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"Then make it less severe. That is what you are for."

I know that voice. It has instructed me since infancy on the management of tenants, the choice of a wife, and the holding of a teacup, and it is the last voice in England I wish to hear with my head in this condition.

I open my eyes. This is a mistake. The light comes in like knives.

"He is awake!" My aunt's voice rises to its full height. "Darcy! Darcy, look at me."

"I would rather not," I say. My voice is a croak. "It hurts to look at anything."

"There. You see, Mr. Pettigrew? He is perfectly sensible. He is insolent, which is perfectly natural to him."

A thin, anxious face swims above me. Spectacles. Gray whiskers. A neckcloth tied in such terror that it appears to be attempting to escape.

"Mr. Darcy, sir. Pettigrew, sir. The apothecary. How do you feel?"

"As though a tree fell on me."

"Ah." He blinks. "That is very nearly what happened, sir. You struck a bough. You have a deal of bruising and a cut at the temple, and you have been insensible these three hours."

"Three hours."

"Yes, sir. Gently now. Do not sit up."

I sit up. The room tilts, revolves once, and settles back into my aunt's blue bedchamber, the one she keeps for guests she wishes to impress. Fitzwilliam is at the window. He looks as though he has not slept, and he is muddy to the knee.

"Fitzwilliam."

"Darcy." He comes to the bedside. His smile is not quite steady. "You gave us a fright, old man."

"What day is it?"

A glance passes between him and the apothecary.

"Friday," says Fitzwilliam.

Friday.

I close my eyes and search for Thursday, and find it, after a fashion. Thursday morning, the grove; my aunt kept me with her steward, and by the time I came, she had gone. Thursday afternoon, my aunt. Thursday evening, I would not go to tea. I put on my blue coat. I walked down to the parsonage alone, my heart pounding against my ribs like a fist on a door, every word I meant to say lined up in my head as orderly as soldiers.

And then—

Nothing.

Not darkness. Simply nothing, as though someone has cut the page out of a book with a penknife and left the edges neat.

"Mr. Darcy?" says the apothecary. "What is the last thing you recall, sir?"

"Walking to the parsonage," I say slowly. "Thursday evening. I had something to say."

Fitzwilliam goes very still.

"And after that?"

"After that, nothing. A tree. You."

"Nothing of the night, sir? Nothing of riding out this morning?"

"I do not ride out before breakfast," I say, with some irritation. "Why should I?"