Page 38 of Mr. Darcy’s Victorious Bride

Anne stood in the corridor outside the door. Standing. That mattered. Anne did not stand when she could sit. She sat when she could lie down. Her standing meant something had her full attention. "Cousin," she said.

"Anne."

He had not seen her since his hurried call on his way back to town. She was, perhaps, thinner. But she was also more awake than he had ever known her, the chronic pallor replaced by vigilance. She had been running the household's most difficult patient for nearly a month without complaint, without credit, and without the health to sustain it. When had Anne learned to command a sickroom? Or had she always known how, and nobody had once thought to look?

Richard had looked. He had been looking for years, the fool, at a cousin promised elsewhere. She stood with one hand braced against the wall, and he knew better than to offer his arm. His heart turned over all the same. "How is she?" he asked.

"Furious."

"About anything in particular?"

"About everything. She threw a cup at Mrs. Jenkinson this morning. Her right hand. Good aim."

"Is Mrs. Jenkinson all right?"

"She caught it. She has been catching cups for twenty years."

"I need to tell her about the trial," Richard said. "The Earl has arranged a form of immunity. If she gives the Crown a sworn deposition, to be read to the House by a clerk, the Crown exercises discretion. No charges for the hiring."

"And his price?"

"The family name comes through intact. The Lydia matter stays buried. Aunt Catherine is framed as victim, not villainess." He paused. "Which is half of the truth."

Anne looked at him with her mother's pale, direct eyes, minus the force and harder to face for the lack of it. Then she closed them.

"Anne?"

"I am quite well." She did not open her eyes. "I have hardly slept, that is all. Not properly, at least. Not since Rosings."

"That is a month."

"Nearly." She pressed her fingertips to her temple. "She does not sleep, so I do not. The wall between our rooms is very thin, cousin. She works at her words half the night. When they fail her, she weeps. She thinks nobody hears."

"And you lie there and listen."

"What else should I do? Go in? She would never forgive me."

Her hand slipped on the wall.

He caught her. He had known better than to offer his arm for years. He did not offer it now. He took her weight before she could fall. Then she was against his chest, and his arms were around her.

She did not pull away. Her forehead rested against his coat. She was so thin he could feel her shoulder blades through the wool. "Everyone thinks I am the one who ought to be in that bed," she said into his coat.

"Everyone is a fool."

"You have always said so." A breath that was nearly a laugh. "You are the only one who ever has."

He bent his head. Her hair smelled of lavender water and the sickroom. She lifted her face, and it was very close, and neither of them moved away.

Then, through the door, a voice. Thick. Effortful, and half sung. "Anne."

Anne stepped back so fast she had to catch the wall again. Color flooded her face, the first he had ever seen there. "She has been practicing that one," Anne said. "It seems to be coming along."

Richard did not trust his voice. He straightened his coat instead.

"Go in, cousin. Tell her. She has been waiting for you."

He went in, and Anne followed.