But rest eluded me, and I continued to startle awake periodically, my heart pounding dreadfully. Each time, I lay in the dark and fell victim to flashing images of leering grins and other possibilities that I did not wish to imagine, yet the pictures came regardless. I tossed and turned as though trapped in an airless cellar until I could eventually calm myself enough to again fall into restless sleep.
After the third unsuccessful attempt, however, I rose, put a shawl around my shoulders, and knitted slippers on my feet, thinking that if I sat in the parlor where I could breathe—or run—at least I might doze. Anything was preferable to lying awake in a closed room with only my mind for company. I crept down the stairs so as not to wake the maids, but the treads were old and creaked in spite of my caution.
Suddenly, out of the gloom, Mr. Darcy was there before me! I stifled a small scream.
“Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you. Is there aught you need?”
“I cannot sleep,” I whispered.
“Perhaps some warm milk.”
I was too dazed to mention we had no milk left and let him again whisk me back into the kitchen. But within a very few minutes, he produced a cup of warm milk. I looked wonderingly at this offering.
“I sent to Pemberley for a few things,” he explained, and then—likely because I could not cease staring at him—he added, “I shall go before the maids come down.”
I blinked twice. The kitchen was aglow with the unmistakably soft light of candles, and indeed, there on the table burning in merry haste, stood two long, white tapers. My eyes rose once again to the gentleman’s face.
“Would you rather have brandy?” he asked with a slight frown. Perhaps he had mistaken my hesitation as a dislike of milk.
I spoke distantly as though in a dream. “No. It makes me become sadly chatty, and I cannot remember a thing I have said.”
“Oh? Then how do you know?” he asked, smiling for perhaps the first time in our acquaintance.
I smiled shakily in response. “My father has taken great pleasure in repeating my own words back to me on a few occasions.”
After pouring himself a portion from the brandy bottle on the sideboard, Mr. Darcy took a chair facing me.
“Do you have many occasions to indulge in brandy, then?” he asked, still smiling and causing my wits to vanish.
Oh, if only I could think of something clever to say!But at that moment, I could simply mumble that I had once cut my knee to the bone after tripping on a flag in the kitchen. I sighed and looked down into my milk.
“Forgive me, I did not mean to force you to recall something you would rather not remember. You looked so downcast just now. Perhaps we should not talk of—”
“Oh, you misunderstood. I was thinking of the rather funny things I could have said in response to such a question if only I had thought of them first.”
I never imagined Mr. Darcy could look so sweetly amused, so—but wait, he was speaking.
“Might we try again?” He cleared his throat and frowned. “Do you have many occasions to indulge in brandy, then, Miss Bennet?”
I shook off my amazement and replied in a breezy imitation of my former, saucier self. “Hardly ever, sir. Only when I gamble, of course, and in the back pew at church when Mr. Collins is sermonizing, and always after I have robbed the mail coach; otherwise, I never touch the stuff.”
Mr. Darcy sat before me, his smile fading into a more pensive look. “I am glad you are recovering your sense of humor. Might you—are you equal to telling me what happened?”
“There is little to tell. I came down to the kitchen after sitting up with Auntie. I heard a thump, and since the neighbor’s man had used our barrow, I thought perhaps he was returning it. I opened the door to see whether it was indeed him, and four men swarmed into the kitchen. All I could think to do was to feed them as a way to keep them occupied, and when they had eaten everything, they asked for drink. I had held back the ale in the cellar until the last possible moment and felt that distraction was my last resort. I told them they could haul it up the ladder themselves and hinted there might be wine in the parlor cabinet—” My eyes rose gravely to his face. “What would I have done had you not come?”
After a heavy pause, he cleared his throat and replied, “Whatever might have transpired, you would have been equally brave.”
“I do not rightly know whether that is true. I had come to the end of my courage.” He reached for and gently squeezed my hand in reassurance. “What has happened to them?” I asked.
“We trussed them up and sent them up the road. I did not want them in Lambton. But perhaps we should decide what is best to be done now. You and Mrs. Jennings will come to Pemberley, and I shall send an express to your fath—”
“Oh, I wish you would not, Mr. Darcy!” I cried.
“What? But you cannot continue here.”
“Imuststay. Do you not see?” I stood abruptly. “If I give up—if I run away now—I shall concede to defeat and perhaps never know… Oh, I wish I could explain it,” I said, rubbing absently at my forehead. “Did you not say every boy has been on a tramp at least once in his life? This is my tramp, Mr. Darcy. This is my one chance to fend for myself, and I would like to—indeed, I must—see it through!”
He had shot up out of his chair during my agitated plea, and he began to pace before me. “That is nonsense. Of course you must come to Pemberley and—”
