“Hold!” shouted the driver.
The team screamed.
There was no other word for it. The horses reared and plunged as the barking rose into a frenzy. Through the window Elizabeth glimpsed a blur of movement low to the ground—two dogs, half-maddened with pursuit, darting at the horses’ legs.
The carriage swayed so violently that one of the bandboxes flew from the seat and struck the opposite panel.
“Papa—!”
“Stay where you are!”
But there was no staying anywhere. The world had lost all order. Wheels struck stone. The carriage veered hard to one side, then the other. The driver shouted again, though his voice wasnearly swallowed by the thunder of hooves and the dreadful, splintering rattle of wood under strain.
Elizabeth reached instinctively across the space between them, but the movement of the carriage flung her sideways. A parcel burst open. Tissue paper swirled like frightened birds.
One horse gave another shrill cry. The entire carriage seemed to lift.
Then Mr. Bennet was beside her.
She did not know how he had crossed so quickly. One moment she was clutching at leather and polished wood, and the next his arms were around her—strong, desperate, pulling her down against him with such force that she could scarcely breathe.
“Papa—”
“Hush, Lizzy.”
The words were close against her hair. She felt his hand at the back of her head, sheltering it, pressing her into the safety of his coat. The carriage tipped. Something shattered. A wheel struck what felt like stone, and the world turned over in a roar of wood and glass and terror.
Her shoulder slammed painfully against the seat. There was another crash—greater, final, as though the whole earth had risen to meet them.
Then her head struck something hard.
There was one blinding instant of white, not unlike lightning behind closed eyes.
After that, nothing.
Everything went dark.
Chapter One
The morning light at Longbourn came gently, filtering through the tall windows of the breakfast parlor in pale, steady bands that warmed the polished surface of the table and turned the cream of the walls to gold. It was a familiar hour, a familiar room, and to Elizabeth Bennet, that familiarity was both comfort and necessity.
She paused just beyond the threshold, one hand wrapped firmly about her father’s old walking stick.
It had been cut and smoothed years ago to suit his height, and though it was a trifle too tall for her, she had never thought to alter it. The worn curve of the handle fit her palm as though shaped for it; the faint indent along the shaft marked where his fingers had rested countless times. It was steady. It was familiar, but most of all, it was his.
Elizabeth drew in a breath and stepped forward.
The polished floor gave back the softest echo of her movement. One step. Two. Three. She kept her pace measured—not slow,but deliberate—and allowed her gaze to settle where it always did when she entered this room: toward the left end of the table, where her place had been these past two years.
From there, she could see the door. From there, nothing approached her unseen.
She reached the chair with ease and turned, her hand brushing the carved back before she lowered herself into it. Only then did she allow herself to look fully about the room.
Or rather—to look as she now did.
Her left eye adjusted quickly, taking in what lay nearest with clarity. The edge of the table, the place settings, the gleam of a spoon—these were sharp, defined. Beyond that, the world softened. Faces blurred at a distance; expressions were guessed more often than seen. And to her right—
Elizabeth did not turn her head.
