Page 192 of Faceless

He prayed for the child, that he might one day be granted the pleasure of holding it. Naming it. Seeing her hold the babe in her arms and — God help him — perhaps even carrying a second child of his one day.

He prayed for the Marshes, who had risked everything they had and would not be safe in any house in England if the jury came back the wrong way. He prayed for his uncle and for Pemberton and for Richard and for Bingley. He prayed for Hodges. He prayed for the Bennets and the Gardiners and for Angus and Mrs MacLeod and even Falstaff.

He did not pray for himself. He had nothing to ask for himself that he could put into words. He sat with his head bowed in the cell with the bread untouched on the table and the candle going low, and he waited.

The light at the window was gone.

The cell was cold. He drew the coat around himself. He still had not eaten. He still could not.

He sat a long while.

Footsteps came at last in the corridor. They stopped at his door, and the bolt drew. The guard stood in the doorway with a candle.

“The jury have returned, sir.”

Darcy stood. His legs were slow to take his weight.

“What hour is it?”

“It is just past three in the morning, sir.”

He drew a breath. “Very well. Let me hear it.”

LXXI

In the Dark

The earl’s clerk arrived at twenty minutes past four with the word that closing arguments had finished. The jury were preparing to hear the judge’s charge. There would be no further news for some hours.

Elizabeth had been in the small drawing room with Georgiana and Jane since the morning. She had been told by Mrs Hatchett at ten o’clock that she would be made to eat breakfast. She had agreed and had not touched the plate. A second plate had been brought at one. She had pushed the food about and let Mrs Hatchett take it away again. Tea had been refused, accepted, refused, accepted. The day had moved through her without seeming to take root.

Georgiana had been at the window since noon. Every quarter-hour she rose from the seat, went to the door, listened, returned to the window, and sat again. Elizabeth had stopped counting her circuits at three. Jane had her sewing in her lap and had not added a stitch in over an hour.

At seven, Richard came in.

He had been at the courthouse all day. His coat was creased at the back where he had been sitting against a chair for hours. He had not shaved that morning, and the day had told on him; the shadow at his jaw and the small grey hollows under his eyes had not been there yesterday. He came into the drawing room, and Elizabeth was on her feet before she had quite knew that she had risen.

“Richard? Tell me…”

“Nothing yet, Elizabeth.”

“They have retired?”

“Half past six. The judge took two hours with the charge. They have been out perhaps thirty minutes.”

“And?”

“And nothing. They will be hours. They may go all night.”

“Richard —”

She had meant to ask him whether his face meant what she thought it meant. She could not, in the moment, find the words for the question. He had been her cousin-in-law for nine months and her friend for longer, and she knew the small alteration about his mouth that meant he had not had the news he had hoped to bring.

He did not soften it for her. He never had.

“I will come back the moment we have word. I cannot stay, Elizabeth. My father is at the chamber, and Pemberton is with him, and I am to be in the corridor for any clerk that comes out of the jury room. You will know within half an hour of the verdict. You have my word. Eat something.”

She tried to snort, but it came out as a sob. “I cannot.”