“Hush,” Jane murmured. “You cannot know that.”
Elizabeth did know it. The knowledge lay quiet and immovable beneath her lungs, like a settled weight. She swallowed it back. This was not the moment.
They were urged forward together, a small procession shepherded along the passage and into a low-ceilinged room whose thick walls smelled faintly of cool lime and old hearth smoke. Lanterns were set along the table. Windows shattered open to the December chill. A maid tried to close the door, but the latch had broken.
Elizabeth sat because Jane pressed her down.
Only then did she feel the tremor in her hands—not fear, but aftermath. Her skin still held the echo of heat, of closeness gone too far. The memory of Darcy’s breath against her cheek rose unbidden, and with it the awful, lucid knowledge of what her wanting had done to him.
She folded her hands together until the shaking ceased.
Jane knelt before her. “Lizzy. You frightened me.”
“I know.” The words came out thin. She tried again. “I am sorry.”
“For the fright?” Miss Bingley interjected, positioning herself with intent near the lantern light. “Or for the impropriety?”
Jane looked up sharply. “Miss Bingley! What has my sister done to merit—”
“I think we may as well speak plainly,” Miss Bingley said. “Since circumstances have already stripped us of every other comfort. A lady under my brother’s care is found wandering the house at night, half-dressed, in the company of a gentleman not her relation. And during an earthquake, no less! One is forced to wonder whether the illness that so conveniently confined her earlier was not… exaggerated.”
Elizabeth lifted her head. “You are welcome to wonder.” Her voice surprised her with its steadiness. “But I will not answer it.”
Miss Bingley’s brows rose. “How very convenient.”
Jane rose to her feet. “You forget yourself, Miss Bingley!”
“Do I? I think rather that I am remembering the obligations of hospitality. And propriety. And my brother’s position, his rather convenient friendship with a single man of large fortune who seems to lose his composure wheneversheis about! I believe that is twice now you have managed to throw yourself in his way with this strange ailment of yours.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes for a brief instant. The darkness soothed her. When she opened them again, she looked not at Miss Bingley, but at the stone wall beyond her shoulder—solid, unmoved, unanswering.
“I did not fake my illness,” she said quietly. “I would not know how.”
“And yet you appear remarkably recovered. One might almost say entirely revived! How strange that Mr Jones could find nothing amiss.”
Jane’s hand found Elizabeth’s shoulder.
Elizabeth did not shrug it off. She leaned into it instead, just enough to borrow strength without admitting the need. “Appearances are unreliable. I should think recent events have demonstrated that.”
Miss Bingley drew a breath to reply—and stopped when a strange look crossed Elizabeth’s face.
It was not pain, not pressure, but absence. Darcy was no longer near enough to warm the air. The hollow left behind was immediate and vast, as though something essential had been shut away without ceremony. She pressed her lips together until the sensation dulled into something bearable.
Jane was watching her too closely now. “Lizzy,” she said softly, “you are cold.”
“I am not,” Elizabeth said. It was not true. She pulled her gown closer, all the same.
The door opened briefly. A servant glanced in, nodded, and withdrew again. Voices passed in the corridor beyond—all voices with purpose, a place to be and things to do.
Darcy’s house, moving without him.
The thought struck with a pang sharp enough to steal what little breath she had. She fixed her gaze on the lantern instead, its light steady against the stone, and toldherself—sternly—that this was as it must be. That shehadwanted him—not only for the strength he offered, but for himself. That she had taken one step too far. That the cost had been exacted without mercy.
She had not meant to hurt him. But the wanting had not asked her permission.
Jane sat beside her and slipped an arm around her shoulders, shielding her from further comment without a word. Elizabeth let herself rest there, just for a moment, while the house creaked and settled around them.
No more tremors came.
