He remained courteous but remote with everyone, never quite meeting anyone's gaze.Not Caroline's despite her persistence.Not Elizabeth's—not once through five courses.She might have been an empty chair for all the notice he took.
After dinner, the ladies withdrew.Mrs.Bennet's voice filled the drawing room, detailing Lydia's latest letter with exhausting thoroughness.Caroline commandeered the pianoforte when the gentlemen joined them, her performance technically flawless.She begged Darcy to turn the pages for her, and he complied.
Elizabeth pressed into the corner settee, fighting the heat that built like banked coals.Her skin felt too small, stretched taut over bones that ached.When Darcy shifted—just a simple adjustment of position—his scent drifted across the room.Dark chocolate and autumn leaves hit her like a physical blow.Dizziness swept through her.
She dug crescents into her palms.Not again.She had pride enough left for this.
But the evening dragged, and the fire built higher.Her head pounded in rhythm with her pulse, vision starting to blur at the edges.When she stood to excuse herself, she swayed slightly.
"A headache," she managed when Charles inquired why she might leave so early."Please, don't let me disturb your night."
"Poor Miss Eliza."Caroline's voice carried perfectly as Elizabeth left."She's looked quite unwell all day."
Elizabeth climbed the stairs slowly, gripping the rail.Each step required conscious effort.The heat pressed against her ribs, demanding attention she refused to give.
"Miss Bennet."
She turned carefully.Darcy stood at the bottom, his face shadow-carved in the dim light.Everyone else remained in the drawing room.
"Mr.Darcy."The words scraped past her dry throat.
He climbed with measured steps, stopping one below her.Eye level now.Close enough that his scent wrapped around her, making her knees weak.
"If you need assistance tonight…" His jaw worked, the words emerging rough."Come to my room."
Nothing more.No softness, no concern.Just logistics, like arranging for post horses or settling accounts.
Elizabeth lifted her chin."That won't be necessary."
His dark eyes flicked back to hers, unreadable."If the fever worsens—"
"Good evening, Mr.Darcy."
He hesitated, as though he might say more, then executed a brief, formal bow before descending without looking back.
She stood on the stairs long enough to ensure he was gone, her hands shaking not from heat but from the effort of refusing what her body craved.She would not make herself more pathetic than she already had.Whatever tonight brought, she would face it with what dignity remained to her.
She fled to her chamber, the ache in her chest sharper than any physical pain.
CHAPTERFIVE
In her bedroom,Elizabeth collapsed onto the makeshift nest she'd built from shawls and pillows, but nothing satisfied.The wool scratched, the linen felt coarse, the silk slipped away when she moved.She rearranged them compulsively—this pillow here, that shawl there—but each configuration proved worse than the last.
Her body remembered.Every nerve ending recalled his touch with perfect clarity.The careful press of his fingers, the heat of his mouth, the way he'd known exactly where and how to ease the burning.She pressed her thighs together, but the ache only intensified.
Pride, she told herself.Have some pride.
She'd already debased herself before him once.He'd made it clear this morning how unwelcome her presence was, trying to ship her and her family away like unwanted parcels.Caroline would become mistress of Pemberley, would give him elegant omega children with perfect manners and refined sensibilities and perfect relatives.
The tears came then, hot and shameful.She buried her face in a pillow that smelled wrong—lavender and clean cotton when she needed dark chocolate and autumn leaves.Her skin burned, fever climbing despite the cold water she splashed on her neck.
Footsteps in the corridor.Mary and Kitty calling goodnight to each other, their voices muffled through oak doors.Her mother's voice drifted past, regaling her father with some gossip about the Lucases that had already been rehashed several times before.Normal sounds of a household settling for sleep while she writhed in sheets that felt like sandpaper against oversensitive skin.
Hours crawled past.She tried touching herself the way he had, but her fingers were wrong—too small, too familiar, lacking the authority that had made her body sing.The attempt only made the need sharper, more desperate.
By midnight, she wept quietly into pillows that offered no comfort.Her wrapper clung to sweat-damp skin.The nest she'd built mocked her—a poor omega who couldn't even build proper comfort for herself, who needed an alpha who didn't want her.
She lasted another quarter hour before surrender came.
