Page 35 of Penned By Mr Darcy
She swallowed hard and took a step back, as if the motion might ground her.
“I… I should go.”
Darcy did not move. His eyes remained fixed on hers, unreadable, intense.
“Shall I accompany you back to Netherfield? Horseback would be quicker.”
She had no desire to feel Mr Darcy pressed against her as she balanced precariously on that enormous horse’s back. The entire thing would be quite an ordeal; her own feet were much safer.
“No. I will be quite fine alone. Thank you, Mr Darcy. I wish you luck in your search.”
A moment passed - silent, electric - before she turned from him and stepped back into the rain. She continued on to Longbourn, not daring to look back.
∞∞∞
By the time Elizabeth returned home, she was soaked to the skin. Her dress clung uncomfortably to her limbs, sticking to her even through the layers of her underthings. Her boots squelched with every step, water pooling at her heels. Yet she could notsummon the energy to care. The cold had settled into her bones, and somehow she scarcely noticed the discomfort at all.
She had not even reached the front door before her mother’s voice pierced through the rain.
“Elizabeth Bennet!”
Squinting upward, she saw Mrs. Bennet standing in the doorway, arms folded tightly across her chest, her expression thunderous enough to rival the clouds overhead.
“Where have you been?!” she demanded, her tone high with indignation.
Elizabeth reached the shelter of the archway and began peeling off her soaked gloves. “I went for a walk, Mama.”
“A walk? Mr Collins tells me you left hours ago!”
“I suppose I did.”
“Inthisweather?”
“It wasn’t raining when I left. The skies turned quickly; I ran back as quickly as I could, but I fear it was not quite fast enough.”
“Do not make sport of it, Elizabeth! Am I to havetwodaughters fall ill? Poor Jane has barely recovered, and I cannot endure nursing another!”
Elizabeth lips twitched, wishing to remark that her mother had not nursed Jane so much as hovered theatrically nearby. Instead, she offered an apology – too cold and wet to enter an argument now.
“I am sorry to have worried you, Mama. Truly, it was not my intention.”
“Well, you’re back now. Go inside at once. Straight to bed with you. You may take the second guest room - Jane mustn’t be exposed to your damp state.”
The second guest room was at the very back of the house, largely forgotten about in both décor and upkeep. It was more at home to cobwebs and dust than any real person. Referred to as ‘the Blue Room’ by everyone but Mrs Bennet because of the fading wallpaper in a once-charming cornflower shade, it seemed to have a melancholy that matched its name. Lydia insisted that the room itself was haunted, but by who nobody could say.
“Mama, really, I am not unwell! I will dry myself and change, and all shall be quite right. Clothes do come off, you know.”
Her mother was almost red with fury at her defiance.
“To bed, Elizabeth! I will see that hot water is sent up to you, and some broth – we must hope that will do some good.”
The adrenaline of her brisk escape from the weather – and Mr Darcy – had worn off. Now too cold and too weary to argue further, Elizabeth surrendered and stepped inside, water dripping steadily from her hem onto the floorboards.
Upstairs, as she passed her sister’s room, Jane sat upright in bed.
“Lizzy!” she exclaimed, alarmed. “Whatever has happened?”
“The same fate that befell you, dearest,” Elizabeth said lightly. “Though I was not fortunate enough to be attended by a handsome gentleman in my hour of need.”
