No.
What would not leave him was the look she had worn the previous evening when she stood beside Jane in the drawing room and searched, with visible uncertainty, for some place to belong.
He had seen her hesitation.
He had felt her eyes upon him more than once. Not boldly. Elizabeth was too proud for that. But she had looked to him, he knew it, as if expecting the small spark of shared understanding that had begun to grow between them. A glance over Miss Bingley’s maneuvering. A silent smile over some absurdity. Some assurance that the ease of the last few days had not been imagined.
And he had denied her all of it.
He had kept his eyes upon his letter like a coward.
The word stung because it was true. He had told himself he was acting with prudence, that after the revelation of his own heart he required distance, thought, restraint. Mrs. Bennet’s visit had only sharpened what he already knew: connection with Elizabeth would draw him into a family noisy, exposed, and imprudent in nearly every particular. More than that, it would draw him away from the course he had laid out for Pemberley, from the marriage of fortune he had long considered inevitable, from the sacrifice he had believed himself prepared to make.
So he had retreated.
He had retreated, and Elizabeth had suffered for it.
Her headache had been no headache. Darcy had known that the moment she spoke. Her face had gone pale, her voice too steady, her eyes too bright. Jane had known as well; even Bingley, in his innocent concern, had looked uneasy as the sisters left the room. Then Miss Bingley’s voice had followed them into the hall with that careless remark about another Bennet invasion, and Darcy, who had already inflicted enough injury by silence, had done nothing swift enough to prevent the words from reaching them.
Bingley had rebuked Miss Bingley after the door closed, but it was too late.
Now morning had come, and with it no relief.
Darcy dressed before Bates arrived and then dismissed him with unnecessary brevity after the man had finished. He did not go to the library. He did not walk outside, though the air beyond the window looked crisp and clear after so much damp. He remained in his room until the hour for breakfast like a man sheltering from a danger he had created himself.
He did not trust himself to meet Elizabeth alone.
Worse, he did not trust that she would wish to meet him at all.
When at last he descended, he found the breakfast room already occupied. Bingley stood at the sideboard, Mrs. Hurst poured chocolate, Miss Bingley examined a dish of rolls as though they had offended her, and Jane sat near the fire, pale but lovely, wrapped in a shawl. Elizabeth sat beside her.
Darcy’s eyes went to her at once.
She did not look up.
The omission was so deserved that it struck deeper than reproach would have done. She was composed, her posture graceful, her expression attentive to Jane. There was nothing dramatic in her manner, nothing that would draw notice from the room. Only Darcy, who had spent far too many hours learning the small changes of her face, saw the guarded stillness about her mouth.
He took his seat and attempted to eat.
He failed.
Conversation moved gently around Jane’s recovery. Bingley was all concern, urging tea, toast, eggs, more cushions, less draft, and anything else a man might command when he had no useful authority over fever. Jane thanked him with such softness that Bingley looked ready to forget the whole world.
Then Elizabeth set down her cup.
“Mr. Bingley,” she said, “you have been most generous in allowing us to remain here, but I must ask the use of your carriage today. Jane is much improved, and I believe we ought to return to Longbourn.”
Darcy’s head came up.
Across the table, Elizabeth’s eyes darted to his. For the smallest instant their gazes met. Color rose into her cheeks, not the bright warmth he had seen in happier moments, but something nearer embarrassment, almost pain. She looked down at once, then turned back to Bingley as though Darcy had not been the cause of it.
Bingley looked stricken. “Today? Surely not today. Miss Bennet has only just begun to leave her room. The air is still damp, and the roads cannot be comfortable. Pray, do not think of going so soon.”
“You are very kind,” Elizabeth replied, “but the carriage will be closed, and Jane shall be well wrapped. The distance is not great.”
“But Mr. Jones said she must not exert herself.”
“She need not exert herself in a carriage.”
