Jones nodded, indulgent rather than convinced. “Very well. Another possibility is strain of the nerves. A fright, perhaps. A sudden shock can sometimes bring on faintness of this sort.”
“No,” Darcy said at once. “She does not seem the sort to be given to fancies. She would not collapse because of a startled bird.”
Jones shifted, his tone lowering. “There are… more prosaic causes. Some ladies, after certain unwise associations—”
“No.” The word cut cleanly across the room.
Jones stopped short, colour rising in his face.
“I do not know her well,” Darcy continued, his voice even now but leaving no space for retreat, “but Miss Elizabeth Bennet is a gentlewoman of sense and character. You will look elsewhere for your explanation.”
“Of course, of course,” Jones murmured, chastened. “I merely list the possibilities. But none seem to fit the evidence. She took nothing poisonous that I can detect. There is no fever. No sign of illness. Merely…” He spread his hands helplessly. “A collapse without cause.”
Darcy drew a slow breath.Without cause.The phrase rang false the moment it was spoken. There was always a cause. He had felt it on that rise—an awareness he had dismissed at the time as fancy, fatigue, anything but what it had been. The memory resisted examination. He let it. Some impressions were best ignored.
Mrs Nicholls rose quietly from her chair. “She tried to speak, sir, just before you entered. A word or two. But they made no sense.”
Darcy’s attention snapped back to the bed. “What did she say?”
Nicholls hesitated. “It sounded like… ‘Not here.’ Or perhaps ‘not near.’ I could not be certain.”
The words settled into him with unwelcome precision.Not here.Not near.As though the distinction mattered.
“And she lost consciousness again?” he asked.
“Not entirely, sir,” Jones replied. “She hears us, I am sure of it. She will wake soon enough.”
Soon enough.
“May I—?” Darcy checked himself. The request was improper; he knew it the instant the words formed. And yet the conviction remained, stubborn and unaccountable, that there was something she might say—if she could say anything at all—that would render sense where none yet existed. “May I speak with her a moment? Alone?”
Jones looked up sharply, then exchanged a glance with Mrs Nicholls. “It is irregular,” he said after a pause. “But I see no harm in it. We will remain by the hearth. Speak quietly, sir—and take care not to startle her.”
Darcy inclined his head.
Jones and Mrs Nicholls withdrew, their voices lowered at once to practical murmurs—poultices, broth, warmed bricks—leaving the space beside the bed suddenly, conspicuously his.
He stepped closer.
The movement brought about a curious slackening, as though the strength in his legs had momentarily forgotten its purpose. He adjusted his stance, slow and deliberate, until the sensation passed enough to be ignored.
He did not touch her; he would not presume to do that. He stood only near enough that, should she open her eyes, he would be within her sight.
Her breathing was uneven but steady. A loose strand of hair lay against her cheek, displaced by nothing more than her own movement. He noticed it—and found, to his quiet irritation, that his hand had flexed before he stilled it again at his side.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said softly, unsure whether he wished her to hear him or not. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyelidsstirred—once.
Then again.
Darcy held himself motionless. The faint weakness returned to his calf muscles, accompanied now by a dull heaviness through his shoulders, as though standing had become a conscious effort.
Her lashes trembled, and her mouth shifted, as though shaping a word that had not yet found its way free.
Darcy’s breath shortened despite his will. “Miss Elizabeth?” he said gently. “If you can hear me, try to open your eyes.”
She stirred… and wide brown eyes fluttered open to him.
