Page 41 of A November to Remember

She was gazing at him across the silver epergne, surprise plain on her face. Slowly, it melted into warmth. It was not a smile, not exactly, but it was a look of silent gratitude and amusement. She held his gaze for a long moment, an invisible tether snapping taut between them.

Bingley, oblivious to the frost in the room, stopped pacing and leaned over Miss Elizabeth’s chair.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, his voice dropping to a loud whisper. “Do you suppose—when she wakes, of course, if she is rested, only if she is rested—that she might—that a very short visit might not be thought—with yourself present, naturally, at every moment, I would not dream—Mrs Nicholls could stand in the doorway. Both doorways. There is only one doorway, but Mrs Nicholls is very capable—”

Miss Elizabeth pulled her eyes away from Darcy, blinking rapidly, and looked up at the frantic host, her expression softening with sympathy.

“I shall see how she fares this morning, Mr Bingley,” she promised gently. “The moment she is strong enough to receive a visitor, I shall arrange it. You have my word.”

Bingley looked as though he might drop to his knees and kiss her hem. “You are an angel. The sister of an angel. Thank you.”

“I shall take every precaution, I must warn you. She must not be overtaxed, and I shall be by her side,” she added.

“How touching!” Miss Bingley exclaimed. “Such devotion. Though one wonders, Miss Eliza, that you can spare the time from the sickroom for stable-yards. The grooms were treated to quite a spectacle, I understand. My maid had it from the kitchen. Feeding Mr Darcy’s savage creature from your bare hand! So intrepid. But then I always say, those raised in the country acquire such a wonderful fearlessness around livestock. It must come from the proximity.”

The pause that followed had edges.

“The horse,” Darcy began, without taking his eyes from his plate, “has thrown many grooms and refused sugar from a marchioness. In five years, he has accepted food from precisely three hands, and two of them are Darcys. I would suggest, Miss Bingley, that what you call proximity, the rest of us are obliged to call judgement.” He reached for the coffee pot. “The horse’s, if not mine.”

Amid poorly covered snorts and gasps for air, even from Bingley, Miss Elizabeth finished her toast and tea quickly and stood, smoothing her skirts.

“If you will excuse me.” She curtsied to the table at large. “I must return to my sister. Thank you for the protection, Colonel, my lord. Mr Darcy.”

“At any time, Miss Elizabeth.” Richard saluted with his fork.

She turned and left the room. Darcy watched her go, the space feeling colder and significantly less interesting in her absence. He picked up his coffee cup, staring blindly at the liquid, his mind a battlefield.

He was jealous of his cousins, he had insulted his hostess twice to defend a woman with inferior connections who did not even like him, and he had run through the mud in his shirtsleeves.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was doomed, and he had never felt more alive.

Caroline Bingley had planned the interrogation of Jane Bennet down to the last teaspoon.

The original scheme, a civilised dinner and the truth extracted over dessert, had been drowned in Friday’s downpour along with the girl’s riding habit. Very well. Caroline was nothing if not adaptable. If the mountain could not come to dinner, she would go to the mountain bearing beef tea.

She paused outside the yellow room to arrange her face: tender concern, softened by an appearance of sisterly warmth. She had practised it at her glass that morning until it sat correctly.

She opened the door just as Elizabeth Bennet was rising from her chair.

“Miss Eliza! You must permit yourself a few minutes of rest.” Caroline injected as much syrup into her voice as humanly possible, blocking the doorway. “Do take a walk in the long gallery, if only to stretch your legs. You are fond of walking, are you not? You might do it for once without endangering your hem.”

“That is not necessary, Miss Bingley.” Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “I am perfectly content to sit by my sister.”

Miss Bennet, awake but feverish, pleaded with her sister via a look of unbearable martyrdom. “Go, Lizzy. I shall be well with Miss Bingley’s company.”

Miss Eliza opened her mouth to refuse, relenting only after a long, stiff moment. She shot one look of pure warning at Caroline, but departed nevertheless, brushing past the orange silk of Caroline’s skirts.

Caroline turned to the enemy. Miss Bennet lay propped against the pillows, golden hair loose, luminous even in convalescence, a fact Caroline noted with profound resentment. Some women perspired through a fever; Jane Bennet glowed through hers gently, a saint in an Italian painting who happened to require beef tea. It was quite inconsiderate.

“Dear Miss Bennet.” Caroline advanced with the tray. “I have brought you beef tea. Cook followed the colonel’s directions, naturally, but I had her strain it twice. You must keep up your strength.”

“How kind you are, Miss Bingley.” The gratitude in the girl’s face was so immediate, so entire, that Caroline experienced a momentary bout of vertigo. No one was that grateful for beef tea. It was a defence, surely. A very advanced one.

She settled into the bedside chair, poured the broth, and set to work.

“Your sister is quite the favourite downstairs. So lively.” Caroline smoothed her skirts. “Lord Keathley finds her enormously diverting. And Mr Darcy—” She paused delicately, just long enough to bait the hook and cast the line. “Mr Darcy attends to her every word. But then I daresay Miss Eliza is accustomed to gentlemen’s attentions. She must speak of them often. To you. In confidence.”

“Lizzy?” Miss Bennet took a small, obedient sip of the broth. “Oh, Lizzy never speaks of gentlemen’s attentions.”