She had forgotten, in the shock of the letters, that Mr. Darcy was here. She looked up. Whatever was in her face, it took the levelness out of his at once.
“Good God, what is it?”
CHAPTER 13
“I—” Elizabeth meant to hand Mr. Darcy the letters. Instead, the papers bent in her hand, and the room moved a little sideways.
He was with her before she could pretend there was nothing the matter.
“Elizabeth.” His hand closed around her elbow while the other wound around her back, not drawing her in this time but holding her upright, steady and strong. A good thing, too, for her knees were unreliable beneath her, and if he had not been there, she might have made a very poor business of remaining on her feet.
“I am well,” she said, though it was plainly not true.
“No,” he said. “You are not.”
He guided her back into the chair by the table and knelt beside it, one hand still at her arm, not trusting her to remain upright. His face had changed entirely. The softness of a moment before was gone, but not the tenderness. It had hardened into attention.
“Breathe,” he said. His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist, slow and steady. For some reason, it helped. After a moment she gave him the letters, because she had no words of her own that could convey her dismay.
He read it beside her. She watched his face. She saw the moment he reached the nameWickham.
The name did not surprise him. His jaw set and his eyes narrowed. The hand that held the paper went still, and his countenance became dark and grim.
He folded the letter with care. “How long have they been gone?”
“Some days, I think. I cannot tell exactly. They are in London, or were.”
“Then there is time. Wickham will not have the funds to travel to Scotland, and he will think himself well concealed in London.” He said it as a fact, not a comfort.
He rose to speak briefly to Hannah, then returned and drew up another chair facing her. He sat in it and leaned forward to take her hands.
“I know the people he will go to for funds and the woman who will hide him. I will find your sister.”
Elizabeth looked up sharply. She had seen Mr. Darcy proud. She had seen him mortified, uncertain, tender, almost undone. She had not seenthis. It was anger without heat, anger so completely disciplined that it had distilled itself into cold decision.
It frightened her a little.
Not because she thought he would be cruel, but because she could not tell, in that first terrible moment, precisely what he had decided.
Perhaps he was thinking of Mr. Wickham. Perhaps he wasthinking of Miss Darcy and what that man had nearly done once before.
She could not blame him if he was.
Then he looked back at her, his expression fixed, determined. “I can find him inside a week,” he said. “I shall go today.”
Before Elizabeth could answer, there was noise in the hall and her aunt and uncle entered. They were comfortable and unhurried, Uncle Gardiner in the middle of a sentence about the church bell. He took three steps into the parlour, saw Elizabeth’s face, saw Darcy sitting very close to her, and stopped like a man who had walked into a wall.
Aunt Gardiner shut the door behind them both.
There was no exclaiming, no scene. With Elizabeth’s permission, Mr. Darcy explained everything: the letters, Mr. Wickham, what was known, what could be done.
Uncle Gardiner listened for several minutes with an expression Elizabeth had never seen upon his face before. It was not anger, precisely, nor even alarm, but sober calculation. He had been handed a disaster and was already considering what the first remedy must be.
At last he looked directly at Mr. Darcy.
“Sir,” he said, with great civility, “forgive me. I do not question your honour, nor your ability to be of service. But I must ask why you are taking so much upon yourself in what is, you must admit, my family’s business.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened in her lap.