“Oh,” Elizabeth said, looking down at her work. “So, I have.”
Lydia laughed, tossing a ribbon over her shoulder. “What is wrong with you today, Lizzy? You look as though you have been to a funeral.”
“I am simply distracted,” Elizabeth said, carefully undoing the knot. “This room is hardly conducive to focus.”
“That is no excuse,” Mary intoned. “A disciplined mind should be able to concentrate anywhere.”
Elizabeth bit back a retort and returned to her stitching, though her mind remained elsewhere. Darcy had seemed so genuine when they spoke in the library. His quiet determination, his reflections on duty and ambition, even his confessions of regrets and mistakes—they had felt real. Yet now, Elizabeth could not help but question everything. Was it all an act? Was he simply using Sir Thomas and the people of Netherfield as pawns in some larger game?
The thought of him standing before Parliament, turning the residents of Netherfield into pitiable figures for his own gain, made her stomach churn. She could almost hear the patronizing tone he might use, the calculated words crafted to inspire both sympathy and scorn. And the people of Netherfield—proud, wounded, rebuilding their lives—would become nothing more than objects of derision.
“Lizzy, you are doing it again,” Kitty said, pointing at her fabric. “Another knot!”
Elizabeth sighed and set the embroidery hoop down. “Perhaps needlework is not for me today.”
“Perhaps nothing is for you today,” Lydia teased, tossing a cushion at her.
Elizabeth caught it and flung it back with far less playfulness. She glanced at Jane, who was quietly hemming a gown across the room. She ought to speak to Jane, to have some way of giving vent to her fears and discovering if they were all for naught. But Jane had been so happy lately, her spirits buoyed by Mr. Bingley’s clear attentions. Elizabeth could not bear to darken her sister’s mood by voicing her suspicions.
Besides, there was no evidence that Mr. Bingley shared Mr. Darcy’s schemes. Mr. Bingley was too guileless, too earnest. His every word and action seemed to come from a place of genuine affection for Jane and goodwill toward others. No, it was Darcy who was the puzzle, Darcy who now seemed a stranger wearing a mask she had been foolish enough to admire.
Elizabeth stood abruptly, smoothing her skirts. “I believe I shall take a turn about the garden.”
Mary raised her brow. “In this weather?”
“Perhaps the air will clear my head,” Elizabeth replied, already moving toward the door.
The garden path was damp beneath her shoes, and the wind nipped at her cheeks, but Elizabeth welcomed the briskness. It gave her a focus, something sharp and immediate to cut through the haze of doubt and frustration.
She paused by the cut-back and naked rosebushes, her thoughts turning over and over like the leaves caught in the wind. The party was already the talk of the town. People were excited, curious, eager to attend. How could she stop it now? How could she undo what had already been set in motion? And even if she could, did she have the right to take away this opportunity for the people of Netherfield to be seen, to be welcomed—even if only temporarily?
No, she could not stop the party. But she could stop herself. She could leave before Darcy’s plans came to fruition, before she had to witness what she feared would unfold. Before she could be any more a part of something she could not countenance.
She would go to London, to Aunt Gardiner. It was the sensible choice, the safe choice.
And yet, the thought of leaving sent a pang through her chest that she could not explain.
Elizabeth shook her head, turning back toward the house. She would write to Aunt Gardiner that very evening.
Twenty
Darcy shrugged into hiscoat, his gaze straying to the frost-covered fields beyond the window. The sunlight caught on the distant trees, glinting like ice-bound jewels, but his thoughts were elsewhere—at Longbourn.
Two days since he had seenher. Two days since she had greeted him with that glorious smile, those eyes that flashed like sapphires, and that laugh that made him warm from the inside.
And two days since she had left him standing there with a fresh teacup and a mouth full of questions… and no answers.
Was she ill? Simply overwrought? A family such as hers would do it to the stoutest character. They were… well, they were tolerable. Forher, he could tolerate anything. And that realization settled into his heart with all the clarity of a promise.
He needed Elizabeth Bennet in his life.
She… she challenged him. Gave him something to aspire to, to look forward to. She made him laugh, made him want to reach beyond the dull monotony of business and the regrets that had kept him from being who he was born to be.
She made him better.
He considered whether propriety might excuse another visit to Longbourn so soon. The party, surely… Perhaps a word with Mr. or Mrs. Bennet about the preparations would suffice as justification.
A sharp knock interrupted his musings. “Come in,” he called, stepping away from the window as Roberts entered, a bundle of letters tucked neatly under his arm. “The morning post, sir.”
