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Darcy abruptly stopped walking, and Elizabeth stumbled a bit as she continued on but was held back by his arm. She looked at him and sighed. “Oh, Mr Darcy,” she said, chagrined. “I mean figuratively, not actually,” she explained wearily, as though he had let her down by taking her at her word. “My death would, naturally, be in appearance only, not in actuality. If it were widely believed that I had died of some sudden illness, the engagement would dissolve without dishonour to either party. Mr Bingley would be free, and I could quietly remove myself from the area. I have considered where I could go, of course, and thought that perhaps I could go abroad, or at least to somewhere suitably far from Hertfordshire, and find employment as a governess, or a lady’s companion.”

Darcy stared at her, wondering if she had taken leave of her senses. “No,” he said flatly. “Death, even in name only, is not an acceptable solution to this dilemma.”

“I have given considerable thought to the practical—”

“No, Miss Elizabeth.”

She looked at him repressively, as though he were being utterly foolish. “You have not yet heard the entirety of the plan, Mr Darcy, and yet you choose to dismiss it out of hand.”

“I have heard quite enough of it.” He kept his voice level. “A woman in the situation that you describe, without references and with no one to vouch for her character, would find herself in a distressingly precarious position. I do not say that lightly, Miss Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together in irritation. “I am aware it carries some risk, however I believe that the benefits —”

“It is more than ‘some risk,’” Darcy interrupted, finding himself becoming rather heated as Elizabeth showed her reluctance to give up the foolish idea. “It is a situation where you would find yourself adrift in the world with no protection and with considerably fewer options than you have now. I will not help you to that end.”

She was quiet for a moment, and he could feel the tension emanating from her. When she spoke, her voice was even, but he could hear a hint of the turmoil beneath it. “I see. So you would not help me find my own way free, even by my own means, because you do not believe that I am able to take care of myself.”

“My refusal has nothing to do with your abilities, and everything with the way in which the world exploits those who are without power,” Darcy said firmly, though, strangely, her ridiculous schemes had only furthered his admiration of her. “I’m sorry, Miss Elizabeth, I will not help you gain your freedom by allowing you to fake your own demise, though I have no doubt your death scene would be most memorable.”

Elizabeth sniffed. “You have not even heard all of my ideas. I’ve not yet mentioned the possibility of joining a convent, or emigrating to America, or disguising myself as a man and going to war.”

Darcy groaned. “By all means, please do not mention any of those things. I do not possess the strength to hear them.” He paused for a moment, then turned and looked at her directly. “I will help you, but you will need to be forthright with me.”

She looked sharply at him, and he realised she was both surprised he was still offering to help her and cautious about what he was going to ask. She looked forward again, at the figures of Bingley and Jane against the bare winter garden. “In what way are you accusing me of not being forthright with you?” she asked after a moment.

“No accusations, Miss Elizabeth,” he assured her. “It is simply that I cannot help but feel that the events on the night of the ball were…irregular. Some of those deal with the actions of others, but some…well. I believe we need to talk about how it came to be that both you and Charles found yourselves in the library at the same time.”

She looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?” she asked, and he heard the defensiveness in her tone.

“I cannot determine any reason you might be in the library — or why any of your family might have been there,” he said bluntly. “That is a major block in my attempts to unravel what happened. Bingley went to the library because one of the servants told him that Miss Bennet was there….”

Darcy trailed off, frowning as he was struck with the uncomfortable feeling that some small but important detail eluded him. “That is not precisely true,” he said after a moment’s thought. “He said that she wasn’t in the supper rooms, and that he had been sent to the library earlier to deliver her a note.” He frowned. “Why would the servant have been told to deliver a note to your sister in the library? From what I can tell, she was not there at all. But you went there, some time after the servant attempted to deliver that note, and I cannot find any purpose in that either.” Beside him, Elizabeth was very quiet as he continued to detail the events that had occurred that night…or, at least, the events according to his best knowledge of them.

“When the commotion at the pianoforte occurred with your sister, Miss Mary, Miss Bennet took her away, but Charles didn’t know that because he was being hounded by Hurst’s set, who were probably badgering him for a loan. I didn’t realise it until later, but you were already gone at that point,” Darcy mused. “You left at some point before that, quietly, and without telling anyone where you were going. When Charles left to go to the library, I followed him shortly afterward, but by the time I neared the library, he had already gone in and found you there. As I approached, I saw your other sister, Miss Lydia, arrive at the library from further down the corridor, not from the direction of the ballroom.” He paused. “Which means that whatever brought you to that library, it was not Bingley, and it was not chance. You had your own reasons to be there.”

She was silent for rather longer this time. The gravel crunched under their feet. “I received a note,” Elizabeth said at last, reluctantly. “It was not intended for me. It cancelled an appointment in the library, and I understood…” She paused. “I realised that…that someone I care about had intended to keep that appointment, and did not yet know it was cancelled. I went to intercept her and to bring her back before anything untoward could happen.”

“Her,” Darcy repeated thoughtfully.

Elizabeth looked away and did not respond. She was obviously uncomfortable sharing even so meagre a piece of information.

“Someone you cared about,” he continued, “had arranged to meet an unknown man in the library. I believe I would not be incorrect if I were to guess that the person who made that arrangement was also in the library that night, and, upon discovering you and Charles there, screamed the house down, and was quite excited to share why?” He kept his voice entirely neutral. “Have I surmised correctly? Was Miss Lydia the intended recipient of that note?”

“I am not at liberty to—”

“Miss Elizabeth,” he interrupted quietly. “I am not asking in order to criticise your sister, or to hold her conduct over you, but rather because I am trying to find the truth of what happened that evening. I cannot help you remove yourself from this engagement if I do not know the full story of how the compromise that led to it came to be.”

She looked up at him, and it took more strength than he would have imagined to remain silent upon seeing the pain in her eyes. He held her gaze steadily, though, and after a moment her jaw set in the way he had come to recognise as a sign of Elizabeth Bennet making a decision.

“Yes,” she said. “The intended recipient of the note was Lydia. She had made a plan to…meet this individual in the library. I do not know who the writer is — he signed his name merely as ‘X.’”

Darcy nodded slowly, some of the events that he hadn’t been able to understand suddenly making more sense in light of this new information. Lydia Bennet had been sent a note cancelling a planned meeting in the library. He thought of Wickham, lingering at the side entrance long enough to raise the suspicions of the staff. Then there was the servant, and the timing, and the pieces that had not yet quite aligned. Whether any of these things were related to each other, he could not yet say. Then, too, there were still pieces missing and pieces that would not fit together. But some of the picture had finally come together, revealing the shape of something where before there had been only blankness.

“There is something very wrong about what happened that night,” Darcy said, more to himself than to Elizabeth. “And I intend to figure out what it is.” He shook himself out of his reverie and turned to look at her again. “That is what I can offer you — not a quick and certain solution, but a reasonable hope of an honest answer which may provide you with an honest way out of this situation.” He shrugged. “It is not, perhaps, as decisive as a feigned death, but you won’t have to poison yourself or wake in a vault filled with the bones of the dead, as in Mr Shakespeare’s play. It will take some time, patience, and careful thought, but we will come to the truth.”

“Time, patience, and thought,” she repeated slowly, looking at him as though she were realising something. “I suppose that had the characters in that play availed themselves of those qualities, there may have been rather less stabbing in the end.” She smiled faintly. “Very well, Mr Darcy. I have time,” she sighed. “In fact, it appears to be the sole resource in my possession at the moment.”

“There are worse ones,” he said.