Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The clock had no mercy in it.
Darcy sat at the escritoire with a letter half-folded beneath his hand and watched the minute hand advance with infuriating composure.
It was not late—by London standards, it was hardly evening at all—but the light beyond the windows had dwindled, and the fire had settled into that low, consuming burn which signalled the approach of quiet.
He had already dismissed one footman. The house had begun, subtly, to draw inward.
The steward’s letter lay unanswered. Figures blurred where he had tried to review them. Invitations—a bare fraction of the number he would have expected for December—had been stacked and restacked without decision. He had read the same paragraph twice and retained none of it.
He glanced again at the clock.
Harrowe had said a day or two. It had been one day and a half already. Darcy had told him any hour. Day or night. As if knowledge might obey urgency simply because it was demanded.
He rose and crossed the room, only to stop without knowing why.
The house was too still. Even Brutus had settled on his pallet somewhere beyond the kitchens, where he liked to wait on scraps from Cook.
Darcy turned back, drew up the poker, and adjusted the fire by a fraction that made no discernible difference.
The clock marked another quarter hour.
He had just opened his mouth to tell the servant to bank the fire when the sound came—not the sedate announcement of a proper caller, but a sharp, insistent knock that cut through the hall with improper force.
Darcy stilled, then glanced at the footman. “Admit them,” he said at once. “It is likely the man I am expecting.”
The door had scarcely opened before Darcy saw her.
Elizabeth Bennet—borne across the threshold in Bingley’s arms, her head lifted, her colour high, her eyes alight with unmistakable awareness. For a fraction of a second, nothing else in the hall seemed properly placed.
Then the rest of it resolved: Bingley’s coat askew, his breath still uneven from haste; Jane Bennet close behind, her bonnet undone, her face drawn pale with strain; and Miss Bingley entering last, composed enough to notice everything and approve of none of it.
“Darcy—” Bingley began, then broke off, adjusting his hold as Elizabeth stirred. “Forgive us. We had no intention of intruding upon you without notice, but—”
Elizabeth was pressing away from Bingley’s chest with a look of faint chagrin. “Mr Bingley, you may set me down,” she said, her voice clear, touched only by impatience. “I assure you, I am not an invalid. I am perfectly capable.”
Darcy had not moved. He was aware of his own stillness only because it felt so unlike him.
She looked… well. Colour warmed her cheeks; her eyes were bright, keen, unmistakably herself.
For a moment, the memory of finding her outside Netherfield—the pallor, the pain, the collapse—failed him entirely.
Bingley hesitated, then obeyed, easing her to her feet with evident reluctance even as Darcy’s instincts propelled him forward. He reached out to catch her hand as her feet touched the floor, but she shook her head and pulled at her cloak.
“I can walk,” Elizabeth said at once, and smiled—faintly, determinedly—as though daring anyone present to contradict her.
Miss Bingley’s gaze slid from Elizabeth to Darcy and paused there. “It is quite extraordinary,” she observed lightly. “One would hardly believe she was nearly insensate two hours ago.”
Darcy felt the words strike and pass him in the same instant. “You are all most welcome,” he said, far too quickly. “Pray—come in. Miss Bennet, Miss Bingley—Bingley, of course. You must allow me to offer you rooms at once.”
“Oh, yes! Thank you—Darcy, I cannot tell you how relieved I am you are at home,” Bingley burst out, advancing as though the explanation itself might outrun him if he did not speak fast enough.
“We should never have presumed, only there was truly no time, and Miss Elizabeth has been very unwell—very—for days now. Quite alarming, I assure you. Mr Jones could make nothing of it, and Mr Bennet was persuaded that she must be removed from Longbourn entirely, that the air—or the place, or something of the sort—was doing her harm.”
Elizabeth’s smile tightened, but she said nothing.
“There was, of course, the wedding,” Bingley went on, with a helpless gesture, “and every wish to spare the family further distress, so it was settled—rather hastily, I admit—that we should take her to Ramsgate. Just for a time. Until Mr Bennet might join us and decide what was best. And truly, Darcy, she seemed so much improved upon the road—remarkably so—that we thought the plan answered perfectly.”
Miss Bingley made a small sound of scepticism and examined the ceiling.
“But then—quite suddenly—she was not herself again,” Bingley finished, lowering his voice despite himself.
“So pale, so faint—I feared we should lose her consciousness altogether. It was as far back to London as forward to our lodgings, and with physicians here, and no house secured—my solicitor could not possibly have been reached in time—there was nothing for it but to turn back and come to you. I beg you will forgive the intrusion, and the want of notice—only I knew nowhere else to turn in such immediate need.”
Elizabeth shifted slightly, as if to protest. The grimacing smile she offered Darcy was apologetic, almost rueful—see how much trouble I have caused.
Miss Bingley’s eyes flicked toward her again. They rolled—only a little—but not so little as to escape notice.
“I would have it no other way,” Darcy said, as though the assurance had been waiting for him. He turned sharply, already issuing instructions. “The south drawing room—see that the fire is built up at once. And prepare chambers for our guests. Draw baths, bring refreshments. Whatever is needed.”
The servants moved. The house responded, doors opening, voices answering, the familiar machinery of order set abruptly in motion.
Two footmen came forward to relieve coats and hats; Bingley twisted out of his woollen sleeves, Miss Bingley turned, already assessing the room as if she might one day call herself the mistress of it all.
Elizabeth moved, too—drawn forward in what appeared simple curiosity, her gaze on the footmen, the maids beyond, and then wandering back to fix on Darcy as she moved out of the way of the crush.
Her foot caught.
That was all Darcy saw—movement wrong, weight shifting—and his blood turned. He was on her before the thought finished forming, his hand catching her shoulder to hold her upright, his body braced as if to take her weight.
The touch emptied him. Not pain—absence. The contact hit him like a sudden hollowing, a swift, sickening sense of being emptied from the inside out. His knees threatened, just for an instant, to forget their duty.
She righted herself immediately, placing one hand on his shoulder as if to reassure him. “Mr Darcy? You need not look so alarmed. I was not faint. Just clumsy and distracted.”
The room rushed back into him then—the servants hovering, Bingley half-turned in concern, Miss Bingley watching with a dark sort of interest—but Darcy’s attention remained fixed where his hand still rested at her waist. Elizabeth stood perfectly at ease, her colour clear, her eyes bright, looking at him now as though she were the one steadying him.
He withdrew his hand. “Yes,” he managed at last, and felt the word ring hollow even as he spoke it.
Her gaze lingered on his face, curious now, intent—and in that look he knew, with a certainty that made retreat impossible, that whatever she had gained by coming here, he was already paying for it.
The crash came from the back of the house—metal against stone, a pan knocked loose—followed by a shout that cut off mid-word. Darcy knew the sound that followed.
“Brutus—no!”
The passage filled with the drum of claws, the sharp, echoing bark that had scattered grown men more than once. Servants recoiled instinctively; one dropped a cloak outright. Miss Bingley gave a startled cry and retreated a full step, her hand flying to her chest.
Darcy moved without thought. “Brutus! Down—heel!” His voice snapped through the hall, sharp with command, and for a breath he expected the dog to barrel through regardless.
But Brutus had already altered course.
He skidded across the stone floor and stopped short of Elizabeth, the hair at his scruff raised in alarm, body taut with momentum.
He thrust his nose forward, once—again—then lowered himself with abrupt peace and sat squarely before her, back straight, tail stilled, gaze fixed on her face as if awaiting instruction.
Darcy stared. His hand hovered half-raised, the reprimand unfinished on his tongue. The dog did not look at him. Did not look anywhere but at Elizabeth Bennet.
“Well,” she said, after a moment—softly, not startled, more curious than anything else. “I appear to have passed inspection once more.” She extended her hand, and Brutus permitted her to rest it on his head. “Hello, my good fellow.”
Darcy found his voice at last. “Brutus.”
The dog did not move. Did not even glance at him.
Darcy crossed the remaining distance, one hand reaching again for Elizabeth as if she might vanish the moment he turned away, the other gesturing sharply to the servants crowding the hall. “Bring refreshments,” he said. “And clear this passage—at once.”
He tried again, more sharply. “Brutus.”
Only then did the dog break his stare, glancing up at Darcy as though surprised to be addressed, before rising with reluctant dignity and stepping aside—never taking his eyes from her.
Darcy lifted his hand again, not to command this time, but to indicate the way forward, his palm hovering an inch from her sleeve as though the space itself were treacherous.
Elizabeth glanced at him, a brief, searching look, then inclined her head and moved on.
Brutus followed at her heel.