“I have heard their concerns incessantly.”
“You have heard then, that the wards have failed at Brighton? Three men were killed by the magical surge.”
Darcy was silent.
“This true union that the Arcane — ”
“Hang the Office,” interrupted Darcy coldly, “I will not ever force myself upon a woman. There must be another way.”
“Good God, man, I was hardly about to suggest so,” the man replied, and he sounded genuinely offended. “I only meant to say…perhaps instead of treating her like a wayward pupil, you might try wooing her? Charming her? Come now, Darcy, you are not entirely without ability when you choose to exert yourself and stop scowling at the world.”
More silence.
“She is keeping something from me,” Darcy said eventually.
“Should that surprise you?” the man retorted. “You were married under duress and from what I gather, have spent the entire time instructing her on her failings. Perhaps if you offered a kind word instead of a correction, she might feel inclined to confide in you.”
“And how am I to do that? Am I to compliment her technique when she nearly brings the ceiling down upon us?”
“You were not always this severe, Darcy. I remember a time when you knew how to nurture a gift. With Georgiana — ”
“Do not mention Georgiana.” Darcy’s voice was harsh.
Elizabeth recoiled from the door, her heart pounding an erratic rhythm against her ribs. The savage intensity in his voice, the sheer agony it conveyed, was shocking. Georgiana. Whatever that name signified to him, the wound, clearly, was still raw.
A past attachment, then? A lost love, perhaps, to explain such a depth of pain? The thought was a surprisingly bitter one to contemplate.
For a moment, there was only the sound of a few ragged breaths. Darcy’s. When he spoke again, his voice was strained. “I apologise, cousin. But I beg of you, that is an entirely different matter. And it is closed. Utterly.”
The man’s reply was contrite. “Forgive me, I overstepped. I only meant to suggest that a little warmth, a little kindness, might go further than…” and here he trailed off.
Elizabeth had heard enough. More than enough. The shame of her deliberate eavesdropping was a sharp, almost clammy feeling as she pulled away from the door.
And now all she was left with was a tangle of complex new questions and the unsettling intimacy of a secret she was never meant to be privy to.
Sarah, upon greeting Elizabeth with her morning cup of tea – a ritual that had become one of the sole comforting constants in her new life at Pemberley – announced, with a flustered air that immediately roused Elizabeth’s curiosity, “The master presents his compliments, ma’am, and would like to know if you would consent to break your fast with him this morning.”
Elizabeth blinked, her teacup halfway to her lips. Darcy? Wishing to share a meal? For all the weeks she had been immured within the gloomy grandeur of Pemberley, they had dined with solitude. Every meal, without exception, had been consumed via trays delivered to their respective rooms, a daily testament to their mutual antipathy.
A flurry of conflicting emotions assailed her. Suspicion, certainly, rose first and foremost. What had prompted this sudden and uncharacteristic departure from their established routine? Was it a new directive from the Lord Magister, to force some semblance of harmony between them?
But then, a foolish hope stirred. She recalled his cousin’s advice to be kind to her, and a strange, painful pang tightened in her chest. She was dreadfully tired of being lonely.
“Kindly inform Mr Darcy that I will join him.”
Sarah, looking slightly terrified by this unexpected turn of events, curtsied and hurried away to deliver the message to Darcy’s valet. She then returned to help Elizabeth select a suitable morning gown and arrange her hair with a care that suggested this breakfast was an occasion of importance.
When Elizabeth entered the breakfast parlour, Darcy was already there. He stood as she entered, greeting her with a murmured, “Good morning.”
The abundance of dishes on the sideboard was a veritable feast. Rashers of crisp bacon, poached eggs, muffins, crumpets, toast, an assortment of jams and marmalades, honey cakes, and a silver coffeepot and selection of teas.
For a moment, she was not at Pemberley, but back at Longbourn, the table there groaning under a similar, if humbler, offering, her family gathered around it. A pang of homesickness caught in her throat. How she missed those times.
While she was mistress here and could command such a feast daily, the sheer wastefulness of it for two people in a silent house felt deeply wrong. This house, she thought, was built formore. It yearned for the happy chaos of children, for the pitter-patter of small running feet. It was a life that felt impossibly distant from the one she now shared with the man standing across from her.
Pushing the melancholy thought aside, she approached the sideboard. To her surprise, her appetite, so long dormant, stirred at the sight of the tempting morsels. Then she took a seat at the circular table, which had been laid for two with fine linen and gleaming silver, and began to eat.
Darcy, too, resumed his seat and immediately picked up a copy of the London Times, erecting it between them like a wall. Though he made a show of perusing its contents, Elizabeth was aware of his eyes periodically appearing over the top of the page. It was a covert, yet persistent, scrutiny, and she wondered what he could possibly find so fascinating in the way she buttered hermuffin. The paper would rustle slightly whenever she chanced to meet his gaze, a hasty retreat back into the printed columns that she found, to her surprise, more amusing than vexing.
