The ticking clock had just become a deafening gong.
Chapter Thirteen: The Flight of the Bumblebee
FITZWILLIAM DARCY WASnot a man prone to mathematical exaggeration, but as thing stood, he calculated that the hours between Sunday evening and Wednesday morning numbered precisely zero.
It was Monday morning, and Darcy was once again intimately acquainted with the lowest, most nausea-inducing dip of his internal tumult. The triumphant, dizzying high of the last days—the shared smiles, the red rose, the truce forged over the ashes of his disastrous letter—had been obliterated by Sir William Lucas’s announcement regarding the post-chaise.
Wednesday.
Darcy stood in the breakfast room of Rosings Park, gripping the edge of the sideboard tightly. He had two days to solidify a fragile new understanding before she was swept away to London, a city teeming with officers, peers, and men who did not accidentally hand her written manifestos of their emotional ruin.
“Fitzwilliam, if you grip that sideboard any harder, it will splinter, and Aunt Catherine will deduct it from your inheritance,” Viscount Keathley observed. Robert was seatedat the table, casually buttering a piece of toast, appearing too rested for a man who had orchestrated a flawless stratagem the night before.
“She leaves on Wednesday, Robert,” Darcy ground out. “I have no excuse to call upon the parsonage today. If we arrive again en masse, Collins will suffer a fatal apoplexy from the weight of the condescension. And I cannot appear at their door alone and demand to see her! Lady Catherine would know before my boots hit the gravel.”
“He is right,” Richard noted, not looking up from a day-old copy of theTimes. “A lone assault is tactical suicide. You need a diversion. Perhaps I could set fire to the stables?”
“No arson, Richard,” Darcy snapped. “We established this with Anne.”
“Steady on, Cousin. I am just trying to be helpful,” the colonel mumbled.
“Sir,” Dawson interjected, appearing silently at Darcy’s side with a fresh cup of coffee. “If I may suggest? The human body requires vigorous exercise to expel the humours of despair. Perhaps a solitary, brisk walk about the estate would clear your mind. It is possible, statistically speaking, that Miss Elizabeth may also be seeking the restorative properties of the Kentish air.”
Darcy stared at his valet. Dawson’s face was a mask of impenetrable servitude, but his left eyebrow twitched a fraction of an inch towards the windows facing the parkland.
“Dawson,” Darcy said slowly. “Are you suggesting I wander the grounds aimlessly in the desperate hope of stumbling upon her?”
“I am suggesting nothing, sir. I am advocating for the benefits of exercise.”
It was a pathetic, grasping strategy, relying solely on the whims of fate. Darcy set his coffee down.
“I am going for a walk,” he announced.
“Do not fall into a ditch!” Robert called after him as Darcy moved to the door. “And if you find her, remember your training! Gaze, do not glare! And for the love of God, do not mention drainage and crop rotation!”
The air was crisp and the sky a brilliant, mocking blue. Darcy strode through the lawns of Rosings Park with the punishing pace of a man trying to outrun his own anxiety.
His mind churned as he left the immediate vicinity of the great house and headed to the wooded parkland that bordered the parsonage. He reviewed the events of the past weeks like a barrister examining a complex case. They had reached a truce. He had handed her a red rose, and she had accepted it. She had practically commanded him to act as her friend.
Friend.The word was insufficient, a small container for the ocean of his affection, but it was a start, a foothold on the cliff face. And now, the cliff was moving to London.
He rounded a dense copse of sprawling oak trees, his brow furrowed in deep concentration, when he saw her.
He halted, his breath catching painfully in his throat.
She was sitting on a rustic wooden bench nestled beneath the branches of an oak, shielded from the view of the parsonage windows. The dappled sunlight filtered through the new spring leaves, catching the copper streaks in her dark curls. She was reading a book, her head bowed, one gloved finger tracing the edge of the page.
She looked serene and beautiful. She looked like the absolute centre of gravity in his universe.
Darcy took a deep breath, mentally reviewing Robert’s curriculum.Shoulders back. Approach with amiable intent. Smile.
He stepped off the gravel and onto the soft grass, closing the distance.
“I hope I am not interrupting a thrilling chapter, Miss Elizabeth.” He strove to give a natural, not strangled tone to his voice.
Miss Elizabeth gasped, her head snapping up. Her hand instinctively lifted the book, pressing it against her chest, but the moment she recognised him, the startlement vanished. Her eyes lit up, the corners crinkling in that way that made Darcy’s knees dangerously weak.
“Mr Darcy!” she exclaimed. “You have a terrible habit of appearing in these woods like an apparition. Are you searching for intruders, or have you taken up the persecution of unsuspecting readers as a morning occupation?”
