He debated dressing for a ride, but a glance at the frost-furred windows and the low groan of wind through the eaves changed his mind. Not today. His lungs would not thank him.
Instead, he rose to his feet and, with Bates’s help, began to dress for the day, all the while replaying his vision from the night before.
It was completely absurd - Elizabeth attempting to save an infant, but then was in danger from a monster with Mr. Smithson’s face… and yet, was it truly so far from reality? After all, she had held a man’s life in her hands yesterday, watchinghim slowly bleed to death in front of her. Her cries of help, while they had been answered, were not enough to fight off inevitable.
And when Darcy had found her, she had been covered in blood. When she collapsed against him, he had never known fear like that in all his life.
Not when his father died, nor even when his mother passed when he was but a youth.
In that moment, when he had thought she was lost, he realized—with a clarity sharper than any blade—that there could be no world in which he would survive her loss.
She mattered too much to him now.
He made his way down the stairs to the breakfast room in a daze. Pouring himself a cup of coffee and taking a plate of ham, eggs, and toast from the sideboard, he sat down at the table, his movements slow and stiff.
He ate without much thought, trying to shake the remnants of the dream.
Elizabeth’s face lingered anyway.
She had been brave. Braver than he. Holding pressure on Smithson’s wound with her bare hands, refusing to let go even when he begged her to stop.
What kind of man sees a woman like that and walks away?
What kind of man sees a woman like that and does nothing?
Not I.
He was just finishing the last of his meal when the door creaked open and a footman stepped inside, clearing his throat.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but there is a caller for you.”
Darcy lowered his cup slowly. “At this hour?”
The footman hesitated. “He would not give his name, sir. But he insisted the matter was urgent.”
Darcy’s brow furrowed. He set his cup down with care and stood.
“Very well,” he said, brushing his coat smooth. “Show him into the front parlor and remain with him. I will be there shortly.”
He took his time crossing the hall, understandably wary of uninvited guests. His steps were measured, shoulders tense. But when he pushed open the parlor door, he stopped short at the sight of a man in a red coat casually warming up by the fireplace.
Colonel Fitzwilliam looked up with a broad grin. “Darcy! Excellent—you are already awake. Though I expected you to be brooding in your study, not skulking about in the front hall like a common butler.”
Darcy blinked. “Fitzwilliam?”
“No, the other cousin that comes to scold you,” the colonel replied cheerfully. “Yes, it is me.”
“What on earth are you doing here?”
“What? Am I not allowed to pay a visit to my favorite cousin?” he said innocently.
Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Then I suppose you’ve taken a wrong turn on your way to Rosings Park. Anne will be devastated.”
The colonel barked out a laugh. “Careful, or I will send you to Kent myself to keep her company. Perhaps she will make you read her sermons over breakfast.”
Darcy gave him a dry look. “Then you did not come merely to visit.”
The colonel’s smile faltered slightly. “Ah… well, let’s say I was already in the neighborhood. Soldiers do like to keep an ear to the ground for strange happenings in the kingdom.”
