Page 65 of Companions of Their Youth
“It is not blank,” she said softly. “There is writing. I—well—it opened as it fell, and I could not help but see…”
She did not finish the thought. Instead, she held it out to him with a guilty glance.
Darcy took the paper from her hand.
The moment his eyes scanned the page, the change in him was immediate. The color drained from his face, and his shoulders stiffened. His hand clenched tight around the note, and his mouth thinned into a line as hard and bloodless as stone.
Elizabeth stood very still.
“Mr. Darcy?” she said, barely above a whisper.
He did not answer.
∞∞∞
Darcy stared at the note, the elegant, slanted feminine handwriting scrawled across the paper like a spider’s web—beautiful, but ensnaring. He read the words once. Then again. Each syllable struck with greater force than the last.
I will follow you…follow you wherever you may go… forever.
His fingers tightened around the paper. His pulse thundered in his ears.
“How is this possible?” he whispered.
He had bought the book only a day before departing London. He had not even cracked the cover. How—how could this have happened? Who had touched it? Who had watched him? Whoknew?
It felt as though the earth had shifted beneath his feet. His breath came faster. Shallow. He could not get enough air. His heart was pounding—faster, harder. Panic crawled up his throat.
They had followed him.
Not just to London. Not just to the bookseller’s. But here.
Here.
To Hertfordshire. To Netherfield. Tothishouse.
His eyes darted wildly to the hedgerows, to the winding paths that disappeared behind clusters of boxwood and holly, to the gray stone wall that bordered the garden’s edge. The roses swayed gently in the morning breeze, but to Darcy’s frenzied mind, each shifting leaf became a figure ducking just out of sight.
He spun in place, his gaze sweeping the lawn, the terraces, the corners where shadow met sun, searching for the glint of a spying eye—for the slightest sign that someone was watching.
Thatshewas watching.
His breath came in ragged bursts, shallow and rapid, as though the very air had thickened and turned against him. A fine tremor began in his hands and spread through his limbs, his skin clammy despite the growing heat of the day.
The garden, once serene, now seemed a trap. A stage set for his unraveling.
He could not breathe. He could not think.
A hand gripped his arm.
He cried out, jerking back, tearing himself away and turning to face the threat—
Only to meet the wide, worried eyes of Elizabeth Bennet.
Chapter 14
Elizabeth froze at the sound of his strangled cry, her outstretched hand now lingering in air. He had whirled around as if struck when she had touched his arm, his chest heaving, eyes wide and unseeing, the letter crumpled in one trembling fist.
She had seen men unnerved before, like when her father was thrown from his horse, but never like this.
