Elizabeth turned and tested the latch in panic. The handle did not yield at her touch.
The chamber was small and close, the single window latched tight against the cold. A basin stood upon a washstand, its ewer untouched. No fire had been laid in the grate. No bell-pull hung beside the bed.
The quiet was not kindness.
It was separation.
A ripple of sickness pressed against her ribs and rose into her throat—not nausea now, but something larger. Something that did not belong within the dimensions of a hired room.
She crossed to the window and lifted the latch. The casement resisted her hand, but when she stepped back to look at it again, to peer through the glass, the iron latch lifted, and the hinge gave a faint, complaining note. Then the window swung.
She was beyond questioning now. All that mattered was escape, not harming anyone else, and getting to Darcy. She leaned through, inspecting the casement, the shutters, the distance to the ground. At this height, she might break her legs. Or her neck.
Below, voices rose again. A command—female, imperious—cut cleanly through the murmur. Elizabeth still did not know the name of its owner. She knew only the sensation it produced in her: the same constriction she had endured when Mr Collins stood too near; the same crawling along her spine; the same violent recoil.
Elizabeth stepped back, glancing around the room. Would the door latch behave the same as the window?
The basin shuddered as she passed by, the water within trembling as though something beneath the floorboards had struck it. A hairline crack traced the plaster above the bed, running outward from the doorframe like frost spreading across glass. The nails securing the washstand creaked. The latch of the door rattled once, sharply, as if tested from the other side, but it did not release.
Elizabeth pressed both palms against her temples. What to do? That jump could cripple or kill her. But it seemed to be the only way out.
The boards beneath her feet gave a low, hollow thump. The iron hinge of the window screamed, glass shattering against wooden shutters as though it meant to tear itself free. The basin tipped, water sloshing against porcelain though no hand touched it.
If she remained here, the room would not hold.
Shouts were now ringing from below; feet struck the stair; someone called for the constable. The word witch sounded again, louder this time, emboldened by repetition.
Elizabeth moved toward the window and looked down again… to see fresh, green shoots of ivy climbing up the wall, still growing towards her open window.
The ivy pressed close against the wall, its stems thick and now reaching in, as if they would clock the window if she hesitated too long. She seized it with both hands.
It held. For a breath.
Her boots scraped uselessly against the stone. The vine bent beneath her weight, its fresh tendrils wrenching loose from the stone in small, tearing sighs. She descended not so much by grace as by surrender, sliding, catching, lowering herself hand over hand as the wall rasped against her palms.
Behind her, the hinge shrieked. The frame tore free and struck the outer wall, hanging crooked, iron twisted like ribbon.
The ivy gave way at last. Not entirely, but enough to make her cry out in alarm.
She dropped the remaining span and struck the ground with a jolt that jarred her teeth. Pain flared sharp along her ankle and shot upward, stealing her breath. She staggered, one hand braced against the cold stone.
Voices rose within the inn—first a shout, then several, the sound swelling as the disturbance reached its crest.
She did not look back.
Elizabeth fled toward the road. She did not know who pursued her. She did not know why her body reacted so violently to the woman in that inn. She knew only that if she remained among walls and iron and confined air, something larger than herself would break free.
The road sloped toward the river. She ran toward it without knowing why.
The frost had begunto lift where the sun struck full upon the road, but the air remained sharp enough to sting the lungs.
The road south into Kent narrowed as it approached the lowlands, hedges closing in and the soil underhoof growing darker, heavier, more prone to rut. He did not consult a map. He did not ask for signposts. When a fork presented itself without warning between two lanes equally plausible, Brutus veered without hesitation. Darcy followed.
Harrowe urged his horse closer as they descended toward broader ground, peering ahead as though the answer might lie in something visible. “We left Bingley asleep. Reckon he’s put it together where you went?”
Darcy’s gloves tightened on the reins. “I will answer to Bingley when I must. I will not answer to delay.”
Brutus ran ahead, then returned, circling once as if to ensure they had not lost him, before pressing forward again with renewed insistence. The dog’s movements were not wild; they were urgent. Darcy leaned into the pace, allowing his mount to lengthen its stride where the ground permitted. He did not pretend to himself that he rode toward certainty. He rode because to remain still had become intolerable.
