It was one thing to scoot off the ledge over there from a seated position, down onto where the stairs were, and it was another thing entirely to leap, from a standing position, all the way down to the floor. It was simply too far. My body rebelled.
She was probably right.
I should break a bone if I did it.
But what were we to do?
I hesitated, staring down, unsure of anything, and then I pulled my leg back and backed up against the wall.
Up here, on either side of this landing, there were two rooms, likely bedchambers or something of that nature. I peered through the open doorway of the one closest to me to see that there was a bed frame in there, but that it was broken in two, no mattress.
On the other side, the door was closed.
I started in that direction.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
I tried that door, and it opened onto a room that looked in much better shape than the rest of the house, likely because it had been shut up. There was a bed here, no bedding, of course, but the mattress looked intact and not entirely filthy. There was only one window here. The other was the one that had been boarded up.
“They won’t know where we are,” I said. “They will have no idea where to look. If we cannot get out of here, we may have to stay the night.”
She came into the room behind me and looked around. “I can’t be away overnight with…”
“Under the circumstances, Miss Bennet, no one will think anything untoward. I shall explain what happened, of course, and—”
“Oh, yes, what will you say? ‘I pursued a young woman, against her will, into an abandoned house, and then destroyed the only way out and trapped us both there and then opened a door and said, “Oh, look a bed!”’”
I turned to face her, eyebrows raised. “You have not just said that.”
She licked her lips.
I walked out of the room. “Well, go in there and shut the door on me, then?”
She hesitated.
I gestured for her to enter.
She cringed. “I am out of sorts, sir. This… this has been a trying afternoon.”
“By all means, if you are frightened I have engineered this as a means to trespass against your honor, please put some barrier between us,” I said.
She glared at me, entered the room, and slammed the door.
The entire house trembled.
I cringed. “Not so forcefully, if you don’t mind.”
“Apologies,” came her voice from within.
I sat down on the floor and looked down at the ruined steps below and tried to convince myself to jump down on them. Maybe if I aimed myself properly, I’d avoid the worst of the wooden shards?
“Obviously, I know you have no interest in trespassing against my honor.”
“I am happy to hear that,” I said.
“Because I am the ugly joke between you and Miss Bingley. Which should not have hurt my feelings so deeply, I suppose, but I have been so worried about my sister, and Miss Bingley has made it quite obvious she does not like it that I am here, and I would leave, of course, but Jane is ill, and why must Miss Bingley be so terrible to call me ugly on top of everything else, and why must you play those games with her, sir, why, when you are a man, and it is nothing to you whether some girl like me is plain or pretty, really?”
I shook my head at all of that, rather confused. “Miss Bennet, no one thinks you’re ugly.”
