Lady Catherine’s phaeton.
And beside it stood—
His heart stopped.
Elizabeth.
Or a woman who lookedexactlylike her.
But it was not the Elizabeth beside him.
This woman wore a modest lace cap tied primly beneath her chin, her gown plain and proper. She stood stiffly beside Mr. Collins, whose gloved hand rested possessively on her arm.
Her expression was not smiling. Not at ease. It was tight. Controlled. Her chin was slightly raised, her mouth pressed into a line. She looked—Darcy realized with a sick jolt—like someone determined toendure.
He acted without thinking. His hand shot out, grasping Elizabeth’s wrist, and he pulled her back from the bend, back into the shelter of the trees.
She stumbled, half turning on him. “Mr. Darcy—!”
He hushed her with a sharp motion, finger to his lips. “Quiet.”
Her eyes flashed in protest, but he pointed through the hedgerow.
“Look.”
She hesitated, then leaned forward, peering around the brush. Her eyes widened. All color drained from her cheeks, and she clamped her mouth closed.
Darcy’s heart hammered. He could hear the blood in his ears, the faint crunch of snow as Mr. Collins guided the other Elizabeth toward the parsonage door, her figure so achingly familiar in every line of it and yet wrong—utterly wrong.
He felt Elizabeth’s sleeve trembling beneath his fingers.
“What kind of madness is this?” he whispered, the words escaping before he knew he had spoken them.
Elizabeth merely shook her head dumbfounded, and he gripped her arm more tightly. The cold pressed in, and the snow fell softly, and still they crouched there, silent.
“What do we do?” he asked in a whisper.
Chapter 6
Elizabeth did not answer. She only stared, frozen at the sight of herself on the arm of Mr. Collins, wearing the lacy cap of a married woman.
“Come,” Darcy said at her side, “we must hear what they say.”
He took her arm, and she allowed him to pull her along, crouching low along the hedgerow until they reached the narrow path that edged the garden wall. Elizabeth knelt beside Darcy in the cold, her heart thudding in her ears. From that vantage point, they were able to see through the branches at the conversing trio.
The voices came clear.
“…and I will not have her calledLizzy,” Lady Catherine was saying in a clipped, cutting tone. “Such a name is vulgar. A woman of dignity uses her proper Christian name. I was neverKate. OrCathy. I would have slapped any servant who tried it.”
There was a pause, then a hesitant voice—her voice, but not hers. Quieter. Smaller.
“My sister is called Kitty…”
A sharp rustle, and Elizabeth winced as she sawherarm being squeezed tightly by her… husband. Mr. Collins’s voice was low and urgent. “That will do, my dear.”
The sound of his voice made her skin crawl.
There was a strained silence before Collins spoke again. “May I inquire, your ladyship, after the health of your daughter? Will she be coming for Christmas tomorrow?”
