Elizabeth stiffened in alarm. Not dead, but… but what was the matter with Darcy? Lady Julia seemed to think whatever it was of little consequence, but Lady Julia had also been heard to laugh off the little matter of another war with America, so that was no sound indication.
Had something happened to him? Was he ill? That bullet wound in his shoulder… had it got infected, after all? Had he lost… Oh, good heavens, pray he did not lose his arm!
She leaned forward, a spiraling series of fresh nightmares tumbling through her mind. She held on to her teacup like a lifeline, lest she claw for Georgiana’s hands instead. “Miss Darcy, I apologize if I have upset you. Is something the matter with your brother? Is he…”
Georgiana shook her head, her voice trembling. “It is just... my brother is leaving soon. He intends to take a post halfway around the world, and he is to sail tomorrow. I fear I shall never see him again.”
Elizabeth sat frozen, her teacup suspended halfway to her lips. The china began to tremble faintly in her grasp.
Leaving?
Her thoughts raced, scrambled, failed to catch up. Mr. Darcy—Fitzwilliam—was leaving. Not for the country, not for some brief errand or posting in a neighboring county. Halfway across the world.
She blinked once, twice, her breath shallow as if someone had knocked it from her lungs. A strange, cold nausea stirred low in her belly.
And Georgiana… sweet, shy Georgiana, who clearly adored her brother with quiet reverence—Georgiana believed she would never see him again.
Elizabeth swallowed hard. Something cracked open inside her, sharp and breathless. There was no room now for pretense, no excuse to retreat into careful civility. She had not come merely for news.
She had come for him. And he was about to vanish.
Darcykneltbeforethehalf-packed trunk, sleeves rolled to the elbow, his shirt damp with the effort of sorting through the detritus of a life he had not intended to abandon so suddenly. A pair of boots thudded to the floor beside him. He straightened, reached for the stack of folded shirts on the nearby chair, and began placing them neatly inside.
His manservant, Mr. Simmons, had left the day before. His departure was hardly a surprise. Darcy had never been one to need constant assistance, and Simmons had been more a fixture than a servant, more accustomed to dusting the furniture than providing meaningful help. Now, Darcy was left to sort through the remnants of his life alone.
Tomorrow, he would board a ship to Portugal.
Every movement felt mechanical. Shirts. Books. A custom shaving kit he had barely touched. A second trunk waited open by the hearth, filled with things he had no intention of taking—items destined to be sold, given away, or forgotten.
He picked up a stack of papers from the desk, a few contracts, letters he had never bothered to read. They went into the trunk without much thought. There was little enough left for him to take—no more than could fit inside a few small trunks. He was leaving everything behind: the place, the life, the man he had been.
But there were a few things he could not part with—things he knew Georgiana would appreciate. Some of his mother’s old jewelry, the last of his father’s books, a few knickknacks of sentimental value. He wrapped them carefully, placing them to one side.
His hand brushed against something unexpected. He had nearly forgot about it—tucked in the corner of an old drawer. It was a drawing, neatly folded and already yellowing from too much handling. The sketch was of Maddox. Elizabeth had drawn it in that hasty, almost unconscious way she had, capturing him with lines so precise they almost hummed with life.
Darcy stared at it for a long moment. Why the devil did he still have it? Maddox was dead. Nobody needed this anymore. Why had he not thrown it out, burned it? It was a reminder of a time he should have left behind.
He held it in his hand for a while longer, almost mesmerized by the simplicity of it. How easily she had drawn it. Had she thought of him while sketching it? He could almost hear her voice in his mind as she had talked to him back then, teasing him about the “scoundrels” they were surrounded by, drawing that inimitable smile from him, one of those rare smiles that no one ever saw except her.
Shaking his head, he tucked the drawing aside, but then his eyes fell on something else—a familiar pair of ladies’ gloves. They had been carelessly folded and left in one of the pockets of his best coat.
The gloves Elizabeth had worn to Buckingham House—the ones he had made her remove so she could blend in, disappear in plain sight. As ifshecould ever disappear! He had not realized he had kept them, had not even remembered to return them.
For a moment, he simply stared at them. His pulse quickened, and before he could stop himself, he brought them to his nose. Her scent. That faint, unmistakable fragrance of rosewater. He closed his eyes as the memories washed over him.
Buckingham House. The mad dash into darkness. She had been frightened, furious, utterly disoriented—torn from everything familiar, from the illusion of safety she had always known. She had lashed out with words sharp enough to draw blood. And still…
Even then.
Even with her temper high and her pride higher, he had barely been able to take his eyes off her.
She had worn these gloves. Pale grey, soft as breath, with a bit of fraying along the edge where she worried the seam with her thumb. He had watched that thumb for an hour, sitting across the room while she slept—legs folded under her on a filthy cot, her face half-turned into her arm, that indomitable spine finally softened by sleep.
He had watched her and known, with the terrible clarity of a man doomed by his own conscience, that he could never have her. Not without cost. Not without destroying her.
And yet he had wanted. Desperately.
He lifted the gloves to his face and closed his eyes. If this was all he could keep… Well. Odd how something so small seemed to have the power to destroyhim.
