Elizabeth did not smile.
The page trembled once in her hand. She stilled it at once, but not before Jane looked up.
Hertfordshire.
So, he had told his sister. Or Jane or Mrs Hadley had let it fall again on other ears, without understanding what she spent. “Elizabeth Bennet” first, the place of her birth next, then some neighbour, some servant, some passing traveller with a good memory and an idle tongue would hear them both together. Every careful mile of secrecy began to look childish beside the ease with which a household might undo her.
She must get away.
The thought came as sharply as pain. It was answered at once by the weight and heat of her own body, by the leg stretched helpless beneath the blankets, by the simple fact that wanting and doing had become two different countries.
“Miss?” asked Nan, more softly.
“What did Miss Darcy say?” Jane asked.
Elizabeth yielded it. Jane read the lines that concerned Hertfordshire and frowned, not with suspicion but belated recollection.
“Oh. She is curious. That is… well, that is very generous of her, Lizzy, to ask about…” Jane’s brow furrowed as she stared hard at Elizabeth. “She seems a kind girl.”
Elizabeth lifted her eyes to her sister’s face and saw the instant understanding reached her. Not all of it. Jane did not know everything that was feared or followed or hidden. But enough.
Nan looked from one to the other. “Have I said something wrong?”
“Miss Darcy must not suppose me so devoted to county pride,” she said lightly. “If we begin a debate of Hertfordshire or Hampshire versus Derbyshire or Yorkshire from floor to floor, we shall have the whole house at war before supper.”
Nan looked alarmed. “I did not mean—”
“No, no. You meant only to carry a letter, and did it very well.” Elizabeth produced something near a smile. “But if Miss Darcy asks again, you may tell her only that flat countries have their uses, mountainous ones their vanity, and Mr Darcy is unjust to both when he puts the north against the south so. Let us say no more of featureless counties.”
Nan bobbed a curtsey. “Yes, miss.”
Jane gave Elizabeth a look that said she was not deceived, though she did not know by what. Nan went out with the note still in her hand, walking more carefully than she had entered.
Jane waited until the door had shut.
“Lizzy.”
Elizabeth kept her eyes on the counterpane. “It was nothing.”
“It wasnotnothing.”
“No,” Elizabeth said after an instant. “But it was not Nan’s fault, and not Miss Darcy’s either.”
Jane came nearer. “What would you have me do?”
The question touched her more nearly than inquiry might have done.
“Only be careful,” she said. “About where I am from. About me… us, rather, since we are now widely known to be sisters. I cannot make it plainer yet.”
“Be careful of what, Lizzy?”
“I only mean that if anyone asks too much—”
“No.” The word was not loud, but it stopped her. Jane almost never spoke so. “Do not give me a fragment and call it an explanation. I have been patient, and I know you are hurt, and I know you are frightened, but I cannot help you with shadows.”
Elizabeth stared at her. “Jane—”
“Whatever this is, we had better hope you are granted a miracle. Because you cannot run, you cannot leave, and you will not tell me what pursues you.”
