Mr Bennet nodded but glanced back once more at his daughter—his gaze raw with a fear he could not disguise—before he allowed the two younger men to lead him from the room.
Chapter Ten
Elizabeth drifted upward throughlayers of sleep—slow at first, then abruptly, as though some sound had nudged her from very far away.
Cold air brushed her cheek.
Not Longbourn.
Not her room.
Too still. Too ornate. And the door—was that… open?
She blinked against the blur clouding her sight. The ceiling wavered, then steadied. Her pulse gave one uneasy skip.
Where—
A whisper of movement. Soft. Close.
She turned her head, sluggishly, and froze.
A dog sat only a few feet from her bed. Not some gentle, hearth-side creature—this one held himself the way men did when bracing for command. Broad-chested, dark-eyed, stone-still but for the faint rise and fall of breath.
He watched her as though she were the one intruding.
Her throat balled up into a dry, scratchy thing. “…Hello?”
A single thump of his tail. Nothing more.
She swallowed. Her tongue felt thick, useless. “Where… where did you come from?”
Another blink, slower this time, and she recognised the slope of his muzzle. The rangy wolf-hunting lines. Had she seen him once—at a distance? At… Netherfield?
The name stumbled into her mind and hung there, unanchored. Yes, Netherfield. She remembered now. She had been brought to Netherfield.
But that… that was a dream. Was it not?
Her wrist warmed beneath the covers, a small, disquieting pulse she did not examine. Not with that creature staring as if waiting for her next move.
The dog’s ears flicked toward the hallway.
Voices. Low. Two of them. A man’s tone she half-knew, tugging at recognition.
The dog rose—not quickly, not with enthusiasm, but with purpose. He stepped to the threshold, gaze fixed outward, muscles taut.
“Brutus? Brutus, what are you doing?”
The sound itself barely touched her. What caught her attention was the dog’s pause—the alert way his ears shifted, the way heconsideredthe doorway, then her, as though choosing between two duties. He looked torn—watchful—almost protective, and far too aware ofherfor a creature she had never met.
Then Mr Darcy appeared in the doorway.
He looked first at the dog, confusion written plainly across his features. Then his gaze shifted—too fast, too intent—straight to her.
She had not expected the jolt of embarrassment that followed. Her hair—she could feel it tangled across her temple. Her gown—where was her gown? What about her pelisse, her stays, her petticoat? She was not even decent!
And Mr Darcy stared at her as though he had not planned on seeing her awake.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said quietly.
