“Heisfoolish enough to accept whatever explanation we provide. We could simply say that she is merely having a fit of nerves, just like her mother’s. He will believe that easily enough.”
Mary seemed to warm to the scheme. “And a tenant farmer—”
“Would gladly accept her one thousand pounds of dowry upon your mother’s death,” Mr. Bennet finished. “I think this will work, Mary. Elizabeth simply cannot marry Fitzwilliam Darcy. I will not allow it. I would rather her hate me forever than be connected to that family.”
Elizabeth gasped. The sound escaped before she could stop it.
Inside the study, Mary’s voice sharpened instantly. “Did you hear that?”
Elizabeth did not wait to hear more. She slipped silently from the water closet and fled up the staircase, her legs trembling beneath her. Her heart hammered wildly as she reached her room and shut the door behind her.
For several moments she could do nothing but lean against it, shaking.
Her father.
Her ownfather.
He meant to steal her away in the night… to force her into a marriage with a stranger… to destroy everything.
Elizabeth pressed her hands to her face as tears began to spill down her cheeks.
Why?
The question pounded through her mind.
Why would he do this?
Why now?
Darcy.
The thought of him sent a fresh wave of panic through her chest.
He would come tomorrow expecting everything to be well.
Expecting her.
Elizabeth paced the room, her mind racing in frantic circles.
Could she run away first?
Could she warn him somehow?
If only there were some way—some magical contrivance that allowed one to speak across distance—to tell him what was happening.
Then he could come tonight. He could appear beneath her window with a ladder like the hero in a novel. She could climb down, make her escape…
Elizabeth pressed her hands to her temples.
Her thoughts were spiraling wildly now.
She needed to think. She needed a plan, and she needed it quickly.
As she paced the room in frantic circles, she looked up and saw herself in the small looking glass on her dressing table.
Only then did she see her face for the first time, and the sight made her catch her breath.
Mary’s handprint stood out vividly against her cheek—angry red beneath the pale winter light. Already the skin had begun to swell, the outline of fingers faint but unmistakable. A small cut at the corner of her lip had dried into a thin, dark line.
