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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE PRIMROSE BEHIND HER EAR

Elizabeth could not bear to spend the waning days of March locked in her bedchambers, pawing through her uncle’s letters. True, the shock had been substantial. She had told Hannah to have the footman haul up her heavy traveling trunk, and she had spent hours wondering when her uncle had come to believe that binding one Fitzwilliam Darcy would benefit his favorite niece.

But as usual, his letters offered no satisfactory defense, choosing instead to spur her forward with short, maddeningly affectionate teases:

“A sharp tongue, my dear Lizzy, is like a well-sharpened razor; it is vastly entertaining until one forgets oneself and slices off an ear. I leave Mr. Darcy to provide the necessary caution.”

“Do not pout. A man who spends three days staring at you in silence is either plotting murder or deeply enamored. In either case, your conversation will provide a singular distraction.”

“If you find his demeanor cold, simply set fire to his pride. It has fueled half the county for a century and produces an astonishing amount of heat.”

She had ignored his barbs at the time, so spurred like a recalcitrant donkey was she to unearth every proof of Darcy’s despicable manners, his hauteur, his unforgivable disdain, and oh, she had written verbatim every scathing remark that she had been so proud of—only to feed ammunition to her uncle that he so spectacularly misfired.

But now, with the benefit of bitter hindsight, she could taste the consequences rising in her throat. Her own clever pen had scripted this farce—a marriage to a man she had once believed herself to despise, orchestrated by an uncle who fancied himself the very soul of benevolence. His triumphant, ghostly gloat rang in her ears: I have arranged matters so that Mr. Darcy can never afford to be unkind to you. Ever.

As if a financial tether could manufacture genuine affection. As if a man cornered by a phantom trust could ever look at her without remembering his own cage.

She stared up at the pale plaster rosette anchoring Lady Anne’s ceiling. “Uncle Henry, you misread me entirely,” she spoke into the empty air. “All I ever wished for was a man who sees me and has true affection for me. Not manufactured. Not because of any advantage he may gain. You missed everything I said about Mr. Lefevre. How he engaged in conversation with me without prejudice. How he danced with me at every assembly while Mr. Darcy glared at me with stern disapproval. You could have left it all to my father—your brother. Family, and trusted him to provide for us.”

And here, she knew she was behaving like a pathetic heroine locked up in a Gothic garret, but she beat her chest anyway. “Why, Uncle Henry? Why did you saddle me with a husband who can never truly love me? Forced him into my arms? You men will never understand what beats inside a woman’s heart.”

And then, Hannah peeked in, her cap canted at a reckless angle and her round face bobbing, her arms full of linens—the best lawn and softest pillowcases, no doubt.

“Mrs. Darcy, did you ring? Oh—ma’am, you’re sitting up! You look ever so much better than you did when the master carried you in like a sack of turnips—well, not a sack of turnips, of course, because you’re a lady, but you know what I mean. Mrs. Reynolds said you were to have absolute quiet, but I heard you speaking, and I thought, Well, if she’s awake, she’ll be wanting something. Shall I bring up the broth? Cook made it with real chicken bones this time, or perhaps some of those sugared almonds Mr. Darcy sent up, or⁠—”

“Hannah,” Elizabeth interrupted gently, though a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I shall require my walking dress. I can no longer remain confined to this blue bedchamber.”

Hannah’s eyes widened, darting nervously toward the untidy piles of letters strewn across the counterpane. “Oh, but ma’am, you ought not to go walking when your head has been so poorly. Mr. Darcy gave strict instructions—he said to Mr. Pelter, ‘Ensure Mrs. Darcy is not disturbed by wind or weather until she is fully recovered’—and the wind out on the lake today could strip the feathers right off a goose.”

“Mr. Pelter is a groom, Hannah, not a physician,” Elizabeth said, swinging her legs over the side of the feather mattress. She braced herself against a minor wave of dizziness, but the floor felt solid enough beneath her slippers. “And Mr. Darcy may countermand my movements when he is present. I have rested until I am in grave danger of becoming a permanent piece of upholstery myself.”

Hannah wrung her hands in her bundle of linens. “But Madam, I heard you speaking to someone.” She cast a terrified glance toward the connecting door. “If Mr. Darcy finds out that I disobeyed his express commands to keep you warm and safely tucked in your bed—I shall be flung out into the snow before tea.”

“Are you my lady’s maid or Mr. Darcy’s?” Elizabeth stood and wobbled toward the wash basin. “I shall go mad if I look at these walls another hour, and then you will have to explain to Mrs. Reynolds why the new mistress is standing on her bed and reciting Shakespeare at the ceiling.”

“Which Shakespeare, ma’am?”

“The mad bits. Ophelia, probably. Though I have always considered drowning oneself in a muddy brook to be a remarkably excessive response to romantic difficulties, I am beginning to understand the peculiar appeal of dramatic gestures.”

Hannah set down her load of linens, and within a quarter-hour—perhaps twenty minutes, if one counted honestly—Elizabeth was washed, buttoned, pinned, and swathed in her heaviest wool pelisse, so that she was marginally decent and felt almost human again.

She tucked Bewick’s History of British Birds into her pocket and descended the stairs with Hannah trailing behind her like a worried shadow.

Darcy was waiting in the breakfast room. He rose the instant she crossed the threshold, his dark eyes sweeping over her. “Mrs. Darcy, are you well? Why are you dressed for walking?”

“Because I have been fed more broth than any woman ought to consume in a single lifetime, and if I see one more sugared almond I shall begin to cluck.” Elizabeth moved toward the sideboard and poured herself tea. “March is nearly gone, and I have been told there are crocuses and snowdrops on your grounds. I should like to see them before spring decides to move along without me.”

“The grounds are uncultivated, and the paths are treacherous with mud.”

“And I have been lying abed feeling sorry for myself ever since our last excursion, which is a state of affairs I can no longer tolerate.” She pulled the Bewick from her pocket and held it up. “Your mother’s book. The one you so generously gave me. I should like to spot the birds she annotated, but I cannot do so from inside the house, unless you expect me to wait for them to fly through the window.”

Darcy’s expression softened as his gaze caught upon the worn leather binding. “You wish to go birdwatching. I confess I had supposed you preferred the sanctuary of your correspondence.”

She saw the question forming behind his eyes, that after their conversation about debts and the unfinished checkers game, and the doubt behind her strange inheritance.

“I received correspondence from Mr. Sowerby.” She set down her cup. “I should have mentioned it sooner, but I was… somewhat absorbed in my own minor miseries.”