Matlock’s mouth curved, faintly. “No. Because George Darcy fell boots over waistcoat for my sister Anne the moment he set eyes on her. And once that happened, there was never any question of altering the course.”
He let the smoke drift a moment between them before adding, quietly, “The union of the families still took place, but love has a way of complicating arrangements made in the name of destiny.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Elizabeth surfaced slowly, asthough the effort of waking required negotiation. The room tilted when she opened her eyes; the ceiling drifted, then cleared, then drifted again. She closed them at once and lay very still, counting the spaces between her breaths until the motion eased.
She had not slept so much as surrendered to exhaustion. Her mind had skidded all night between half-dreams and wakefulness, her body never quite relinquishing its vigilance. Now, in the thin grey of morning, that vigilance felt like lead in her limbs.
When she tried to sit up, the world lurched. Not pain—at least not the familiar one—but a sudden, sickening sense that her body had lost its agreement with the ground. She pressed a hand to the mattress and waited for the floor to remember where it belonged.
Voices drifted up from below. Outside, surely.
At first, she thought she was imagining them. The house had its own language—fire popping in the grate, boards, the distant murmur of servants beginning their day—and this sounded like that, indistinct and shapeless. But the sound did not fade when she concentrated on it. It gathered instead, threading through the quiet with an urgency that set her nerves on edge.
Men’s voices. More than one. Raised—not in argument exactly, but in insistence. A sharper note cut through them, followed by another. The cadence was wrong for the yard, wrong for the house.
Elizabeth swung her legs over the side of the bed despite the protest that rippled through her. The floor felt oddly far away beneath her bare feet. She stood, gripping the bedpost until the spinning slowed enough to risk a step toward the window.
She had just reached the chair when the glass exploded.
The sound came first—a crack like a musket shot—then the rain of shards across the floor. Elizabeth cried out and threw her arms over her face as a stone struck the far walland dropped, skittering across the boards. Cold air rushed in through the broken pane, sharp and immediate, carrying with it the roar of voices now unmistakably outside.
“Traitor. He’s hoarding!”
“We know he’s got it. Look at the bins!”
“—children are starving—”
Elizabeth staggered back, her heart hammering so violently she felt it in her throat. She pressed a hand to her mouth, breathing through her nose, the taste of fear metallic on her tongue. Below, the shouting swelled, no longer scattered but unified, as though a single will had found its voice.
She forced herself to the window again, keeping well back from the jagged edges. The yard was in chaos. Men crowded the gates—a few farmers she recognised, most others she did not. Faces red with cold and fury. Someone brandished a stick; another had climbed onto the low wall, shouting down at the rest.
“Bring it out!”
“Sell it fair!”
“You can’t keep it while we starve!”
A door slammed somewhere below. She heard her mother’s voice—high, alarmed—cut off abruptly. Then her father’s, raised for once not in irony but command.
Elizabeth’s knees weakened. She gripped the back of the chair, her vision narrowing as though the world were pulling away from its edges. The noise pressed in on her from all sides, each shout landing like a blow. She became acutely aware of her own body—how light it felt, how insubstantial, as though it might simply tip over and be done.
Another stone struck the house, lower this time. She flinched as the impact shuddered through the frame.
She turned from the window, meaning to go to her family, but the floor rolled beneath her again, violently enough that she had to catch the bedpost to remain standing. A wave of vertigo swept through her, blotting out sound and sight alike for a terrifying instant. When it passed, she was left shaking, her breath coming in shallow pulls.
From below came a new sound: the tramp of boots. Ordered. Rhythmic. Someone shouted commands, the ordering of muskets, and the crowd’s noise shifted—still angry, but checked, redirected.
Jane was at the door before Elizabeth had time to draw a proper breath.
“Lizzy!” She stopped short at the sight of the broken glass. “Oh—oh my goodness.” She rushed across the room to her, careful of the shards, her hands already reaching. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, though the word wavered. She tried to rise and failed, the floor pitching treacherously beneath her. “Jane—wait—I am very dizzy. I cannot stand.”
Jane’s face paled, but she did not try to force her to her feet. She slipped an arm behind Elizabeth’s shoulders, supporting her where she sat. “Then do not move. Sit quite still. I heard the glass and—”
Lydia burst in behind her, skirts gathered, her face awash with alarm and excitement in equal measure. “Oh! I told you it was the officers—did you see them? There are ever so many—Jane, move, you’re blocking the view!”
