Page 45 of Her Affections and Wishes

For all his confidence and conviction, he had been hesitant about her feelings for him. He must admire her a great deal to be vulnerable with her and admit it. Elizabeth took his hand and kissed it. “My feelings have undergone a gradual yet significant change, but they are as deep as yours. You are the object of my choice.” In a livelier voice, she added, “I am afraid you have to resign yourself to my loving you excessively.”

Darcy finally smiled. “Your delightful spirits, your playfulness of disposition, are bewitching to me. And now I am impatient to make you mine.”

He meant marrying her, but her mind went to other ways Darcy could make her his. But nothing could be done about either one now.

“We must keep the secret a few days longer, I am afraid. We cannot indulge in private smiles or be caught stealing a kiss in the entrance hall. Lady Metcalfe and Miss Metcalfe do not know the fate that will befall them, although Julia is suspicious. She thinks I have some unnatural hold over you and cannot understand why her arts and allurements are not working.”

A muscle in Darcy’s jaw twitched. “I do not care.”

“My good manners are taxed to conceal my vexation with Julia, and she has only been insulting me. Your forbearance with unrelenting female attention is admirable.”

He shifted his weight and looked away, as though coming to a decision. “Miss Metcalfe tried a second time to… She offered herself to me again, hoping that after an evening with her, I would want to marry her.”

Julia had grown increasingly determined as the week wore on. “And you did not want to tell me, for fear I would fly into a jealous rage and throw a vase at her?”

Darcy gave her a wry look. “I rather thought it would be distressing to hear that another woman would go to such lengths to pursue me. I hate that Sir John merely hinted that he would take you to bed for sport, but would never marry you.”

“Well, you would never succumb to Julia’s cunning, and watching a woman flatter you is not new. I saw you with Miss Bingley, after all.”

He smiled again. “But now it is different because you have some interest in my happiness.”

“A great deal of interest,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him, but a moment after their lips touched, she thought she heard a noise and turned.

“Did you hear something?” Darcy asked, standing.

“I thought I did, from there,” she said, pointing to the corner by the table and the jib-door.

Elizabeth rushed toward it, but Darcy held out a hand. “Let me go first.”

The hinges of the jib-door were installed on the back side so they could not be seen from the library. For that reason, the jib-door opened into the room. It had no handle on its front side so it blended in with the wall. When Darcy opened it, she saw the back was covered in green baize to dull the noise of footsteps on the stairs.

The space was just large enough for two people to stand before meeting a narrow staircase that wound up one floor. There was a window near the bottom of the stair that must be aligned with the other windows on this side of the house.

It was quiet, and she and Darcy looked at one another, he a few stairs up and her at the bottom. They waited a long moment and listened. She supposed they had both imagined it when they heard a voice from above cry out, “Help!”

“Stay here,” he said before climbing the stairs.

Elizabeth stayed on the first few stairs, peering up as he approached the door. Then she felt a rush of air and heard a heavy thud. She spun round to see the door had shut. Another loud, solid noise against the door followed.

“Darcy!” she called, but he was already on his way down. She tried the handle, but the door would not move.

He left the stair, and there was just enough space for her to move to the side to let Darcy stand before the door. He rattled the knob but it still did not open.

“Is the lock broken?” she asked as he bent to look.

“There is no lock,” he said. He threw his shoulder into the door, but nothing happened. Then he tugged on the knob and placed his other palm against the door. “But I can feel it move within the frame.” He tried again to throw it open, and she tried to help him, bracing her feet against the staircase and pushing with her back.

They were breathless after a few tries. “This is futile,” he said. “Let us go up and back down through the servants’ corridor.”

Elizabeth followed him up to where there was no landing at all, only the servants’ door at the top of the stair.

“This one is locked.” He muttered a curse and stared at the door. He pounded on it and called for someone to open it until Elizabeth’s head rang from the noise.

“I think I could break the lock,” he said to himself before balancing a hand on the wall and one foot on a lower stair before kicking at the door. His back foot slipped off the stair and he caught himself at the last before falling.

Darcy tried and slipped twice more before Elizabeth cried, “Stop,” and put a hand on his arm. “The steps are too narrow, and you are too low and have no leverage. I do not need you tumbling down the stairs.”

His scowl said he knew she was right but he did not like it, and he stomped back down.