Relief crashed through her with such force that tears sprang to her eyes. She was herself again. Back in her own body, her own flesh, her own bones and blood. The weakness that had plagued her was gone, replaced by strength she had taken for granted her entire life until it was stolen away. Even exhausted as she clearlywas, even with her head aching and her stomach churning, she felt better than she had since waking up in Anne’s failing flesh.
“Elizabeth?” The voice came from her right, male and worried. “Elizabeth, can you hear me?”
She turned her head, the motion easier than any movement had been in days, and found Darcy sitting in a chair pulled close to the bed. His face showed exhaustion that matched her own, dark circles beneath his eyes and lines of tension around his mouth. Behind him, Jane stood near the window, her hands clasped before her and her expression tight with barely contained emotion. Mrs. Bennet hovered near the foot of the bed, her face red and blotchy from recent weeping.
“It’s me,” Elizabeth said, directing the words towards Jane rather than Darcy or her mother. Her voice emerged hoarse, her throat raw. “The pet I most wanted as a child was a hedgehog.”
Jane’s face transformed, relief so profound that it made her sway on her feet. The code words they had agreed upon, proof that Elizabeth was truly Elizabeth and not Anne wearing her face. Jane’s eyes filled with tears that spilled over immediately, tracking down her cheeks while a smile broke across her features like sunrise.
“Thank God,” Jane whispered, her voice breaking. “Oh, thank God.”
Mrs. Bennet surged forwards, her hands reaching for Elizabeth. “Lizzy, my dear girl, you gave us such a fright. Collapsing like that at your own wedding breakfast. What were you thinking, drinking wine on an empty stomach?”
Elizabeth caught Jane’s eye over their mother’s shoulder and saw understanding pass between them. Jane moved forwards, gently extracting Mrs. Bennet’s hands from Elizabeth’s person.
“Mama, perhaps you should go down and let everyone know Lizzy is recovering,” Jane suggested. “I know Father wasworried. Let them know she is awake, and will be just fine shortly. She only fainted.”
Mrs. Bennet’s face showed conflict, torn between concern for her daughter and the allure of being able to hold forth to the important guests downstairs. Social ambition won, as Jane had clearly known it would. Mrs. Bennet patted Elizabeth’s hand one final time before bustling towards the door.
“Very well, but you must send for me immediately if Lizzy takes another turn,” Mrs. Bennet commanded, already halfway into the corridor. “A mother knows best in these situations.”
The door closed behind her, and Jane turned back to Elizabeth. “I should check on Anne. Make certain the reversal worked for both of you. Mr. Darcy, will you stay with Elizabeth?”
“Of course,” Darcy replied, his gaze never leaving Elizabeth’s face. Something in his expression made Elizabeth’s stomach flutter.
Jane squeezed Elizabeth’s hand briefly, her touch conveying support and understanding. Then she was gone as well, leaving Elizabeth alone with her husband. The word struck her with renewed force now that she was back in her own body, now that the marriage was real in ways it had not felt when she was trapped watching Anne speak the vows in her place.
Husband. Darcy was her husband. They were married, bound by law and church and society in ways that could not be undone except by death.
Elizabeth lifted her hands again, studying them in the firelight as though they might disappear if she looked away. Her hands, her wrists, her arms. She touched her face, feeling the familiar contours of nose and cheekbones and jaw. Ran her fingers through her hair, finding it arranged in the elaborate style Jane had created this morning but unmistakably her own dark curls beneath the pearl-tipped pins.
“I am myself,” she said aloud, needing to hear the words spoken in her own voice. “I am Elizabeth Bennet.” She paused. “Elizabeth Darcy now, I suppose.”
Darcy shifted in his chair, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped before him. His expression showed patience mixed with confusion, clearly waiting for explanation.
“Elizabeth,” he said quietly. “Something is going on, something that I do not understand. Will you not tell me?”
He was owed the truth. He, more than anyone save Elizabeth herself, was a victim of Anne’s schemes.
She must tell him everything and hope he did not think her mad – but at least, if he did, she was safely back in her own body.
Elizabeth took a breath and began. The words came haltingly at first, her exhaustion making coherent thought difficult. But she forced herself to continue, to lay out the truth in all its impossible, horrifying detail. Anne’s alchemical abilities, learned from her father. The body swap potion, brewed with rare ingredients and activated through simultaneous drinking. Anne’s motivations, her resentment and jealousy and desperate desire for the life she believed Elizabeth had squandered. Anne’s plan to use another potion on Darcy after the wedding, to ensure his eternal devotion – a potion Sir Lewis de Bourgh had once used to ensnare Lady Catherine for his own.
Darcy listened in grave silence, his face showing shock that slowly transformed into horror. He did not interrupt, did not question or protest the impossibility of what she was describing. He simply sat and listened while Elizabeth’s voice grew stronger, her words coming faster as the story poured out.
“She wanted everything I had,” Elizabeth finished. “My health, my vitality… your attention. I was simply an obstacle to be removed, a body to be stolen and discarded.”
Darcy remained silent for a long moment after she finished speaking, his gaze distant as though reviewing recent events through this new lens. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the one thing Elizabeth had not dared hope for: belief.
“There were tells,” he said slowly, his eyes finding hers again. “Things that troubled me, though I could not identify why. The simpering. You have never simpered, Elizabeth, yet she giggled at every jest and leaned against me with constant need for reassurance. You value independence too much for such behaviour.”
Elizabeth felt her cheeks heat despite everything.
Darcy continued, his voice growing more certain. “Your insistence on the special licence and marrying in London, instead of from Longbourn, struck me as utterly unlike the Elizabeth I knew, who loved her family deeply. Then, when I suggested instead visiting Longbourn after our wedding trip, to spend time with your family before we departed for Pemberley. You showed no interest. No concern for when you might see your father or Jane again. It all struck me as wrong, but I told myself you were simply caught up in wedding preparations.”
Elizabeth watched his hand hover near hers, not quite touching, and felt the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on her chest. The question formed before she could stop it.
“And yet, still you married me.” She kept her gaze on his face. “You suspected something was wrong. You knew I was not behaving as myself. And yet you stood before the altar and spoke vows that bound us together.”
