Kitty chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes overcast with a shade of deep thought. I didn’t push the request to run away. If she wanted to stay, I would never force her to leave a family I knew she loved.
“Where would we go?” she asked.
I dampened down my excitement at the realisation she was truly considering my madcap request. For the first time since leaving Rosings, my entire plan felt real. It felt possible. The answer to her question mattered deeply, as the truth of it all was that I had no real destination in mind. It should have been the first thing I considered before I had taken one step away from Rosings, but getting away had always felt more important than where I ended up. I just wanted to go somewhere that felt safe, but with Kitty standing in front of me, I realised that was not a place, but a person.
Choosing my words carefully, I crafted the perfect utopia.
“Somewhere they have never heard of a Bennet or a Darcy.”
The idea was intoxicating. Kitty would be free of the expectations set by her sisters. I would never have to worry about bringing shame on my family name. There had to besomewhere we could settle where people would look the other way and pretend they didn’t see how dear Kitty was to me. Charlotte’s story of the Ladies of Llangollen played itself over and over in my mind, like a novice practising scales at the piano. It was all I could think of. It was everything I wanted.
“That sounds perfect,” Kitty said softly. “Are you truly serious about this?”
When I nodded, she pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. Then she turned back to look at Longbourn. I knew what she was feeling because it was the same thing I felt when I imagined never calling Pemberley my home again. She would be leaving behind so many memories, so many of her things that we wouldn’t be able to take with us, and her entire family. The idea of asking her to come with me started to feel selfish and ludicrous. Only then Kitty put her back to the house and focused solely on me.
“All right,” she said with a decisive nod. “I want to go with you. Can you wait here for a minute while I pack a bag? Do you not have anything with you at all?”
I explained the waiting coach and promised to stay out of sight while Kitty gathered some things. As I leant against the side of the house, pulling my coat close around myself to keep warm, I tried to stave off concerns that Kitty wouldn’t come back. With a little distance to develop some clarity, it was inconceivable she would still think this a good idea.
But Kitty did come back. She had changed out of her nightwear and wrapped herself in a pelisse, with a valiseover her arm. There was no hint of hesitation as she took my hand and we walked, together, away from Longbourn House.
It was clear Kitty was tired. She rubbed at her eyes with her spare hand and fought back yawns the entire walk to the carriage. Even when we were sitting inside and no longer needed to put energy into walking, she let her head slump onto my shoulder as if too exhausted to hold it up herself. It was understandable. I had woken her up in the middle of the night.
The carriage driver needed directions, and I was at a loss. I was finding it easier to keep my eyes open than Kitty was, but I still struggled when it came to trying to think sensibly. Choosing a place to settle for the rest of our lives wasn’t something either of us could do in the state we were in. Instead I nudged Kitty into giving the name of a town to the north that would have an inn. We would just have to hope that it was far enough away that no one from Longbourn would find us there before we could make a proper escape the next morning.
“We will need to be awake and moving again before anyone realises you’re gone,” I said to Kitty.
“I left a note,” she said through another yawn. “I didn’t say why I was leaving or who with, but I reassured them I would be safe and that there was no need to look for me. I promised them this was no foolish scheme. I can only hope they believe me.”
I could not help but laugh.
“After everything that happened with Lydia, they willstart looking for you the moment they realise you have left.” I pressed a kiss to her temple. “You are too precious to simply let slip away like that. I know Elizabeth would not allow it.”
“Elizabeth isn’t there. My father has regained some of his strength, and no one is quite so worried about him, so she and Mr. Darcy returned to Pemberley late last week.”
Her words stung more than she could have imagined. Darcy said he’d let me return to Pemberley once he was back there himself, yet they had continued to leave me in Rosings. It felt like proof that he never wanted much to do with me again. I knew now that I was making the right decision. Anger bubbled in my stomach, but I tamped it down. It was nothing I needed to dwell on.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The inn we found ourselves at was modest but comfortable enough for what was left of the night. While the innkeeper was far from pleased to be awoken at such a late hour to grant us a room, a generous tip turned his spirits, and he promised us a breakfast before we left. I did not mention that I hoped we would be long gone before he was awake to cook it.
We were shown up the stairs by a disgruntled maid who lit a candle in the room and wordlessly headed for the door and, no doubt, her bed. I stopped her just before she could leave and pressed a coin into her hand for her troubles. The notion seemed to surprise her, but she nodded a shallow curtsey and wished me a good night.
I was going to need to start curbing the instinct to begenerous. As bad as I felt inconveniencing people, my pin money was not an unlimited fund. My purse already felt a little lighter, and this was now all the money I had in the world. Until we could find a way to earn more, we needed to rely on it for our shelter, our transport, and our sustenance. For now, however, I would have paid every penny I had for a handful of hours in Kitty’s company.
Ducking to return the purse to my valise, I turned to find Kitty with her ear against the door. When she was convinced that the maid who had shown us to the room was gone, she slid across the lock, testing the doorknob to ensure it held firm. I knew it was a sensible idea. We were two young women staying alone in an unfamiliar place with any number of potentially unsavoury characters just rooms away. Yet it still felt significant. Deliberate. Satisfied with the security of the door, Kitty turned, resting back against the door with pious innocence on her face.
“If we’ve learnt anything, it’s that there is no friend to vice quite as firm as a locked door,” she said.
I felt my cheeks heat up with a violent blush, but I couldn’t argue with her words. More than enough people had interrupted me when I’d been seeking a moment alone with a pretty girl.
For someone who had been fighting sleep in the carriage, Kitty was now very awake. I reached for her automatically, wanting her close after the distance that had been between us. And she had no protests, crawling onto the bed next to me and wriggling close until her body was pressed against theside of mine. I thought she was going to kiss my lips, but instead she dropped her kiss to the tip of my nose, then the space between my eyebrows, then my temple.
“Kitty!” I tried to stifle my laughter as she pressed further kisses across my cheeks and forehead.
“Yes?” she asked angelically.
There was so much I wanted to say to her, and I had no idea where to start, so instead I just reached for her and pulled her into an embrace, hiding my face against the curve of her neck. It was the calmest I’d felt in weeks, and I knew I’d be able to fall asleep within moments the second I let myself go, but I could feel how restless Kitty still was. I nudged her gently in the ribs to prompt her to share what was on her mind. If she wanted to go back to her family, I’d understand.
