Darcy rejoined Elizabeth, his expression betraying the faintest glimmer of dry amusement. She met his gaze, her lips curving despite herself.
“It appears,” she said lightly, “that Mr. Collins’s intelligence was not quite as up to date as he supposed.”
Darcy’s eyes warmed at her tone, but he only offered his arm, and together they moved towards the nextset.
It was late when the Bennet carriage rattled back up the drive; the lamps casting long fingers of light over the frost-silvered lawn. The house lay in darkness save for a single candle burning in the entry, left to guide their return. The night was sharp and still, their breath fogging in the air as they crossed the threshold.
Sarah appeared from the shadows of the hall, looking pale and uneasy. “Mr. Bennet, sir—“ she began, but he waved her off with an indulgent smile.
“It is nearly midnight, my dear. Whatever it is, can wait until morning.”
“I am afraid it cannot, sir,” she said, her voice faltering. “It is your study…sir.”
Something in her tone drew all of them forward at once. Elizabeth was first to the door and stopped short, the others crowding behind her.
The room was a disaster.
The curtains had been yanked from their hooks and lay crumpled across the carpet, their tassels torn away. Wadding from the small chaise Mr. Bennet often used for reading lay scattered across the floor in tangled heaps, pulled from great holes cut in the fabric. His desk drawersgaped open, their contents swept into untidy piles. Books were strewn in disarray, several with pages crumpled or torn, as though someone had rifled through them in haste.
And on the desk, the space where his jewel-encrusted snuffbox had always rested was bare.
Elizabeth’s gaze was drawn, unwilling yet compelled, to the mirror over the mantel. Across its glass, in a jagged, uneven scrawl, words had been smeared in something dark and ruddy:
You Supper
For a moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the faint ticking of the clock on the mantel, its steady beat oddly at odds with the chaos of the room.
Mr. Bennet stepped forward, surveying the scene with a dry, almost brittle humor. “Well,” he said, “I suppose our mysterious visitor intends to dine on me. Not a very practical choice, mind you—tough meat and little fat.”
“Mr. Bennet!” Mrs. Bennet’s voice trembled; whether with fear or indignation it was difficult to say. “This is no jest. Someone has been in the house—this very night while we were away! And to leave such a…a horrid message. Oh, I declare, it is past endurance.” She clutched her shawl closer about her shoulders. “Perhaps it is time to notify the magistrate. That is Sir William Lucas, isit not?”
“Indeed,” Mr. Bennet said, but there was a shadow in his eyes that belied his light tone.
Elizabeth glanced towards the doorway. “Where were the servants?”
Sarah swallowed. “We…we had the evening off, miss. As you said we might, seeing as there was to be no supper served here tonight. None of us heard anything.”
“So this part of the house was empty,” Jane murmured, her voice tight with concern. “Whoever did this knew we would all be away.”
Lydia stepped closer to the mirror, her expression a mix of curiosity and unease. “It looks like…blood,” she said, almost in a whisper.
“Paint, most likely,” Mary countered, though her voice held little conviction. “But the words—what could they mean?”
Elizabeth’s eyes lingered on the crimson letters.You Supper.The message was not only strange—it was personal, unsettling. Whoever wrote it wanted them to feel watched.
She folded her arms tightly, suppressing the shiver that threatened to rise. “It means,” she said softly, “that our culprit grows bolder still.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
November 22, 1811
Longbourn
Elizabeth
Bymorning,theweatherhad turned. A low, pewter sky pressed down over the countryside, and before noon the rain began—a steady, soaking downpour that blurred the hedgerows and sent rivulets running through the gravel of the drive. The air was thick with the damp scent of wet earth and sodden leaves; every so often, a gust would fling a scatter of drops against the windowpanes with a sharp, rattling hiss.
The Bennet household was thus confined indoors. Mrs. Bennet declared herself unfit for company and remained upstairs with her salts, while the younger girls restlesslyoccupied the sitting room, alternately peering out at the rain and gossiping in low, conspiratorial voices.
