Chapter Four
Familiar Strangers
Elizabeth did not sleep.
She lay staring into the darkness while Lydia snored faintly in the room down the corridor and considered every possible explanation.
Darcy had asked about apricot preserve. Odd.
Not impossible. Then the coffee. She had done that deliberately, a test born before thought.
Young Fitzwilliam Darcy drank black coffee.
Her husband, after suffering a stomach complaint at forty-two, had begun adding cream. Elizabeth had teased him for years.
The man at the assembly had looked as though she had recited his bank accounts.
That did not prove anything. People changed their coffee habits. He could have--
No.
He had not even been drinking coffee when she said it.
Elizabeth covered her face. "Impossible."
Jane murmured from the next bed, "What?"
Elizabeth froze. They were sharing while Aunt Phillips and two cousins occupied other rooms after the assembly.
"Nothing."
"You have said 'impossible' three times."
"Have I?"
"Yes." Jane turned toward her. Moonlight caught her face. "Does this concern Mr. Darcy?"
Elizabeth nearly groaned. "Why?"
"He stared at you."
"Mr. Darcy stares at everyone."
"No." Jane smiled. "He looked at everyone. He stared at you."
Elizabeth was silent.
Jane continued, "And you kept smiling at him."
"I found him amusing."
"Mr. Darcy?"
"Yes."
Jane sounded doubtful. "He seems rather serious."
"You have no idea."
There was too much affection in Elizabeth's voice.
Jane heard it. "Lizzy?"
Elizabeth turned toward the wall. "Go to sleep."
Jane laughed softly. "Very well."
At Netherfield, Bingley sat on Darcy's bed while Darcy wished fervently that he would leave.
"You danced," Bingley said.
"Yes."
"With Miss Elizabeth."
"Yes."
"You smiled."
"Bingley."
"Twice. Caroline counted."
Darcy stopped removing his cravat. "Why?"
"Because she is Caroline."
Fair.
Bingley leaned back on his hands. "You know her."
Darcy turned slowly. "No."
"You looked like you knew her."
"I was introduced tonight."
"That is not what I mean. Did you meet her in London?"
"No."
"Derbyshire?"
"No."
"Then why did you ask her what preserve she likes?"
Darcy stared. "You heard that?"
"So did half the set." Bingley laughed. "I have decided your method of courtship is culinary."
"It is not a courtship."
"Good, because it is very poor."
Darcy threw a cravat at him. Bingley ducked.
"Go to bed."
"One more question."
"No."
"Why did she know how you take coffee?"
Darcy's hand stilled.
Bingley had heard that too.
"I do not take coffee with cream."
"Precisely." Bingley's humor faded. "Darcy, I was teasing before. Now I am actually curious."
Darcy looked toward the window. "I do not know."
That answer sobered Bingley completely. "You truly don't."
"No."
Bingley stood. "Well, whatever is happening, you seem happier."
Darcy stared.
Bingley shrugged. "Stranger, certainly. But happier."
He left.
Darcy remained standing beside the bed. Happier. Elizabeth was alive. Whether she remembered him or not, she was alive. Of course he was happier.
If she remembered--what then?
Could he walk into Longbourn tomorrow and say, My dearest, it appears death has been inconveniently temporary?
No.
Even Elizabeth would require better evidence.
And if he was wrong, he would terrify a twenty-year-old woman by behaving as though they had shared half a century.
Darcy lay down.
He needed proof. Private proof. Something no one else could know.
He thought of hundreds. The scar behind her left knee from falling from a pony at Pemberley. The ridiculous nickname their youngest son had given a marble statue. The exact place she hid Christmas gifts. The three strokes.
Darcy swallowed.
Too intimate.
He would wait. Observe.
He had been good at observation once.
Elizabeth had informed him that staring was not the same thing.
He smiled into the darkness.
Tomorrow.