.
He drew a sharp line beneath the half-written paragraph and leaned forward again, forcing his attention back to the page.
Elizabeth Bennet’s eyes were of no consequence to county surveys, nor to weather patterns, nor to dogs behaving badly at staircases.
Whatever he had thought he observed was merely the aftereffect of a day too long and a mind insufficiently occupied.
He resumed writing at once, his hand firmer, his letters more compact.
There was also an incident here involving a young lady taken ill without evident cause while walking the grounds.
No injury was discovered, nor could any clear explanation be supplied at the time.
I mention it only because the location coincides with a portion of the park where the dry watercourses were noted.
I have heard of certain individuals who seem particularly sensitive to terrestrial fissures. Perhaps Hertfordshire is to expect convulsions of the ground soon? Or perhaps that is merely folk fancy, I cannot be sure.
Darcy read it once.
That was factual. Temperate. Entirely reasonable.
He hesitated, then added a line beneath the last.
I do not infer cause from this, nor do I ascribe any particular significance to it.
I note it only because you once advised me that repeated coincidence deserves at least the courtesy of attention, particularly where that coincidence concerns the instincts of beasts who seek no conclusions of their own.
He set the pen down.
For a moment, he did nothing at all.
The letter lay before him, incomplete and imperfect, saying more than he wished and less than he knew. He folded it once, then again, and placed it beside his uncle’s letter, aligning the edges with deliberate care.
Brutus rose and crossed the room, placing his head briefly against Darcy’s knee before settling again.
Darcy rested a hand between the dog’s ears without looking down. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I am aware.”
He did not seal the letter.
Instead, he stood, tucking both papers into his coat pocket, and crossed to the window. The night beyond offered nothing—only the dark outline of trees and the suggestion of movement where there should have been none.
Elizabeth stacked her father’s books with care and placed them at the top of her trunk, though she had already packed them once.
She checked the ribbon Jane had insisted upon, then set it aside again.
She straightened the shawl she had folded only moments earlier, then left it where it lay.
Each task had a reason. None of them required haste.
Downstairs, voices drifted faintly upward—Jane’s, unmistakable, and Mr Bingley’s brighter tones beside it. The house was awake. The carriage would be announced any moment now. Elizabeth paused with her hands resting on the edge of the trunk, listening.
Nothing.
She glanced toward the door.
She did not expect to see the dog there.
That would be ridiculous. And yet she found herself waiting for the sound of nails on the floor, for the quiet assurance of his presence in the passage beyond, as if he were some sort of custodian.
When nothing came, irritation stirred where unease might otherwise have settled.
Very well, then.
Elizabeth took up her reticule and turned toward the door before she could reconsider. The passage lay empty. She stood there a moment longer than necessary, then moved on, setting her steps with care that was not caution so much as attention. She reached the stair.
For an instant—only an instant—she hesitated, expecting that subtle resistance she had felt before, that quiet refusal she could not have named if pressed. Nothing answered her pause. The stair remained as it always had been.
Elizabeth frowned faintly and placed her foot on the first step.
It held.
She took another.
Still nothing.
Her pulse quickened, not with alarm but with something closer to disbelief. She descended another step, then another, her hand brushing the banister more out of habit than need. The space behaved. The house offered no objection at all.
Halfway down, she became aware she was not alone.
Darcy stood at the foot of the stair, one hand resting on the newel post, a book open in his hand as though he had been interrupted mid-thought. He looked up as she descended, surprise flickering across his features before discipline smoothed it away.
“Miss Elizabeth.”
“Mr Darcy. I have not yet thanked you for finding me in the fields. Your kindness has not gone amiss, for I am well enough to go home today.”
“So I had heard.” His gaze shifted briefly—up the stair beyond her, then back to her face. “You appear quite recovered.”
She smiled, a little. “Appearances are having a very successful morning.”
The corner of his mouth moved, almost despite him. “I am glad to see it.”
Elizabeth took the remaining steps, watching him now with a curiosity she did not trouble to conceal. He had not offered his arm. He had not moved to bar her way or hasten her passage. He simply stood there, present, as though that were sufficient.
She reached the bottom of the stair without incident. The moment she stepped onto the hall carpet, the awareness she had carried with her—the quiet expectation of correction—slipped away entirely.
Elizabeth drew a breath and gave a small, incredulous laugh. “Well,” she said, “that is settled, then.”
Darcy’s brows drew together—not sharply, but with the faint crease of someone who had not reached the same conclusion. “Is it?”
She met his look squarely. “I appear to have alarmed myself unnecessarily. A habit I am determined to break.”
“One I should not have attributed to you,” he said, after a moment. His gaze flicked—briefly, unmistakably—toward the stair behind her. “You do not strike me as prone to it.”
“Not even after that incident at the Assembly? I beg to differ sir, for I alarmed myself right and proper.”
“An incident I am assured had less to do with your character and more to do with some peculiarity in the room.”
She smiled. “Well, I should be sorry to disappoint.”
Before he could answer, footsteps sounded from the drawing room.
“Lizzy!” Jane appeared, relief written plainly across her face. “The carriage is waiting. I was just coming to fetch you.”
“I am quite ready,” Elizabeth said, with a composure she felt she had earned.
Darcy stepped aside to make room for them. As she passed him, his attention followed—not boldly, not with any claim upon her, but with a quiet awareness that made itself felt all the same.
At the door, Elizabeth paused and glanced back once more at the stair she had descended without effort.
“Good morning, Mr Darcy,” she said lightly. “Thank you for keeping me company in such an… accommodating house.”
Something in his expression stilled, then eased—amusement, perhaps, or recognition. “I shall take that as encouragement rather than instruction.”
“I recommend it,” she said, and this time did not trouble herself to look away as she left.