The “finest suite,” as promised, was indeed spacious, if somewhat old-fashioned in its décor. A comfortable, if slightly faded and overly ornate, parlour faced them as they entered. A welcoming fire, already built high and crackling merrily in the wide stone hearth, did much to dispel some of the evening’s penetrating chill. Two doors led off this central room. One, slightly ajar, revealed a tantalising glimpse of a substantial, curtained four-poster bed that looked as if it had seen better centuries. The other door led to a smaller secondary bedchamber.
Elizabeth’s heart, which had been beating a steady, dull rhythm of resignation throughout the long afternoon, began to hammer against her ribs with a sudden, frantic urgency. This was it. The first night together.
She had spent a good portion of the journey mentally rehearsing increasingly scathing speeches of indignant refusal should he dare to assert his husbandly rights. She was his wife legally, yes. But she refused to be his wife in any other, more personal sense, not by his command, not by any supposedobligation. The mere thought of his touch, of any physical intimacy with this stranger who had barely deigned to look at her with anything other than contempt, was a violation that made her stomach churn. Her magic felt tight and defensive within her, like a cornered animal, ready to flare and strike at the slightest unwelcome advance.
A young maidservant, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and unconcealed curiosity, curtsied low, offering to help with her pelisse and portmanteau. Elizabeth dismissed her with a polite but firm, “Thank you, I can manage perfectly well on my own.”
She walked, with steps that she prayed betrayed none of the violent turmoil that churned within her, towards the larger, more imposing bedchamber. Let him think what he would; let him assume what he pleased. She surveyed the room briefly – opulent in an old-fashioned way – then turned back to the parlour just as Darcy concluded his low-toned, concise instructions to his valet, Riggs. The valet bowed and retreated, silent as a wraith.
When Darcy entered the parlour, Elizabeth had already taken her position, standing before the closed door of the smaller, secondary chamber. She met his gaze unflinchingly. “I shall take this room,” she stated.
Darcy merely glanced at the door she indicated. Then his gaze returned to her face, lingering for a long, charged moment. Elizabeth braced herself for an argument, or worse.
Instead, as if dismissing a matter of supreme inconsequence, he merely said, “As you wish, madam,” and turned his attention to the fire, using a heavy brass poker to prod at the logs with what seemed like overly excessive absorption.
That was it. And she was left to puzzle over the absurd nature of her own heart, which, having been spared a confrontation,now felt strangely piqued by his complete lack of interest in having one.
Dinner, when it arrived on a rattling tray carried by a nervous, trembling inn servant who seemed terrified of dropping a fork or meeting Mr Darcy’s gaze, was a miserable affair.
Elizabeth, despite her inner turmoil and the gnawing emptiness in her stomach from a long day’s travel with little sustenance, found she had almost no appetite. The food, though of good quality – roasted meats, fresh bread, a creditable apple tart – tasted like coal in her mouth. Darcy ate methodically, his gaze mostly on his plate, as if it contained matters of great import.
Driven more by a desire to test the silence than by any genuine desire for discourse, Elizabeth attempted at an innocuous topic. “The roads today were surprisingly well-maintained, considering the lateness of the season and the recent rains,” she offered, her voice sounding unnaturally loud.
Darcy paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, and appeared to give her observation some consideration. “Indeed, the condition of the roads has been a pleasant surprise.”
“The rain held off as well, which was fortunate.”
“Yes. Yes, that was fortunate,” he agreed, offering nothing more.
The silence threatened to descend again, and Elizabeth rushed to fill it. “And the inn?”
“The inn?”
“Do you find it satisfactory?”
He surveyed the slightly faded but clean parlour with a cursory glance. “The rooms are clean. The fare is plain, but well-prepared. I find the inn…”
In that pause, that pause where he searched for the appropriate dismissive adjective, she knew she should saynothing. She knew the path of civility was to let him finish his assessment and then gracefully retreat back into their frigid silence. And yet, a wicked, almost gleeful part of her impertinence demanded to be heard.
“Tolerable?” she suggested sweetly, her voice a perfect imitation of innocent enquiry.
A stillness settled over him. For a fraction of a second, his composure fractured, and she saw a stir of something in his eyes. It was not anger, but a startled, almost unwilling, recognition. He knew precisely what she was doing.
But he did not rise to the jibe. Instead, he simply gave a slight nod that acknowledged she had spoken, and nothing more. “As you say,” he said, before turning his attention back to his plate.
And that, apparently, was all he had to remark on the matter. The roads, the weather, and the inn — every safe and meaningless topic had been attempted and discarded. The tentative bridge of civil conversation, if it could even be called such, withered and died before it had even been properly constructed.
The silence stretched, becoming more oppressive than the fatigue of the day’s travel. Elizabeth finally set down her fork with a deliberate click.
“Mr Darcy,” she began, startling him from his focused contemplation of his roasted meat. “It seems to me a great waste of time to spend these days on the road in utter — ”silence, she thought, “ — idleness,” she said.
He looked up, his dark eyes wary. “I fail to see your meaning.”
“Our magic,” she clarified, meeting his gaze directly. “The Arcane Office was quite clear on the need for haste. Should we not begin to understand the nature of the bond between us?” She gestured vaguely at the air between them, a space that felt both vast and charged with a strange, humming energy.
A look of disapproval crossed his features. The idea of attempting to work magic in the common space of a public inn was clearly a prospect he found appalling.
“The thought is beyond consideration,” he said dismissively, “The energies we are required to explore are volatile and entirely unknown. To attempt this outside of a properly warded and prepared environment would be an act of supreme recklessness.”
