The recollections struck and passed in the same breath. Darcy frowned faintly at himself and continued upward, irritated by the persistence of it.
At the upper hall, he slowed again at the door that had been hers.
He stopped.
The passage was empty. No servants within sight. No sound but the distant tick of the clock below. After a moment’s hesitation—brief, irrational—he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
The room was bare of her.
Too bare.
The bed had been stripped and remade. The chair drawn back into its proper place. The washstand cleared, the fire cold. No shawl forgotten over the rail, no book left awry. Even the faint disorder she had introduced by mere occupation had been erased by the efficiency of the maids.
And yet, the air felt altered. Not crisp, like a room freshly aired. Not charged or dense, as a place holding its breath before a storm. Simply expectant, in a way that made his stomach turn with a sudden, inexplicable unease. The sensation was not dread. It was nearer to anticipation, like the moments before a door is opened upon something long imagined.
Darcy crossed the room without quite knowing that he had decided to do so. He stopped at the foot of the bed and laid his handupon the post.
The memory came at once. Her weight, slight and searing in his arms, doing unholy things to his conscience. The heat of her skin through linen and wool. The way his arms had tightened without instruction when she stirred in his embrace.
His knees weakened—just enough that he felt it.
Darcy drew his hand back as though he had been burned.
That was enough.
He turned sharply and left the room, closing the door behind him with a decisive click. He did not look back as he strode down the hall, nor pause again at his own door.
By the time he tossed his coat over his own bed, the resolve had settled into him with grim clarity. Hertfordshire was no place for him any longer.
Whatever had been awakened here—by chance, by proximity, by some magic he did not yet understand—it was not something to be endured. And if he lingered, he suspected he would not choose wisely.
He would remain through the ball. Duty required that much. After that, he would leave Hertfordshire.
As fast as his carriage could drive.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The company had withdrawnto the drawing room, but the evening had not yet found its feet.
Chairs were drawn into loose formation; the fire had been stirred; Mama was speculating aloud upon the rumours that Miss Bingley had secured a stag for the feast at Netherfield.
Elizabeth meant to give the evening her best efforts. She despised running from her own drawing room, so she chose a seat at the edge of the grouping—far enough to appear disengaged, near enough to the door that retreat would not be remarked upon. She folded her hands and fixed her eyes on the hearthrug, counting the pattern without truly seeing it.
Mr Collins remained standing.
“If I might beg the indulgence of the family,” he said, rising halfway from his chair, “I have lately received correspondence of such distinction, such consequence, that I feel it would be remiss not to share it—particularly as it bears upon matters already, ah, familiar to us all.”
Papa rose and crossed to the sideboard with an air of casual deliberation, lifted the teapot, and poured a single cup. Elizabeth did not look at him until it was set beside her hand.
“For fortification,” he murmured. “The evening threatens the endurance of the rational.”
Elizabeth blinked. When had Papa ever poured tea for someone? She watched in awed silence as he wandered casually away.
Mr Collins cleared his throat. “The letter is, of course, from my greatly esteemed patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. I have, quite naturally, taken the liberty of reading it myself, but she desired that its contents be shared and comprehended by all.”
Papa did not return to his seat. He leaned instead against the mantel, one arm braced, the other folded across his chest. His gaze rested on Mr Collins with an interest Elizabeth had not seen before—not amusement, not indulgence. True curiosity.
Mr Collins unfolded the letter. “Written in her own hand, no less.”
