“Elizabeth.”
Her name tore from him as he spent, shuddering, his back arching, his free hand fisting the bedsheet. The release was violent, wrenching, a wave that crashed through him and left him gasping, trembling, hollowed out. He slumped forward, his forehead against his knees, his chest heaving, the evidence of his surrender warm and damning on his hand and his linen.
He stayed there for a long time.
His breathing slowed, then he got up and cleaned himself. He got into bed. The sheets were cool and indifferent, and so lonely.
Eight
Three weeks into her employment, Elizabeth had learned the rhythms of Darcy House the way a sailor learned the tides—by necessity, by repetition, and by the understanding that survival depended on knowing which way the current would pull.
She knew, for instance, that Mrs Hatfield inspected the nursery linens on Tuesdays. That Barton polished the silver on Thursdays with a devotion bordering on religious. That Alice could be bribed with sugar biscuits to stay an extra hour with Anne when Elizabeth needed to mend her stockings in peace.
And she knew that Mr Darcy never missed dinner.
Georgiana was present most evenings, bright and warm, steering the conversation with the easy grace that made Elizabeth forget, sometimes for whole minutes, that she did not belong at this table. The Colonel appeared three or four nights a week, filling the room with laughter, campaign stories, and an appetite that alarmed Cook. Lord Lofton joined them when Georgiana’s wedding plans required his presence, which was increasingly often.
But there were evenings when Georgiana had obligations elsewhere—a ball with Lord Lofton’s family, a supper at Matlock House, the endless social machinery of a woman about to marry well. The Colonel had his own business. On those nights, the table shrank to two. Elizabeth at his left, Mr Darcy at the head, and far too many empty chairs next to them.
Those dinners were careful, quiet, and exquisitely proper. Barton stood at his post by the sideboard. Two footmen served and cleared. The conversation revolved around Anne’s progress, her questions, and the latest instalment of her ongoing correspondence with the Almighty. It was pleasant and entirely safe. Elizabeth contributed her observations. Mr Darcy contributed his. The butler poured the wine, and nobody said anything that could not have been printed inThe Times.
And yet.
There was a quality to those evenings she could not name. A charge in the silence between courses, a weight to the glances that were too brief and too carefully directed at the plate. She caught him, once, watching her hands as she broke bread, and his gaze had moved away so quickly she might have imagined it. She did not imagine it, though.
She told herself it meant nothing.
Tonight was one of those evenings. Georgiana was at the opera with Lord Lofton. The Colonel was dining with fellow officers at his club. The table was set for two. Elizabeth had returned that afternoon from Somers Town, and she had not spoken a word since the soup was placed before her.
Mr Darcy noticed.
“Miss Bennet.” His voice was quiet and careful, as if approaching a subject he was not certain he had the right to approach. “Is something amiss?”
She set down the spoon she had been holding without eating, turning it in her fingers until the soup had gone cold.
“Forgive me, Mr Darcy. I am poor company this evening.”
“You are never poor company.” He said it simply, without weight, and then seemed to hear the words he uttered. He returned his attention to his plate.
She should leave it there. She should eat her soup and discuss Anne’s arithmetic and retire at a respectable hour. She should not burden her employer with her family’s troubles. It was not his concern, it was not her place, the servants were listening, and propriety demanded silence.
Propriety could go hang. This was too big a worry, and she needed to speak it aloud.
“I am worried about my youngest sister.” She chose the words with care, stripping them of detail, of history, of the grief that clung to Lydia’s name in any room where the Bennets gathered. “She is more subdued than usual. I visited her today and I found her—” She paused while Barton refilled Mr Darcy’s glass, and glanced at a footman who stood three feet away. “Struggling.”
She did not say with what. Mr Darcy’s expression shifted—a tightening around the jaw, a flicker in his eyes that told her he understood precisely what she was not saying.
He set his glass down.
“In that regard, Miss Bennet, I have information that might help your sister’s melancholy.” He held her gaze. “Or at the very least, offer her some measure of closure.”
Elizabeth’s hand stilled on the tablecloth, her pulse quickening.Information. What information could he possibly have about Lydia’s situation that the Bennets did not already know? They had lived through it. They had buried their father because of it. What could Mr Darcy, of all people, tell her that seven years of wreckage had not already made clear?
She wanted to demand he tell her now. The question pressed against her teeth, urgent and sharp. But the footman was clearing the soup, and a second course was being laid. Barton was adjusting a candlestick with meticulous attention, absorbing every syllable. This was not a conversation for silver and candlelight and listening ears.
Mr Darcy glanced around the room. His eyes moved from Barton to the footman to the open door, and he understood the same thing she did.
“Soon, Miss Bennet.” His voice was low and carried a weight she had not heard in it before. “I give you my word.”