Page 39 of Near Pemberley

Darcy inclined his head slightly.

The innkeeper shifted uneasily. “I am very sorry, sir.”

Darcy seemed only just to hear him. His eyes had lowered once more to the note in his hand.

Only yesterday, he had permitted himself – for the first time since Hunsford – to hope.

The hope had been cautious, restrained, admitted almost against his will, yet it had existed. And because it had existed, its sudden interruption now left behind a sensation peculiarly empty and uncertain.

Not lost, perhaps, but withdrawn again beyond his reach.

After a long silence, he placed the note carefully within his coat.

“Thank you,” he said with restored composure. “You could not have acted otherwise.”

The civility of the response appeared only to increase the innkeeper’s discomfort.

Darcy turned towards the door.

Then paused.

“One thing more. If any further communication should arrive for me regarding the Gardiners or Miss Bennet, it is to be sent instantly to Pemberley.”

“Yes, sir. At once.”

Darcy bowed slightly and departed.

Outside, the afternoon appeared exactly as before – the same bright sunlight upon the street, the same quiet movement among the shops, while his own expectations had altered entirely.

For several moments after mounting, he remained motionless.

Only that morning, he had imagined showing her the house. He had imagined seeing her with Georgiana again. Hearing her laugh. Watching her walk through rooms she had once refused even to visit.

The plans now appeared almost absurd in their simplicity. Yet the sudden impossibility of them struck him with force.

He drew a slow breath and released it unsteadily.

It was unlike him to build expectations upon so little.

More unlike him still to feel their loss so keenly.

Then, at last, with one final glance towards the inn windows, he turned back towards Pemberley.

Chapter XI

Darcy returned to Pemberley in a state of mind far removed from composure.

The ride back, though undertaken at no slower pace than prudence absolutely required, seemed to him intolerably long. More than once, his thoughts returned to the same point and found no rest there. Elizabeth had left Lambton in tears. Some sudden calamity had plainly occurred. Yet what calamity could so entirely overthrow every other consideration, carry her from Derbyshire in such haste, and leave behind only that brief, guarded note?

He could not determine it.

Nor could he entirely free himself from another fear, less reasonable perhaps, but not therefore less painful: that yesterday’s renewed ease between them had existed only for a moment; that, upon calmer reflection, she had repented encouraging an intimacy which ought never to have been renewed.

The suspicion returned precisely because he struggled against believing it.

By the time Pemberley appeared again before him, his uneasiness had settled into something heavier and more difficult to resist.

He entered the house with outward calm, though Georgiana, who met him in the hall, looked at him with visible surprise.