—H.
Harrowe had offered no instruction. No safeguard. Only the same brutal narrowing of choice that had haunted him since Hertfordshire.
He set the note down and leaned back, one hand lifting to his mouth as a cough forced itself loose—short, controlled, dismissed as soon as it came. The effort left him momentarily light, as though he had stood too quickly.
Elizabeth Bennet slept beneath his roof again tonight. The knowledge struck him again—not as wonder, not as comfort, but as pressure. As demand. And there was little he could do but to answer, so he reached for the bell pull.
When the footman appeared, Darcy did not turn from the hearth. “Ask the upstairs maid whether Miss Elizabeth is still awake and dressed. If so, find out if she would do me the kindness of a few minutes’ conversation,” he said. “In the library. If she feels equal to it.”
The footman bowed and turned to go, but Darcy stopped him. “Wait… if she desires to have her sister present, that will suit as well.”
The wording mattered. He would have it so.
The footman went to do his bidding, and Darcy closed the study for the night, asking for the fire to be banked. Then he went to arrange the library to his liking. The fire built higher, the lamps burning brightly—not too intimate, no. This was not a seduction.
He studied the effect, then crossed to the chairs by the fire and adjusted them—not side by side, not too near—until they faced one another with a small tablebetween, as though this were to be a discussion of books or weather or any of the other safe, ordinary things he had long since abandoned.
Yes, that would… no, there should be a third chair. In case she came with a chaperone. If she were wise, she would.
The fire flared and then dimmed while he waited. He stirred it, watching the embers catch and climb. The light shifted across the shelves, the spines of books rising and falling in shadow.
And then, footsteps sounded in the passage.
Darcy came to his feet, fingers lifting instinctively to his cravat before he caught the motion and let his hand fall. His throat burned; he cleared it once, softly, irritated by the sound. His heart had begun to miscount, and no amount of discipline seemed inclined to correct it.
Elizabeth entered alone. She wore a simple morning gown, not the one she had worn to dinner. So, she had been preparing for bed and changed to indulge him. Darcy’s heart tried crawling up his throat at the thought, but it was the sight of her hair unpinned and twisted into a loose braid over her shoulder that made the moment seem… intimate. Nearly sensual.
No, no, this was not what he had intended! Pricks of heat sprang across his brow, his lip, and he looked away, letting his eyes be scorched by the heat of the fire rather than blazing at her. But he was weak… and he looked back.
Elizabeth’s expression was composed but alert, as though she had been summoned for something she had already begun to guess. The warmth of the fire touched her cheeks like a caress, and that smile simmered on her lips.
“You wished to see me?” Her mouth curved, mischief tempered by kindness. “I comforted myself by recalling that the last gentleman who summoned me so gravely merely wished to explain my future and my moral failings to me. I trust you will require less temperance on my part.”
“I promise nothing so trying,” Darcy replied. Then, more evenly, “I must thank you for your time. If you are not too fatigued to stay a few moments, pray, sit.” He gestured toward the chair nearest the hearth.
She did, then folded her hands in her lap and looked at him with that familiar, unsettling directness that had always made him feel as though he were being judged and assessed—not as he appeared,but as he was.
The room felt altered with her seated there, the firelight catching along the line of her hair, the warmth gathering itself into a halo about her as though it had been waiting to coronate her.
Darcy turned away abruptly and crossed to the sideboard. He opened one cabinet, then another, his movements disorganised and ill-matched to his thoughts, until he found what he sought. Sherry. His mother’s, laid in years ago and scarcely touched since. He poured carefully. Two glasses, though he had no true appetite for his own. He carried one back and set it into Elizabeth’s hand.
“For the chill,” he said, though she showed none.
She accepted it with a look that held more curiosity than gratitude and raised it to her lips. Darcy remained where he was, his own glass untouched, the weight of standing preferable to the confinement of a chair.
Her eyes lifted from the rim of the glass to him, bright with a glimmer of humour he recognised too well. “Mr Darcy, do you mean to interrogate me or simply to intimidate me by looming so?”
Darcy coloured and took the chair opposite her at once, the motion a shade too quick to be graceful. The fire popped softly between them. He placed his untouched glass on the table and folded his hands as though they might be persuaded to keep still.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I had no intention of—of hovering.”
“So I presumed.” She glanced down at the glass again and smiled. “It is excellent sherry.”
“I am glad you find it so. My mother preferred it for evenings.”
She nodded, as if this were an intimacy he had offered on purpose, and let her gaze wander to the shelves. The titles gave him a merciful moment. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Tried once more.
“What I wished to say—” He stopped. “That is—”
