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“I meant only to preserve your reputation,” Mr Darcy said quietly.

“And you believe my reputation so fragile that a closed door will shatter it?”

“In certain circles, yes.”

Elizabeth paused, glancing up at him briefly before returning to her task. “Then I must hope those circles are not in residence.”

A beat of silence passed between them.

“To the left, perhaps,” said Mr Darcy, who was now crouching beside her. His expression suggested that he knew well that he had no better ideas and was therefore in no position to be critical of the existing one.

Elizabeth tried twisting the pin to the left. The mechanism produced a sound of metallic protest and then an ominous click that suggested something had given way in a direction that was not opening.

“I think I may have made it worse,” Elizabeth admitted grimly.

“That was my assessment, also.”

With a final, frustrated twist, the pin bent beyond all usability. Elizabeth withdrew it from the lock and sat back on her heels. “Alas, my mechanical career is brief. I believe I had best stop before I ruin our chances of ever leaving this room.”

Mr Darcy nodded solemnly. “Perhaps that would be for the best.”

Elizabeth stood and wiped her brow. Her efforts had made her warm. She removed the jacket and thrust it towards Mr Darcy. “I thank you for the loan, but I am quite comfortable now.”

Mr Darcy hesitated.

Elizabeth shook it towards him impatiently. “If, by some great turn of fortune, the door is opened, and I am seen wearing your jacket, I fear it will allow the imagination of those in ‘certain circles’ to be entirely overcome.”

Mr Darcy stepped forward and relieved her of the garment. He shrugged into the garment and turned his attention back to the door. He dug into his pocket and procured a penknife, and knelt before the lock once more.

Elizabeth said nothing and took a step back, giving him space to work.

The penknife accomplished nothing except to scratch the escutcheon. When that method did not work, Mr Darcy applied force to the door with his shoulder, though without useful result; the door held with the solidity of good English carpentry.

His jacket was not so lucky. The force of the impact caught his right sleeve on the handle on the way back. There was a sharp tearing sound and a muttered word that Elizabeth generously did not hear, and then Mr Darcy was standing with three inches of his jacket seam open at the shoulder.

“Are you hurt?” Elizabeth asked.

“No,” he said.

“Your jacket —”

“It is of no consequence,” Mr Darcy said, taking off his garment for the second time that morning and studying the tear with a decidedly neutral expression.

Elizabeth was suddenly acutely aware of all of it at once: the smallness of the room, the state of her hair, the tear in Mr Darcy’s jacket, which remained casually slung over his arm.

“Mr Darcy,” she said, and then stopped, because she was not entirely sure what she had intended to say after that.

He seemed to recognise the sudden alarm in her expression at the impending spectacle that would result when the door was finally opened. “We will say only what is true,” he said. Against all expectation, Elizabeth found his quiet steadiness rather bracing. “We came in separately. The door would not open, and we waited for someone to find us. Nothing more occurred. Anyone who wishes to interpret that otherwise… well, we shall manage it. “

Elizabeth studied him. There was something in his expression that she had not seen there before: sincere concern that was directed unmistakably at her situation and not his own. Surely most men in this position would worry primarily about themselves. With a quick intake of breath and a sudden clarity so sharp it was almost painful, Elizabeth realised Mr Darcy did not appear to be most men.

“Manage it,” she repeated, her eyes inexplicably trained on the tear in his shoulder. “Yes. Of course.”

Elizabeth turned to the glass above the writing desk. It was a small one, barely adequate. She did what she could with her hair, which was not much. She frowned at her reflection, noting that she gave the appearance of a woman who had been doing emergency repairs, which was not ideal.

The sound of an approaching party of moderate size drew Elizabeth’s attention to the door. For better or for worse, it was soon followed by the scrape of the key in the lock. After a moment, the door swung open with almost mocking ease.

Mrs Nicholls stood just outside, accompanied by two housemaids, the footman from the eastern corridor, and Miss Bingley.