Page 28 of Penned By Mr Darcy
Jane simply shook her head, closing her eyes. It was easy to avoid conversations when one was ill, Lizzy was realising; simply close your eyes and feign sleep. Jane was becoming rather an expert at it.
“Very well,” Lizzy conceded. She pressed a kiss to her sister’s forehead. “I will leave you to rest.”
∞∞∞
After the peculiar encounter in the kitchen, Mr Darcy was conspicuous by his absence for the rest of their stay at Netherfield.
Elizabeth scarcely knew what to make of it.
The moment itself - a quiet collision of midnight hunger, candlelight, and Mr Darcy in his shirtsleeves beside the kitchen hearth - had left her wide awake long after he had retreated into the darkened hallway. Their conversation had been restrained, their hands had nearly touched, and yet… something in the silence between them had cracked wide open.
She had returned to her room with uneaten bread and a pulse that refused to settle.
Since then, she had not seen him - not at breakfast, not during the polite hours of drawing room conversation, nor on the gravel paths of the garden when the weather permitted. Not even Caroline had mentioned him, and that silence, more than anything, made Elizabeth uneasy.
Bingley had offered some vague excuse - something about Darcy being "quite occupied with matters from town" - but Elizabeth did not believe it. Not fully. It was not the busyness of a man with letters to write.
Jane, of course, noticed Elizabeth’s distraction.
“You are quite pensive this morning,” she said gently over tea, her cheeks still flushed from her daily letter from London. “Has something happened?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
“Nothing of consequence… though Mr Darcy seems to have vanished altogether.”
Jane’s brow furrowed in concern.
“He is not unwell, I hope?”
“No,” Elizabeth said slowly. “But I do wonder if he’s avoiding me.”
Jane looked surprised. “Whatever for?”
Elizabeth swallowed heavily; she had no wish to tell Jane of the strange encounter they had shared. It was nothing, she was sure. The stay at Netherfield had given Lizzy too much time with her thoughts, and as a result she was over analysing the smallest of interactions. Mr Darcy had been concerned for her welfare, a natural worry considering she had spent much of her time with her sister.
“Oh, I am just being silly I suppose,” Lizzy smiled. “I can never seem to say the right thing around him, that is all, and I suppose I worry that I’ve caused him some grievous offence without realising.”
“If he has taken offence, then that is surely his own business; I do believe any true gentleman could not find you anything but charming.”
“You are entirely bias.”
“Perhaps. I should be glad to get home tomorrow; I grow tired of these four walls, no matter how finely they are decorated.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly at her sister’s words, but her thoughts were elsewhere. It was their last night at Netherfield, and yet the atmosphere felt strangely suspended—too much left unsaid, too many glances missed or avoided.
As she retired for the night, Elizabeth found herself restless. She wandered into the library under the pretence of finding something to read for the journey, though she suspected—no, hoped—she might find more than a book.
She did not expect to find Mr Darcy already there.
He stood near the hearth, hands clasped behind his back, his posture rigid. The firelight played over the sharp lines of his face, casting half of it in warm gold and half in shadow.
“Miss Bennet,” he said without turning. “I had not thought—”
“I was looking for a book,” she replied, her voice low. “But if I am disturbing you…”
“No,” he said quickly, turning to face her. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes—those dark, intense eyes—seemed to search hers for something. “Please, stay.”
She crossed the threshold slowly, the door clicking shut behind her. “I had wondered if you meant to say goodbye at all.”
