“No!” he blurted. Then, more carefully, forcing the word into order. “No. A dream. Nothing more.”
The valet hesitated, plainly unconvinced.
“I require nothing,” Darcy added, reclaiming command by instinct alone. “Return to bed.”
His valet blinked, opening his mouth almost as if he meant to protest. But then he closed it again and bowed. “Very good, sir.”
The door closed, and silence rushed back in, thick and unhelpful.
Darcy sat motionless, hands clenched in the sheets, his body trembling with the aftermath of something it did not know how to release. The fire in his nerves faded by degrees, leaving behind a deeper cold—one that settled not in the room, but in his bones.
Brutus remained where he was. Had he even blinked? Darcy was tempted to throw a pillow at him just to provokesomesort of reaction.
He did not lie back down. He stared into the dark, past the end of the bed he knew so well, heedless of the random comforts beside his bed—his book, a glass, even a lantern he could reach for and light. None of them mattered now, none would bring relief. For he was certain—without metaphor, without exaggeration—that whatever had passed through him had not been a dream of fear.
It had been a rehearsal.
Elizabeth gasped awake intostillness.
The house lay cool and hushed around her, the sort of quiet that came only in the small hours, when even the timbers seemed to have settled into rest. Moonlight slipped through the curtains in a pale band, silvering the far edge of the bed and the floor beyond it. For once—remarkably, blessedly—there was no nausea waiting for her when she drew breath. No urgent pressure behind her eyes. No sense of the room tilting, or her body lagging behind her will.
She lay still a moment, testing the reprieve.
Her hand drifted, absently, to her ribs. Too easy to count them now. Her fingers traced the line of her hip, sharper than she remembered, then her cheek, hollow beneath the bone. She had grown thin. She knew it without mirrors, without comment. Food had held no appeal; even the thought of it had turned against her. And yet just now, there was a faint stirring where appetite might once have lived.
Nothing hot. Nothing seasoned. Nothing that would require explanation or company.
Bread.
Mrs Hill would surely have set a loaf aside in the larder; she always did. That would be enough. More than enough.
Elizabeth swung her legs over the side of the bed and rose carefully, expecting protest that did not come. The floor was cold beneath her feet, but it grounded her, and she welcomed the small, ordinary discomfort of it. She took a shawl from the chair and slipped it about her shoulders, then eased the door open and stepped into the passage.
The stairs creaked softly under her weight as she descended, though the sound seemed loud enough to alarm the sleeping house. She paused once, listening, then continued. No doors opened. No voices stirred. Longbourn slept on, unaware.
The larder yielded its prize without complaint. She broke off a crust rather than trouble herself with a knife, the bread firm and plain and smelling faintly of yeast. She took a bite as she turned away, chewing slowly as she made her way back toward the stairs.
It was then that she noticed it.
A thin line of light lay along the edge of the passage, spilling out from beneath the door to her father’s library. Not the faint ghost of moonlight—this was warmer, truer. Candlelight.
Elizabeth slowed, the crust forgotten between her fingers. The house was meant to be dark. Her father was meant to be abed. And yet the light remained, untroubled by her pause, as though it had been there some time already.
Elizabeth pushed the door open without knocking.
Her father sat on the floor. Not slumped—arranged, after a fashion—one knee drawn up, the other stretched awkwardly beneath a scatter of papers. Letters lay everywhere, some half-folded, others spread flat as though they had resisted being shut away again. Two small leather-bound diaries rested open near his feet, their spines cracked with age. A book lay face-down beside them, forgotten. He held a single sheet close to the candle, angling it this way and that, his lips moving soundlessly as he squinted at the faded hand.
He did not hear her at once.
“Papa?”
The sound of her voice struck him like a hand to the chest. He looked up sharply—and for a bare, unguarded instant, something like a whimper escaped him, half breath, half sound, before he struggled to his feet. He crossed the small space between them in two strides and took her by the shoulders, as though to assure himself she was solid.
“There you are,” he said, the words coming out hoarse and nearly strangled. Then he drew back, straightened, and the familiar air settled itself over him once more, like a coat resumed. “Late rising, my dear. Quite unlike you. A pity, too—there were at least two gentlemen earlier who called to inquire after your health. And Charlotte Lucas, besides.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly. “How disappointing for them.”
“Oh, I should think so. Still, matters improved thereafter. Miss Bingley arrived with Mrs Hurst, which you may count as providence in your favour. You have escaped a great ordeal.”
