Darcy gave her a flat look.
Elizabeth sighed. “Would you believe I was merely sightseeing?”
“No.”
“Well, there we are, then.” She clasped her hands behind her back, picking her way neatly over a root. “And besides, you seem quite determined to be unimpressed by my explanations, so what is the use?”
Darcy eyed her. “Because,MissElizabeth, the Home Office does not make it a habit of dealing in absurdities.”
She lifted a brow. “A pity, then, for you.”
Darcy exhaled sharply, abandoning that line of questioning for now. He would pry it out of her sooner or later.
Instead, he shifted course. “You recall the moment the Prime Minister fell?”
Elizabeth’s hand stilled against the tall grass. “Yes.”
“Were you watching before the shot was fired?”
A beat.
Then, slowly, she nodded. “I was looking at the crowd in general, not at the Prime Minister specifically, but he was near the center of my view.”
His pulse quickened. He had assumed, of course, that she had been a witness after the fact, that the chaos of the event had rendered everything else a muddled haze. But if she had seen the moment before—
“What was his position?” he asked. “Did he turn? Did he see his killer?”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together. “I—” She hesitated.
He did not rush her.
Her brows furrowed. “He… turned slightly. Not toward Bellingham. Toward something else. Someone else. And then—” She cut herself off, shaking her head. “It happened so fast.”
Darcy’s thoughts spun. This was new. Important. The trajectory mattered—if Perceval had turned toward something else—
Elizabeth was watching him now, her gaze sharp. “Why are you asking me this now?”
“Because, Miss Bennet, I was too busy keeping you alive before.”
That was apparently not enough to satisfy her. He felt her gaze warming his cheek and sighed. “And because I am running out of time.”
He turned his focus ahead to where Bingley and Miss Bennet were walking, but something still nagged at him. He considered dropping the matter, but no—this was his chance.
He glanced at her again. “And tell me another thing—why were you so interested in what was being said of Mr. Henry Audley at the garden party?”
Elizabeth stumbled.
It was only slight, only for a fraction of a second, but he caught it.
She recovered quickly, glancing at a fluttering tree bough overhead with feigned nonchalance. “I do not recall giving Mr. Audley’s name any particular notice.”
Darcy folded his hands behind his back. “Indeed?”
“Indeed. Who is he?”
“Nobody, apparently.” He watched her, waiting.
She did not meet his gaze. Rather, she stared straight ahead, but her jaw muscles were taut as a bowstring.
