“Tired from what?”
The question was out before Elizabeth could soften it, blunt and unanswerable. Tired from what? Lydia rarely left the room. She ate when food was brought to her. She slept, or did not sleep, and the distinction was increasingly difficult to determine. She read nothing, mended nothing, wrote nothing. She existed in this small, dim space, growing thinner by the week. Elizabeth could see it, but she could not stop it, and the helplessness was a cold hand around her throat.
Lydia did not answer. She turned back to the window.
Elizabeth stayed another hour. She talked about Anne, about Muffin, about the weather, about anything that might anchor her sister to the room. Lydia responded in fragments, half-sentences that trailed into silence, her gaze drifting back to the window between each one. When Elizabeth left, she kissed Lydia’s forehead. Her skin was cool, and she did not react to the kiss.
Elizabeth had walked downstairs and told her mother, carefully, that Lydia seemed more withdrawn than usual. Mrs Bennet’s face had tightened, but she had said nothing.
Lydia was disappearing. Not dramatically, not with the noise and spectacle that had marked her ruin, but quietly, incrementally. She was fading the way ink faded on oldpaper, and one day Elizabeth would knock on that door and there would be nothing left to answer.
She sat up and threw the covers back. She could not wait for soon. Soon was a luxury Lydia might not have.
She pulled on her shoes and checked her dress—she had not undressed, had not even attempted the pretence of sleep. She was still in the grey cotton she had worn to dinner, creased but decent. She took the candle from the night table, lit it, and opened her door.
The corridor was dark and silent. The house had settled into its midnight quiet, the hush of a large home holding its breath. She moved quickly, her footsteps soft on the carpet, heading for the stairs. The library was below, and Mr Darcy’s study adjoined it. Perhaps there was a light under his door, and he was still awake, and perhaps—
She heard footsteps.
Not from below. From ahead, from the family corridor, measured and slow. Elizabeth pressed herself against the wall, into the shadow between two sconces.A servant, she thought. One of the footmen making rounds, or Barton on some nocturnal errand. She would wait for them to pass.
The figure came around the corner.
Mr Darcy was in his shirtsleeves, his coat hanging from one finger, draped over his shoulder. His hair was disordered, the careful arrangement of the morning long since abandoned. He walked with his eyes cast down, his jaw set, his expression so serious and so private that Elizabeth felt she had intruded on something simply by witnessing it.
He did not see her. He was passing within five feet of her, his mind clearly elsewhere. He would have continued pastand disappeared into the darkness of the corridor if she had let him go.
But Lydia’s face was behind her eyes and she stepped out of the shadow.
“Mr Darcy.”
He startled so violently that his coat slid from his shoulder and hit the floor. His head snapped up and his eyes found her in the candlelight. For one unguarded second his face held an expression she could not interpret—shock, yes, but beneath it something raw and unfinished, as though she had interrupted a thought he was not prepared to share.
He recovered quickly. He bent and retrieved his coat and straightened.
“Miss Bennet.” His voice was rough and he cleared his throat. “You gave me a fright.”
“Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes.” She held the candle. Her hand did not shake, though the rest of her wanted to. “I need to hear what you know, Mr Darcy. Tonight. It cannot wait.”
His eyes searched her face. Whatever he found there made his jaw tighten.
“Not here.” He glanced down the corridor to the servants’ stairs, to the dozen ears that might or might not be sleeping behind closed doors. “Follow me.”
He led her to the end of the family corridor. He stopped before a door she had never entered, turned the handle, and stepped inside. He lit a lamp from her candle, and the room came into view.
It was a drawing room. Masculine, orderly, and unmistakably his. It was dark wood, deep green upholstery, a writing desk by the window, books stacked on the side table in the disorder indicating he read widely and shelved nothing. A decanter of brandy stood on a tray beside two glasses. The fire had burned low but the embers still glowed, casting the room in amber.
To the left, a door stood ajar. Through it, Elizabeth could see the edge of a massive bed, its curtains half-drawn, and the white linen.
She averted her eyes. She fixed them on the writing desk, on the books, on anything that was not a bed.
Mr Darcy set his coat over the back of a chair. He stood by the door, very still, and when he spoke his voice was careful and deliberate.
“I am aware that this is improper, Miss Bennet. If you would prefer, we can speak tomorrow. In the garden, away from the household.”