Page 66 of Companions of Their Youth
Darcy looked… absolutely terrified.
Slowly, she reached out again and once more placed her hand gently on his arm. He recoiled with a strangled gasp and turned on her as though expecting to face an assailant. The sheer panic in his eyes startled her more than his shout.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, soft but firm.
As their eyes met, something shifted. The wild panic that gripped him gave way to a disoriented confusion, and then, slowly, to recognition.
His breathing remained ragged, but his gaze steadied. She kept her hand where it was, guiding him with a touch.
“Come. Sit,” she urged, nodding to a nearby bench tucked beneath a lilac tree. “Please.”
He did not speak. He let her lead him, and when he sank down onto the wooden slats, she remained beside him. His hands trembled. She could feel the tension radiating off him, as though every nerve in his body were pulled taut.
“Breathe with me,” she said gently, turning to face him. “Like this.”
She inhaled slowly, drawing the breath deep into her lungs, then exhaled with control. She did it again, and again, watching until he followed suit. Gradually, his chest began to rise and fall more evenly. His shoulders eased from their rigid lines. His fingers unclenched from the paper in his grasp.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I should never have opened it. I thought it was a bookmark. I did not mean to violate your privacy.”
He shook his head, finally speaking—his voice low and hoarse. “It is not your fault. You could not have known.”
Elizabeth hesitated. “I must admit that I did see some of the words. It—it frightened me. I do not mean to pry, but—who sent that note?”
Darcy looked away. A muscle in his jaw flexed, then loosened. “I do not know,” he said. “That is what alarms me the most.”
“What do you mean?”
Darcy’s eyes closed, and when they opened again, they were full of torment. For a long moment, Elizabeth thought he might refuse to answer. But then, as though the act of speaking would lighten the burden he carried, he began—haltingly at first, then with greater urgency.
“This was not the first,” he said. “There have been letters… notes… left for me. No return address. Feminine hand. They began months ago. I thought nothing of them—only vague nonsense about love and fate. But then…”
He swallowed, his hand tightening into a fist upon his knee.
“One arrived just after I had sent my sister to Ramsgate. It mentioned her by name. It said she was in danger.”
Elizabeth inhaled sharply.
“I thought it coincidence. A guess. But when I reached Ramsgate—Georgiana had nearly eloped with a scoundrel, a depraved man of the worst kind. She was only fifteen years of age.”
“But she is safe now?” Elizabeth asked.
“She is,” he said. “Thanks to my arrival. Her companion had sent me an express, but it would have arrived too late. But the note was right. Someone knew. And now…” He gestured vaguely toward the garden. “Now I am here—far from London, far from Pemberley—and the notes are still coming.”
Elizabeth glanced toward the hedgerows, her arms tightening around her waist.
“You believe someone is watching you?”
“I do not know what to believe,” he admitted, bitterly. “Only that this person knows more about me than any stranger should. And I do not know who they are. Or what they want.”
Elizabeth looked at him closely. His cravat was askew, his eyes weary and hollowed with doubt. He, who had always appeared the most composed of men, was unraveling before her.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “No one deserves to live under such dread.”
Darcy gave a bitter smile. “Least of all those who do not understand it.”
They sat in silence, side by side. And though the sun had begun to warm the garden, a chill seemed to settle over them. Elizabeth glanced at him, at the weariness etched deep in the corners of his eyes, and felt a surge of protectiveness unlike any she had known.
He was proud. He was difficult. But he was not invulnerable.
