She drew the book closer and read the stanza again, slower this time. There was only the distinct awareness of having seen her own experience placed neatly into language.
If only she understood what it all meant.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Elizabeth had already puton her boots when the rain began in earnest.
It came down in slanting sheets, the kind that rattled against the windowpanes and made the yard beyond them shine darkly. She stood with one foot braced against the bedpost, pulling her laces until they strained nearly to breaking, listening to the sound with an impatience she did not attempt to disguise.
This would not do.
She had meant to be gone by now—out before anyone thought to ask where she was going or why she required her cloak so urgently. A turn along the hedgerow would suffice for an explanation. “A short walk.” Nothing that invited remark. Nothing that suggested purpose beyond air and motion.
She straightened and crossed to the window, pushing it open a fraction despite the cold. The wind met her, sharp and damp, carrying with it the smell of soaked earth and leaf rot. The path beyond the garden gate had already softened into a slick ribbon of brown. One misstep there, and she would not only be wet but questioned.
Behind her, the door opened, and her mother fisted a hand on her ample hip. “Elizabeth, where are you going dressed like that? I thought you were fitting your ball gown today!”
Elizabeth watched the rain for a moment longer, as though it might change its mind if ignored. “For a walk.”
“In this?” Mama advanced into the room and halted at the window, drawing back as a gust sprayed the sill. “You will do no such thing. You were ill only a few weeks ago, and I will not have you missing the Netherfield ball through sheer obstinacy. Really, Lizzy, you have no consideration—”
“I am quite well,” Elizabeth said, too quickly. She reached for her cloak. “I only wished for air.”
Jane had stepped into the room now, and she folded her arms with an arched brow. “Lizzy.”
Elizabeth sighed. Jane was shaking her head slowly, frowning and glancing at their mother. She did not scold. That, somehow, made it worse.
“You have scarcely been still since breakfast,” Jane said. “And Papa mentioned the ground was already slick and treacherous by the lower field.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened on the clasp of her cloak. She had not told Jane where she meant to go. She had been careful of that, but Jane had guessed her intention, anyway.
“I will not go far,” she said.
Mama snorted. “You never do—and yet something always comes of it. I cannot imagine what possesses you to choosetodayof all days—”
Elizabeth closed her eyes for the space of a breath. She let her cloak fall back across the chair. “Very well. I shall stay in.”
Mama looked immediately satisfied. Jane looked as if she were waiting for a “However…”
Elizabeth turned away without another word and sat at the small table by the window, folding her hands together as though that had been her intention all along. The rain continued its steady assault, indifferent to her surrender.
She had not wanted mereexercise.
She had wanted to stand somewhere specific—somewhere quiet, open, unoccupied—and see whether the strange sense she had felt before would return. Whether it would sharpen, or soften, or do anything at all.
Now, the weather had made the decision for her.
Elizabeth stared out at the blurred line of the lane and felt a sharp, restless frustration settle in its place. If she could not go to the answer, then she would have to make it come to her.
Darcy brought his horsedown to a walk as the posting house came into view.
The morning had offered no obstacle to a ride—clear enough skies, firm ground despite yesterday’s heavy rains—and the exercise gave him a reason to be elsewherewithout requiring explanation. He dismounted near the posting house, looped his reins at a nearby post, and went inside.
At the counter, he drew the letter from his coat, the direction visible for the space of a breath as he placed it down to be weighed and entered. Ink, ledger, the muted scratch of pen upon paper. He kept his attention fixed upon the clerk’s motions, not upon the small awareness that he would prefer not to be standing there at all.
“Darcy! Out early today, I see.”
Darcy turned. Wickham stood only a few paces from the doorway, hat in hand, his gaze moving—not to Darcy’s face first, but to the letter on the counter as though the name upon it had drawn his attention of its own accord.
