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“Fitzwilliam.” Her voice was steady, but her fingers curled against her skirt. “I need to speak with you. Georgiana said something concerning⁠—”

But the weight of the entire day, the terror of Georgiana’s near-elopement, the specter of Ashworth subjecting his sister to shipwreck and tropical maladies, and now the crushing knowledge of his wife’s entanglement in his family’s shame. He could not bear another word. He could not look at her without seeing and tasting his humiliation—the forced marriage, the state of being penniless while his wife controlled his existence.

“Elizabeth.” He heard his own voice and did not recognize it. Too rough, unsteady—close to breaking. “I cannot. Not now.”

Her face changed. Something closing behind her eyes. Her chin lifted, and her lips parted, but she did not speak—choosing silence over argument, and that silence cut deeper than any retort she might have given.

“Forgive me,” he said, but she turned from him, walked away with her back very straight, and he did not call after her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

BEHIND A CLOSED DOOR

Elizabeth could not face the household, and she did not wish to be her mother—who retired to her bed with erratic nerves at the slightest provocation, requiring cold compresses, a surfeit of tisanes and hovering housemaids. Yet time seemed to have frozen since Darcy’s thunderous expression rained down on her outside his study. She had gone to him, of course, to confess her uncle’s perfidy, but he had stared right through her and said, “Not now,” his visage stony and cold, and she could not face it or the implications.

Those same thoughts wheeled about her mind beneath the lavender compresses Hannah applied with such officious care, while an endless procession of tisanes and chamomile infusions marched dutifully onto her tray. Elizabeth stirred, blinking into the half-light as a cautious tap at the door announced Hannah’s arrival with the breakfast tray.

She had been in hiding for three whole days, keeping to Lady Anne’s pale-blue bedchamber with the heavy damask curtains drawn against the Derbyshire daylight. She had lost all track of morning and evening, marking the passage of time solely by what Hannah deposited upon the tray.

Toast and tea, marmalade and butter meant breakfast. Soup and broth, perhaps a cut of mutton and a root vegetable compote, was dinner. She could not sustain such a wretched existence, yet her stomach lurched, and her head throbbed afresh whenever she closed her eyes and recalled Darcy’s fierce, unyielding countenance—devoid of even a momentary softening when he had stared at her. Not now. Not even an inquiry as to her health or a gentle utterance of her name.

“Madam, how are you this morning?” Hannah set down the heavily laden tray. “Mrs. Reynolds sent up more chamomile, ma’am, and she says it’s the good sort from the stillroom, not the Lambton apothecary’s, and she’s made it proper with honey because Cook remembered you took honey in your tea at breakfast, though that was regular tea and not chamomile, but Mrs. Reynolds thought you might like it the same way regardless. Moreover, Cook has sent up a basin of warm white wine whey with her best compliments. And Mr. Darcy has inquired after your health through Mrs. Reynolds yet again this morning. He has not rested, ma’am.”

Elizabeth had no reason to doubt her husband’s nocturnal restlessness; she had repeatedly heard his heavy, measured stride pacing the floor of his adjoining chamber during the small hours. Yet he never knocked. He never attempted to address her directly. Whatever dark tempest raged within him was intimately connected to her, yet she remained utterly in the dark as to its cause.

On the first day, she convinced herself the quarrel must concern Georgiana. She had, after all, encouraged the girl’s missionary enthusiasm at luncheon—and spoken warmly of abolition and the gospel’s liberating power while Darcy’s jaw tightened across the table. Perhaps he considered her support for Mr. Ashworth’s ambitions as a betrayal. Or was he furious over Mr. Lefevre’s intolerable insolence and wished she hadn’t been so civil?

The second day, she had nearly gone to him. She stood at the connecting door, hand raised to knock—and then she heard it. The sharp crack of his fist against the desk, followed by a silence so complete it seemed to swallow the air. She retreated to her bed and drew the curtains, telling herself that whatever storm raged in his study, she would only make it worse.

But this morning, Mrs. Reynolds mentioned that additional trunks had arrived from London. From Bexley House. And when she said it, her voice carried a careful neutrality that Elizabeth recognized—the voice of a servant who knows more than she is permitted to say.

Darcy had been forced to sell his London residence to cover his father’s debts. The house now bore another man’s name on its door—the same name that appeared on the quarterly receipts in Elizabeth’s uncle’s portfolio, but a name she now knew was her uncle’s trade name, and one Georgiana evidently remembered with innocent fondness.

Had Darcy made the connection? He had once told her Lord Matlock was investigating her uncle’s business. Had he discovered that Henry Bennet and Horatio Bexley were one and the same—that the fortune his wife had brought to Pemberley was built on the very debt that had ruined it?

Hannah bustled quietly about the chamber, finding invisible dust to flick away, drawing the window draperies apart by a mere inch, and then—at Elizabeth’s sharp wince—closing them again with a guilty start.

“The fire is too low. Shall I ring for more coal? Only Mrs. Reynolds said the room should be kept warm for headaches, and I thought perhaps—though you’ve not said it’s exactly a headache, have you, ma’am? More of a general—that is, if you’re poorly in a different way, I could fetch⁠—”

“I have a headache, Hannah, and it does not improve with interrogation, however kindly meant.”

Hannah’s chin trembled once, and she mastered it. “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Darcy sent another note. Vernon says Mr. Darcy has been writing notes and throwing them in the fire. Here is one he handed to me when I caught him attempting to slide it beneath your door.”

She withdrew a neatly folded and sealed note from her pocket. “And Miss Darcy, she says she dispatched four notes through Mrs. Reynolds. Did you receive them, ma’am? Miss Lucas has been sitting in the blue parlor since ten o’clock, waiting to see if you might receive her. I told her you were indisposed, but she said she would wait regardless. She’s been there two hours now, ma’am, reading the same book, though her eyes were mostly closed, so I suppose it would take longer to read. And I have a fresh compress. Hungary water. Mrs. Reynolds swears it works miracles for the nerves, though I confess the scent is somewhat robust. She distills it herself in the stillroom with rosemary and camphorated spirit.”

Hannah pressed the linen pad firmly against Elizabeth’s temples with zealous ministrations that crossed the absolute boundary of endurance, convincing Elizabeth she could not possibly survive another hour of her maid’s relentless, well-meaning devotion.

“You may tell Miss Lucas I will see her.”

Hannah’s face brightened so dramatically that Elizabeth felt a stab of guilt.

“Oh, ma’am, I’m so glad. Shall I help you dress? Only you’ve been in your wrapper since—well, I could fix your hair at least, and perhaps the blue morning dress, the one that doesn’t pinch at the waist, because if you’re not feeling quite the thing⁠—”

“The wrapper will suffice.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Hannah’s chin performed its characteristic wobble. “I’ll fetch Miss Lucas directly.”

Hannah gathered the untouched chamomile and the cold compress, tidied the tray, and left Elizabeth alone to contemplate her husband skulking in the corridor and crouching at her door.