Page 67 of Companions of Their Youth
“Mr. Darcy,” she said quietly, “we will figure this out. You are not alone.”
He turned to look at her—and for the first time, she saw fear there. Not the fear of a man threatened by scandal or reputation, but something deeper. Something that had clawed its way beneath the surface and taken hold of him.
She met his gaze, unwavering. And he, for a moment, looked as though he believed her.
∞∞∞
By the time Darcy entered the small library tucked along Netherfield’s west corridor, the morning sun had already risen high, casting delicate, shifting patterns across the carpet through the diamond-paned windows. He carried with him a worn notebook and a growing sense of unease. The incident in the garden—Elizabeth’s steady presence, her calm insistence that he breathe—had both grounded and disturbed him.
He could not remember the last time he had been so vulnerable before another person. And a woman, no less. But there had been no ridicule in her eyes, no amusement.
Only concern. Kindness. Like she truly cared about me and what I was experiencing.
He still could not believe what he had confessed to her. About the letters. About Georgiana. About the fear.
Several hours had passed since the moment in the garden, yet Fitzwilliam Darcy felt no closer to recovering his composure. After breakfast, he had gone directly to his room and sorted through every volume he had brought from London. He had found three more notes.
One, slipped inside a small treatise on the Corn Laws, read:
If only I were invisible, then I could watch you in your room as you sleep. If I were invincible, then I would make you mine right now, tonight.
The second, pressed deep into a volume of philosophical essays, was more chilling still:
I wonder where you are, and I wonder what you do. There is no one but me who can love you like I do.
It was the last note that felt the most ominous, found in a novel he was contemplating gifting to Georgiana but wished to read first.
I will never let you go—no, not for any price. I need you now just like I needed you then; I vow, Darcy, that we will meet again.
The realization struck him cold. These were not harmless flirtations. These were not the misguided affections of some silly debutante. These were obsessions. And the precision with which the notes had been planted—within brand-new books, in a locked carriage trunk, untouched until this very week—meant that someone with access to Pemberley’s interior staff had to be responsible. Or someone else had passed the items to one of his servants.
He had to begin somewhere.
The one small point of clarity was that he could begin narrowing the field of suspects. Someone must have had access to his books between the moment they were delivered to Pemberley and when he packed them for the trip to Hertfordshire. That reduced the field—at least slightly.
He opened the notebook and began to make a list of everyone who had access to his trunks in the days before he departed for Hertfordshire. The names came to him quickly: Mrs. Langford, the housekeeper; a few maids who helped pack; a footman tasked with loading the trunks.
He had just written the eighth name when the door creaked, and Elizabeth stepped into the library. She wore a simple morning dress of deep blue that set off the brightness of her eyes, and her hair was pinned more loosely than usual, the soft wisps around her temples giving her a faintly windswept look—as though she had just stepped out of the breeze itself.
He rose at once.
“Miss Bennet,” he said. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Mr. Darcy.” She curtsied lightly, her voice warm. “I hope I am not disturbing you.”
“Not at all,” he said. “I was merely… gathering my thoughts.”
She nodded and looked around the room. “I was hoping to find a quiet corner to read. This room looked especially inviting yesterday.”
“In spite of its woefully empty shelves?” he said, allowing himself a rare smile.
She laughed—a clear, unguarded sound that made something stir in his chest. “Oh, yes. Emptiness has its charms—curtains and sunlight and quiet. And it is usually unoccupied, which is a great advantage.”
He nodded and sat back at the desk, returning his eyes to the notebook. After a few minutes, he became acutely aware of the silence—and of his own rudeness. He glanced up to find her seated near the hearth, her book open in her lap but not actually reading it.
He cleared his throat. “Forgive me. I have been absorbed in something. Are you reading anything interesting this morning?”
“I was,” she said, “until I saw you writing. I wondered if it was a letter.”
