Elizabeth pinned the spoon with her fingertips before it could tremble again. “The table shifted,” she said. “Lydia is kicking her feet again.”
“I was not,” protested Lydia. “Not just then, anyway.”
“There was no movement,” Mary said.
Elizabeth reached for a roll she did not want. “Then Hill must take care to sweep the floors better because something has got under the leg and it is sitting unevenly. Think nothing of it.”
Mary returned to her breakfast with evident scepticism.
Elizabeth sat straighter, schooling her expression. Breakfast at Longbourn did not allow for private unease. And she would rather endure a dozen of Lydia’s embellishments than let anyone suspect she fretted over something as foolish as a scratch or a spoon tapping itself.
Mama clasped her hands. “Now—all of you—eat quickly. Mr Bingley may arrive at any moment, and we must not appear unprepared.”
Elizabeth lifted her cup again, more carefully this time.Prepared.
She doubted very much that she was.
Elizabeth slipped out assoon as the breakfast things were cleared. Mama was already issuing orders for Hill to air the drawing-room curtains and polish the silver, and Kitty had begun rehearsing what she would say if Mr Bingley complimented her lace. Lydia had countered with plans for her next gown.
Jane alone noticed Elizabeth reaching for her shawl. “Will you be long?” she asked.
“A quarter hour. Perhaps two,” Elizabeth murmured. “You know how it is.”
Jane’s smile held understanding. “Do not stay out if it starts to rain.”
Elizabeth promised she would not and stepped into the pale morning light.
The air did not warm as the sun climbed; it sharpened. The wind carried the faint scent of turned earth and distant woodsmoke as she walked the familiar path toward Oakham Mount. Each rise steadied her thoughts; each patch of dry bramble felt like a small claim of solitude.
At the foot of the Mount, she paused to catch her breath and looked east. The fields rolled wide and open toward the distant line of trees. Something moved there—a cluster of figures cresting a lower rise. A dog bounded ahead of them, dark against the pale grass.
Alargedog.
She shaded her eyes. The creature ran with a heavy, confident gait, tail sweeping once before plunging into a tangle of brush. Even at a distance, its size marked it apart from every farm dog in the parish.
“That must be Mr Darcy’s,” she muttered to herself before she could stop the thought. The Irish Wolfhound Mrs Long had mentioned.
The dog burst out of the brush again. For a moment, he stopped, head lifted, facing the slope where Elizabeth stood. The distance was too great for certainty, yet she had the odd sense that the dog had fixed on her.
She stepped back behind a jut of stone, annoyed with herself. “Nonsense,” she whispered. The sun was behind her; any dog would stare into a shape on a bright ridge.
Still, her wrist pulsed again. She rubbed it once, more firmly, and climbed the last incline.
At the summit, the wind met her in a steady rush. She breathed it in, clearing away the remnants of breakfast clamour—and something else. A heaviness that had settled along her ribs since the Assembly.
She stepped toward the familiar outcropping and set her hand on the stone to lower herself. The moment her palm touched it, a warmth met her skin—not from her wrist this time, but from the rock itself, as if some small glow had gathered there beneath her hand.
Elizabeth yelped and pulled back at once.
“What now?” She pressed her fingers to the stone again, cautiously. It was warm—undeniably warm—though the air bit with cold everywhere else. She moved the tip of her littlest finger an inch to the left: the stone was chilled at the first instant… then suddenly it was warm as her teacup.
A prickle ran up her spine. Impossible. Stones did not warm themselves for company.
She lifted her hand a final time, and the heat faded instantly, leaving only the ordinary autumn chill.
Elizabeth jumped back to lean on a branch, annoyed with herself. “Nonsense,” she muttered. “A fever… it must be a fever.”
The twig beneath her hands changed at once.
