Every hand froze.
Every head turned.
“Who could be calling at this hour?” Mrs. Bennet’s shrill tones pierced the stillness.
From the hall came the faint echo of the door opening, voices too low to distinguish—and then footsteps.
Hill appeared in the doorway.
Darcy knew at once that something was wrong.
Her face had gone entirely white.
“Sir,” she said, though her eyes moved uncertainly between them all, “Mr… Mr. Frederick Bennet… and Master Teddy Bennet.”
The words seemed to fall into the room and shatter. Darcy’s head whipped around, searching for Elizabeth. Her eyes met his as her face slowly drained of color.
Across the room, Mr. Bennet’s face was ashen. Lady Catherine, playing across from him, rose unsteadily to her feet.
No one spoke.
No one seemed capable of it.
Darcy took control of the situation, setting his cards aside and rising to his feet. “Show them in, Hill,” he said.
His voice was calm. Deliberate. Something solid in the midst of the shock.
Hill curtsied and withdrew at once. A moment later, the door opened. The gentleman who entered bore so striking a resemblance to Mr. Bennet that, for an instant, Darcy wondered if he were witnessing some trick of the light.
But no—
Time had marked this man differently. His hair was entirely white, his frame leaner, his tanned face lined by years and hardship rather than indolence. And yet—the likeness was undeniable.
At his side stood a young man, near grown, alert and watchful, his gaze moving quickly about the room.
They halted just within the threshold.
“Thomas,” the man said, his eyes falling on the stunned master of Longbourn. “I—”
“Freddy?”
Lady Catherine’s tentative voice stopped the man cold. His eyes widened, and he gaped. “Cathy?” he responded, his voice rough with disbelief. “What the devil are you doing here?”
She did not respond, but only swayed on her feet.
For one suspended moment, it seemed she might recover, but she did not.
And for the second time in Darcy’s memory, Lady Catherine de Bourgh fainted.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth did not move.
Shecouldnot move.
The man who had entered the room stood not ten feet from her, and yet it felt as though the distance stretched far beyond that—something unreal, impossible, separating them.
Frederick Bennet.
