Her tone was so void of affection, nothing like the Kitty from the shell grotto, not even like the Kitty I had first met in Pemberley’s drawing room. All the hope that had been building in my chest came crashing down at once. My throat was bubbling with things I wanted to say, questions I wanted to ask, but none of it could be voiced in the presence of our families.
I could not trust myself to say her name without my voice betraying me, so I greeted her with a nod. She still wasn’t truly looking at me.
If anyone noticed the strange way we were acting, they didn’t mention it. Mary disappeared the second she was no longer being directly addressed, and Mrs. Bennet clearly found my brother of more interest than me. She insisted on showing him to his and Elizabeth’s room herself, despite the house being one with which Elizabeth was rather familiar.
Left alone in the sitting room, Kitty and I sat in silence. She’d raised her gaze from the floor but now focused it on the door as if she was longing to leave through it. With my knee still injured, I wouldn’t have been able to stop her.
This was nothing like the way I’d envisioned it. The second we were alone, I thought perhaps she might want to kiss me again. Her letter had been so fond, but there was nothing in her demeanour that echoed the warmth of those words. I had no idea what I could have done to upset her while not even in her presence.
I could only assume she’d had time to think things over. Overt affection between women in that way wasn’t acceptable. Anyone who dwelled on the idea would come to the same conclusion. It was something I had come to terms with and elected to ignore, but if Kitty had decided otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair to judge her.
Trying to find the words to explain that I understood her decision, I fiddled with the cuff of my spencer. It was Kitty who broke the silence, speaking only after she had taken adeep breath and turned towards me. Her gaze still landed somewhere near my shoulder.
“How’s your leg?” she asked, gesturing to where it was stretched out in front of me.
I didn’t think about her pushing up my skirts, or touching my skin. I didn’t think about her kissing me, pulling the pins from my hair, leaving me breathless. The only person I was torturing was myself.
“Fine,” I said, but I couldn’t bear the silence that followed, so I added more words but no further information. “Better. It doesn’t hurt so much.”
“I’ll leave you to rest,” she said, fleeing the same way Mary had gone earlier.
I resisted the urge to cry, pulling a cushion into my lap to trace the inelegant needlework. Perhaps it was Kitty who was responsible for the clumsy depiction of roses. I certainly could not imagine Elizabeth sitting still long enough to get through more than one petal.
As much as I wanted to ask Darcy to allow me to return home, I’d need to explain why my visit had been such a short one when I’d been so determined to accompany him. There was no way I could spin a story that avoided the truth but stayed in the realm of believability. Things were getting so hopelessly tangled. I was stranded at Longbourn House until my brother returned to Pemberley.
When I heard footsteps on the stairs, I couldn’t help the speed with which I looked up, hoping Kitty would come through the doorway. Instead it was Mrs. Bennet who bustledinto the room, evidently done with settling in Elizabeth and Darcy.
“Right, my dear,” she said. “Jane and Mr. Bingley will be arriving this evening, so I’m afraid we’re running a little short on rooms.”
This was my chance to go home. I could insist to Darcy that my presence was the imposition he’d feared, beg him to let me return to Pemberley so the Bennet family wouldn’t have me under their feet at a time of great unhappiness and anxiety. I was about to express my deep apologies to Mrs. Bennet and offer my solution, when she delivered the worst resolution I could have imagined in that moment.
“Kitty’s letters home mentioned how marvellously the two of you were getting on, so I’m sure you’ll have no problem sharing her room. Lydia’s old bed is still in there, and it’s all made up for you.”
I had to force myself to remember to express my gratitude for her hospitality, all the while my lungs were threatening to choke me in their hurry to circulate air. An hour ago, I would have been unspeakably thrilled at the idea of sharing a room with Kitty. There was little chance of sneaking away to the library together for late-night conversation in a house so bursting with people, but we wouldn’t need to sneak anywhere if we were already in the same room. Except something had clearly changed. Kitty didn’t want me there.
If I couldn’t flee to Pemberley and we were going to be in such close quarters, I could not simply ignore Kitty, even if she sought to ignore me. Perhaps I had misread the toneof her letter, but I was certain I had not imagined her kiss. I would not pursue something she didn’t desire herself, but we both needed confirmation of secrecy from the other. When Mrs. Bennet offered to have me shown to my room, to Kitty’s room, I accepted.
If the last person I wanted to see turned up at my house, I would hide myself in the room in which I felt safest. Kitty had never spoken of having a particular affinity for any potential parlours or libraries that Longbourn House might have so, particularly considering the absence of her younger sister, I imagined Kitty’s more desperate escapes would be made to her bedroom. Sure enough, when the Bennets’ maid knocked on the door before calling out and pushing it open, Kitty was scrambling off her bed. She shook out her skirts in an attempt to calm the wrinkles one got in their clothes from curling up into a ball.
“Miss Darcy, miss,” the maid announced me, before curtseying and taking her leave.
I’d meant to ask her to check on how Emma was settling in amongst the Longbourn staff, but she was gone before I got the chance. Kitty seemed minded to race after her, inching towards the door.
“I will not tell anyone,” I assured her quickly. “If that is what’s concerning you. I have just as much to lose.”
If not more.
I didn’t verbalise the addendum, but we both understood it even so. I wasn’t entirely sure it mattered. I had a fortune and a higher social standing, but we would both end up in thesame place if we fell. We risked ostracization from our families, with no friends to take us in. Without money or shelter, it was a bleak reality at best and a short one at worst. I could hardly blame Kitty for fearing it.
I assumed the floorboards had been the same for the entirety of Kitty’s residence in the room, but she still seemed to find them greatly more fascinating than she found me.
“Are you going to ignore me forever?” I asked, tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. “I’m sorry. I never meant to… I…Please, Kitty. If I made you uncomfortable, please forgive me. I won’t… I won’t talk to you, won’t even be alone with you if you’d rather it that way.”
It wasn’t a promise I was entirely sure I’d be able to keep, given the proximity of the bed I’d been allocated, but I would have said anything to get her to look at me. Yet she still didn’t. Instead she clenched her fingers around the fabric of her skirts, her knuckles turning white from the force.
I thought perhaps she meant to ignore me until I left, but then she reached out and took my hand. A far cry from the strength with which she’d gripped her dress, her touch on my skin was featherlight and almost reverent. Her fingers ghosted over mine as she coaxed my hand to her mouth, gentle lips brushing against my knuckles. I felt a crackle of something warm and exciting at the contact, and I was unable to stop the smile that tugged at the corner of my mouth. Until I realised her touch wasn’t doting affection.
The shift of the angle of her neck allowed me to get a glimpse of her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks,dripping to the floor when they reached her chin. If she was scared, confused, or overwhelmed, I understood entirely—it had all felt the same when I was coming to my own conclusions about myself. I brushed away the droplets with my spare hand, cupping the curve of her face.
