“No,” she said. “I want to know now.” She pushed up to her feet.
We all cried out, telling her not to try to stand.
And she let out a moan of pain and sank right back down. She cringed. “I don’t know if it’s broken, but it’s worse than I thought. Oh, it’squiteworse than I thought.” She tucked her chin down to her chest.
So, we did not speak of it, not until after men from the stable, and myself, and Bingley had all worked together to carefully lift Elizabeth onto the cart (which we’d had to fight to get through the woods) and then to transport her back to Netherfield. Shewas entirely quiet the entire time, but I noticed her wincing with every small bump of the cart.
I apologized once and she glared up and me, silent, and shook her head firmly, and I was quiet after that.
The surgeon, whose name was Mr. Leavitt, chuckled as he examined her on a couch in the sitting room in Netherfield. “Well, then, what did the two of you get into to have this happen, something acrobatic?”
“I fell out of a window!” snapped Elizabeth. “Someone had better tell me where you all thought we were.”
“Wait, where were you?” said Mr. Leavitt, looking up at me.
“Is everyone talking about us?” I said softly. “It’s spread to you, sir? For heaven’s sake, we were barely gone seventeen hours.”
“It’s only that it seemed to make quite a lot of sense,” said Bingley. “Caroline wouldn’t believe it, but then, that seemed only to make it more likely to be true, especially with the way she’s been behaving recently.”
“What?” said Elizabeth. “Tell me.”
“Miss Bennet, perhaps you should focus on me,” said Mr. Leavitt. “And why don’t you tell me exactly where you’ve been, if you were not off with this gentleman, bound for Scotland.”
My stomach turned over.
Elizabeth let out a horrified noise.
I rounded on Bingley. “I would never elope! Do you even know me?”
“W-well,” said Bingley, “it’s only that Louisa remembered, rather word for word, something you were saying about a room called ‘The Elizabeth Room,’ with a number of portraits of her, the most beautiful creature in the—”
“Stop,” I said, feeling ill, truly ill, like I might vomit.
“It was a jest,” said Elizabeth. “He didn’t mean it.”
I rubbed my jaw, because maybe Ihadmeant it. How many times did I have to discuss doing a thing, namely marrying Elizabeth Bennet, before it was obvious that I indeed did wish to marry her?
“So, how did you end up in that house?” said Bingley. “Why didn’t you leave?”
“The stairs broke,” I said.
“He pursued me in there. I was quite angry with him and I told him to leave me be,” said Elizabeth. “He would not—”
“Only for your safety, Miss Bennet,” I cut in.
“Yes, you’ve done quite a capital job at keeping me safe and whole,” she muttered, glaring down at her leg.
I winced. “Apologies.”
“Anyway, he charged up the steps, great oaf that he is, and they broke under his weight and crashed down, and then we were trapped on the upper level, and he kept trying to jump down, but it was too far, and then we eventually found the trellis, and maybe that was my fault, because maybe I would have let him explore more if I hadn’t been so very angry with him for much of the time, so I don’t know.”
“I see,” said Bingley, making a face.
“That’s unfortunate,” said Mr. Leavitt. “You two don’t even like each other, do you?”
Elizabeth and I exchanged a glance. She looked away first.
It was quiet.
