“Will you let her speak for you still?” Jane asked.
Mr. Bingley blinked. Once. Twice. “No,” he said. “Not again.”
Silence followed, a kind of stunned peace. Not victory. Never that. But something close enough to call the day a draw.
Elizabeth exhaled. A long, quiet breath.
Whatever this was—whatever might still be salvaged from the wreckage—it was Jane’s fight now.
And Elizabeth… she was done fighting for anyone who would not bleed beside her. She had spilled enough ink and pride for the lot of them.
Chapter Thirty-Four
18 January
The morning wind snappedlike a flag through Fleet Street, scattering soot and stinging her eyes as Elizabeth stepped from the alley’s mouth into the thoroughfare. It was not the worst of days, but certainly close—grey, blustery, with the promise of sleet heavy in the clouds. Not fit for walking. Not really.
Which made it all the stranger that Mrs. Gardiner had all but insisted.
“You need fresh air,” she had said, too brightly, pressing Elizabeth’s gloves into her hand before she could object. “Perhaps call at Dodsley’s or Nichols’—you used to like browsing.”
The idea of bookshops had not appealed in that moment. But no one refused Mrs. Gardiner when she used that tone.
And so here she was, sent into the weather on the flimsiest of errands, driven into the weather by a restlessness that neither tea nor reason could soothe, with the distinct suspicion that her aunt knew precisely what—or rather, whom—she might find if she walked far enough.
She drew her cloak tighter as the wind caught at her hem. The air was sharp with coal smoke and horse sweat, but the bite of it was better than the hush she had fled. Anything to move. Anything to feel something real.
The clatter of hooves shifted, slowed. A carriage pulled to a halt across the street—black-lacquered, high-sprung, bearing the crest she had once seen impressed in wax on a note.
Darcy’s crest.
Her breath hitched.
The footman dropped down, opened the door—and there he was. Not emerging grandly, not striding toward her like a figure from some tragic sonnet. Just stepping out, one boot slipping slightly against the icy edge of the curb. A moment to adjust his coat. Then he looked up.
He saw her.
Stillness.
His glove stayed caught between two fingers, forgotten. The wind teased his coat open, and she had the stupid thought that he ought to have worn a heavier wool.
He said nothing. But his face—
Oh, mercy.He looked like a man who had tripped over his own ghost. Elizabeth’s pulse lurched.
He had not expected to see her. That much was clear. His hand paused mid-motion, as though he had meant to reach for something—his glove, the carriage door—but had lost the thread of it. A blink. A shift of breath.
She ought to look away. Step back. Disappear into the crowd like a sensible woman.
Instead, she stood rooted, the morning clamor melting into nothing around her.
He was supposed to be preparing for a wedding. He was not supposed to be here, on this street, in this moment, looking at her like—
She squared her shoulders.
Perhaps they were both fools for wandering today. Or cowards for hiding every other day. Either way, the hour had found them.
Neither of them moved.
