Page 51 of Elizabeth Bennet and the Scottish Laird

But a servant informed him with cheerful helpfulness that Lady Lucas and Georgiana had already departed for Longbourn. Darcy stood in the entrance hall with the letter pressed against his chest where he had tucked it inside his coat, cursing himself for losing all track of time whilst hunched over his writing.

His own man had gone into London with the carriage horses two days since, and he would not put this into the hands of Sir William's butler, who would certainly wish to know what it was. He found one of Sir William's stableboys in the yard, a sharp-faced lad of perhaps fourteen mucking out a stall with more enthusiasm than skill.

“Can you ride?”

The boy straightened and touched his forelock. “Yes, sir.”

Darcy pressed the letter into his hand along with a coin that made his eyes go round. “Can you please deliver this to Miss Elizabeth Bennet at Longbourn?”

“Yes, sir.”

The boy was mounted and clattering out of the yard before Darcy had finished speaking, horse and rider disappearing around the corner onto the lane leading toward Longbourn.

Now there was nothing to do but wait.

The day crept past with agonising slowness. He tried to occupy himself with reading, but the words swam before his eyes without resolving into sense.

Finally, he slipped out of Lucas Lodge at half past nine.

The night was clear and moonless, stars scattered across the black vault of sky, his breath rising in pale clouds that vanished almost as they formed. The pond lay a quarter mile from Longbourn, frozen solid these weeks past, its surface gleaming like dark glass in the starlight. Bare willows trailed their branches along the eastern bank, and Darcy positioned himself where he could watch the path from the house without being immediately visible. He settled himself to wait.

Ten o'clock. The church bells in Meryton tolled the hour, each stroke carrying clear and cold across the frozen fields. He stood beneath the willows, eyes fixed on the path, hands thrust deep in his pockets.

She would come. She must come.

Half past ten. The cold gnawed deeper now, working through wool and linen to settle against his skin. He stamped his feet to restore feeling. Clapped his hands together. His breath hung white in the still air.

Eleven o'clock. The bells tolled again. Perhaps she had been delayed by some household matter. Perhaps she had found difficulty slipping away unobserved. Perhaps even now she was making her way through the darkness, Jane at her side.

Half past eleven. His feet had gone numb inside his boots. His fingers would no longer bend properly inside his gloves. The stars wheeled slowly overhead in their ancient patterns, and the frozen pond gleamed before him, and the wind stirred through the bare willow branches with a sound like whispered secrets.

Midnight. Twelve strokes of the bell, each one falling upon his ears like the blow of a hammer. The path from Longbourn remained empty. No figure emerged from the darkness. No voice called his name.

She was not coming. He could walk to the house. He knew that. He could rap at the door, ask for her directly, force the encounter. He had considered it for the last two hours, turning it over with the same grim persistence with which he had been stamping his feet against the cold. But MacKinnon was sleeping under that roof. A midnight call from a gentleman her betrothed had explicitly forbidden from the house would not serve Elizabeth. It would only give MacKinnon cause to punish her for something she had not done.

He remained beneath the willows a quarter hour longer, though he knew it useless. She had read his letter or she had not. She had believed his warnings about MacKinnon or dismissed them as jealous invention. Either way, she had chosen not to come, rejecting him for the second time.

There would be no third occasion. He would continue investigating MacKinnon to uncover the documentary proof required to expose the man's deception. But even when he succeeded, he knew with terrible certainty that it would change nothing between them. She had made her choice. She would never want him.

That truth settled into his bones alongside the cold, and he accepted it as one accepts the verdict of a court from which there is no appeal.

It was time to return to Pemberley. He recalled his promise to Georgiana and he would not break it. No. He would speak to her and Mrs Annesley so they might remain here to finish her lessons. Then he’d speak to Sir William about their lodging. But then he would leave. For there was nothing left for him here.

Chapter 17

Elizabeth sat in the small parlour, her needle suspended above the embroidery frame she had taken up an hour ago and scarcely advanced since. The silk thread had grown warm between her fingers, and the half-finished rose upon the linen remained as incomplete as when she first settled into the chair, for her thoughts had strayed so far from needlework that she could not have said what colour came next in the pattern or whether the petals called for satin stitch or French knots.

Through the window, she could hear a carriage approaching the driveway. She knew without looking who had arrived. Mrs Annesley and Georgiana, come for Moira's lesson as they had done two days prior and would continue to do now that the arrangement excluded the one person whose presence she had come to anticipate with feelings she dared not examine.

She did not rise.

Jane glanced up from her own work, a question forming in her eyes.

“Would you supervise the lesson today as well?” Elizabeth kept her voice light. “I find I am not equal to company this morning.”

Jane set aside her embroidery without enquiry. She had asked no questions these past two days, nor had she remarked upon Elizabeth's sleeplessness or her silences or the way she startled at sounds from the lane. Jane simply watched and waited, trusting Elizabeth would speak when ready.

Elizabeth was not ready. She did not know if she would ever find words for what had passed between herself and Malcolm in this very room.