“I don’t think so,” she said.
I sighed.
We walked together in companionable silence for a while.
Then she spoke again, and when she did, she flushed deeply in embarrassment. “There, er, I know we do not wish to talk of this, but I think we must speak of the pocket watch.”
In spite of myself, my gaze went directly to her bosom. I flinched. I stopped walking entirely and drew in a breath.
She stopped too. She would not look at me. “Listen, Mr. Darcy, you must understand that I am not given to carrying objects between my… that is, within my bodice.”
“W-well, it would be a convenient sort of space to…”
“They do not put pockets into women’s clothing!” she exclaimed. “Our clothes are ever so impractical, compared to men’s.”
“Yes, I see that,” I said, nodding firmly.
“But we must cease to associate it with anything untoward, because the pocket watch, it doesn’t make sense. It moves about differently than other objects do.”
“Well, we don’t know that,” I said. “Because we don’t know how the objects move.”
“Yes,” she said.
“We must conduct our experiments,” I said. “I shall look in to see what has become of the Tiewater carriage and the horses when the day resets and you will see what becomes of the dress. If you could stay up until midnight, that might be just the thing.”
“Should I hold onto it?”
“Well, no,” I said. “We know that if we are wearing the clothes, they stay with us. Simply lay it out and wait.”
“All right,” she said. “I shall.”
elizabeth
The following morning, Mr. Darcy collected me from our typical rendezvous point where we met each other for a walk, and we went directly to the stables, where we were taking a carriage.
On the way, I asked him about the Tiewater carriage and the horses, which had, indeed, disappeared.
“And the dress?” he asked.
“Well, I made a hash of that,” I said, sighing. “I fell asleep and missed it. But it was gone this morning when I woke. My room was exactly as I always find it.”
“Of course you fell asleep,” he said. “We did not get to bed the night before until quite late. You must have been exhausted. I should have contrived to be there with you so that I could have kept you awake.”
“Contrived to be in my bedchamber?” I laughed.
“No, I suppose not.”
“Anyway, you must go and look in the closet at Rosings, and see if it is back where we found it,” I said.
“Yes, I shall do that this evening when we return,” he said.
There was a pause in the conversation as we got to the stables and got settled into the carriage. The driver was in a bit of a tizzy, for Mr. Darcy had arranged all this just this morning and the driver had obviously had no time to prepare. We wished to hurry the driver along, for we did not wish anyone to come upon us and inquire what we were about. The colonel or Lady Catherine could easily put a wrench into everything and set us back another day.
So, we were occupied with all of that, and it was not until we were safely away, on the road, that we could return to the conversation about the pocket watch.
“I wish to speak of what you said, that you had an urge to take it,” I said. “Do you remember telling me that?”
He nodded slowly. “I do.”
