Page 17 of Shadows Of Rosings Park: Part 2

They stayed an hour. Elizabeth contrived a few minutes alone with Charlotte while Jane engaged the Colonel in conversation about regimental matters, a topic Jane knew nothing about but pursued with the dogged thoroughness of a woman providing cover.

"Charlotte." Elizabeth gripped her friend's hand. They stood in the narrow passage between the parlour and the morning room, the house sounds masking their whispers. "Tell me the truth. Has he moved from intention to demand?"

"No. Not in words. But his visits have become a schedule, and schedules become claims if no one interrupts them."

Through the wall, Elizabeth could hear Jane's voice rising in a question about cavalry formations, bright and deliberate. Buying time. The clock in the passage ticked between them.

"Has he, Charlotte, touched you as a lover would?"

"Not yet." Charlotte's voice was flat. Matter-of-fact. The voice of a woman tallying the terms of her own destruction. "He is courteous. He brings flowers. He speaks of my welfare with the tender concern of a suitor who has not yet revealed himself as a creditor. But the bill will come, Lizzy. We both know it."

"When?"

"Not openly. Not yet." Charlotte met her gaze. "He has given me an emerald ring. He says I need not wear it yet."

Elizabeth's grip tightened on her friend's hand.

"He sent a note last week," Charlotte said. "Very correct, very proper. Expressing his intention to call regularly, to ensure my comfort during my bereavement. It read like a property deed."

Elizabeth swallowed against the sourness rising in her. She thought of Darcy's letters, the same cold formality, the same language of care that was actually the language of claim. The cousins were alike in this: they dressed ownership in the vocabulary of protection and expected gratitude for the disguise.

"I will not let this happen to you," Elizabeth said, and heard the inadequacy of the words even as she spoke them. She couldn't stop it. She lacked the power. Her own captivity was Darcy's guarantee of Charlotte's silence, and Charlotte's captivity was Fitzwilliam's guarantee of Elizabeth's compliance. They were linked, each woman's chain bolted to the other's wall.

Charlotte squeezed her hand. "You cannot prevent what I have already accepted, Lizzy. But you can survive it. We both can. That is the only task that matters now."

They rejoined the others. The Colonel rose when Elizabeth re-entered, his easy smile intact, his eyes noting the change in Charlotte's colour, the faint flush of agitation that she was working to suppress. He missed nothing. He was Darcy's cousin, after all.

"Miss Elizabeth, you must allow me to escort you home. My horse is at the gate, and the lane can be uneven for ladies walking."

"That is most kind, Colonel, but quite unnecessary," Elizabeth replied. "My sister and I are capable walkers."

"I insist." He handed his horse to a groom who had followed at a distance and fell into step beside them on foot. The word was wrapped in courtesy but its centre was iron. He insisted in the Darcy manner, with perfect manners and absolute authority, the combination somehow more oppressive than naked command.

They walked. Fitzwilliam fell into step beside Jane, wielding easy charm with a swordsman's assurance. Elizabeth followed with Charlotte's silence in her ears and the Colonel's pleasant voice drifting back from ahead. Two men from one family had devised the same method of acquiring women who had not chosen them: call control protection and make resistance appear ungrateful.

At the fork where the lane divided toward Longbourn and Lucas Lodge, Fitzwilliam took his leave. He bowed over Jane's hand. He bowed over Elizabeth's. His grip was firm and warm and left her fingers feeling marked.

When he was out of earshot, Jane spoke.

"Something is wrong with Charlotte."

Elizabeth looked at her sister. Jane's gentle face held an expression Elizabeth rarely saw: the resolve of a kind woman who had found an injustice and refused to look away.

"She's grieving, Jane. It's natural that she should be altered."

"I don't think she's only grieving." Jane's voice was quiet but uncertain, as though the words troubled her as much as the observation. "The Colonel is very attentive. Perhaps too attentive. He sits close to her, and speaks softly, and Charlotte — Charlotte, who has always been so composed — seems to shrink when he leans near. I may be wrong. I hope I am."

Elizabeth stopped walking. The lane stretched ahead, dappled with April sunlight. A thrush sang from somewhere in the hedgerow. Her sister stood before her with the truth laid out as simply as a hand of cards.

"You see a great deal, Jane."

"I have always seen. I merely choose, generally, to interpret kindly. In this instance, kindness fails me." Jane took Elizabeth's arm. "Something happened at Hunsford — something that has given these men a hold over both you and Charlotte. I don't know what it is. I don't ask you to tell me. But I need you to know that I'm not blind, and that whatever comes, I'll stand with you."

Elizabeth looked at her sister and felt something crack inside her chest, not the sharp fracture of shock but the slow, aching break of relief. Jane saw. Not everything, not the details, but the heft of it, the wrongness, the coercion, the parallel captivities. She saw, and she had not flinched, and she had not turned away.

"There may come a time," Elizabeth said carefully, "when I need your help. I cannot tell you when or how. When it comes, I shall use our old fashion of writing."

Jane's attention sharpened. "Which one?"