Her father crossed the room in two strides and caught her shoulders. She did not pull away from him. “Elizabeth! Stop this talk. You are merely overwrought. You have frightened yourself.”
“No!” She shook her head, tears spilling now despite her effort. “I frightenedher. And next time it will be worse. I can feel it! Something is building, Papa. I cannot stop it!”
Jane’s voice trembled. “What are you saying?”
Elizabeth’s breath came fast and shallow. “I am saying that if I remain, I will hurt you. I will hurt someone else! I do not know when or how, only that I will.”
Silence fell, heavy and terrible. Her father removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “Elizabeth…”
“Take me home!” she pleaded. “To Longbourn. I will lie in my bed and not move. I will be ill. I will be quiet long enough to die without harming someone. Or take meto London—to Mr Darcy! He knows what it costs. He would bear it. He could keep me from harming others, and he would not—” Her voice failed. “He would not be surprised.”
“Elizabeth, you do not know what you are asking.”
“I do.” She met his eyes, desperate and resolute all at once. “I am asking you to choose the danger that can be borne over the one that cannot. I am asking you not to make me stay where I might kill the people I love!”
Jane sank into a chair, pale and shaken, clutching her burned arm as she watched Elizabeth with dawning fear. “But Lizzy, you said Mr Darcy, too, was… vulnerable. To you.”
Elizabeth drew her hands together, as though she might hold herself in place by force alone. “But he knows. He understands the cost.Please,” she said. “Please, Papa. Before it happens again.”
And somewhere beyond the walls, the sea struck the shore with sudden, thunderous force, as though in answer.
Darcy did not waitfor dawn to soften the decision.
The house was still when he ordered the carriage, the lamps in the passage burning low and steady as though they, too, were holding their breath. He moved through the rooms with a deliberation that felt almost ceremonial—selecting the coat fit for travel, the boots already broken to his step, the papers he did not expect to consult and yet could not leave behind. Each choice was plain.
Each felt final.
Harrowe was waiting in the front hall, hat in hand, satchel already slung across one shoulder. There was ink on his fingers and a rawness about his eyes that suggested the night had been spent in argument with men long dead and was no closer to yielding.
“You’re going to Hertfordshire. It won’t work.”
Darcy walked past him to the waiting footman. “And still, I am going.”
“Without her? That’s not courage, Darcy. It’s blindness.”
Darcy turned from him to be helped into his coat. “You have had your say. Repeatedly.”
“You mistake me if you think I speak for comfort. I’ve studied this longer than you’ve borne it. And I’ve seen what follows when a man believes desire will answer for deed.”
Darcy crossed to the door. Brutus already sat there, already alert, as though he had been waiting for the decision to be spoken aloud. Darcy laid his hand at the dog’s neck, feeling the heat there, the life, the simple faith.
“Stay.”
Brutus made a low, protesting sound and did not move. Did not even blink.
Darcy closed his eyes once. “Oh, very well. Come, Brutus.”
The dog was on his feet at once, bounding to his side with a loud bark.
Harrowe’s voice broke through the space between them. “You’re not listening! If you mean to carry on like this—”
“Ihavelistened,” Darcy said, sharply now. “I have listened while Parliament dithers and men starve. I have listened while soldiers march barefoot into ground that breaks beneath them. I have listened while you tell me what pagan horrors must be done and my aunt tells me what is ‘proper,’ and all the while the cost is paid by people who never agreed to any of it!”
“Hold there, Darcy. I never said you oughtn’t act. I only meant you cannot succeed alone.”
He straightened, hand dropping from the dog’s neck. “Iam the only one answerable at present, and I will not wait for another failure to be recorded in your margins.”
Harrowe shook his head. “But the land only answers blood—”
