Page 10 of Penned by Mr Darcy (…By Mr Darcy #3)

Elizabeth

E lizabeth did not leave Jane’s side for the remainder of the day, nor the day after that.

She wrote a brief letter to her mother—measured and careful in tone, though it concealed her growing fear—and then returned to Jane’s bedside.

There she stayed, curled beside her sister, listening with silent dread to each strained breath that passed her lips.

“You…do not…need to…” Jane whispered hoarsely as the sun dipped low on the second evening, only to be silenced by another bout of coughing that shook her frail frame.

“Hush,” Elizabeth murmured, stroking a strand of pale hair from Jane’s damp brow. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

A faint smile lifted the corners of Jane’s lips, and Elizabeth held onto it like a promise. Better days would come. They had to. Jane would be well again, and she would never again find herself her sister’s nursemaid. It was too much, this feeling of helplessness, all power given up to fate.

Hours passed, marked only by the flicker of a single candle and the rhythmic rise and fall of Jane’s chest. When her sister finally drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep after hours of tossing and turning as her fever burned, Elizabeth allowed herself to exhale.

Her limbs ached from disuse, her eyes burned from sleeplessness, but for the first time in days, she let herself move.

She stood slowly, stretching her back and rolling her shoulders. Her stomach growled—loud and sudden in the hush of the room. She had scarcely eaten, her concern for Jane overriding any personal care. But now, with her sister at peace, she found herself ravenous.

She cast a final glance toward the bed, then slipped from the room and padded silently through the dim corridor. The house was still. A grandfather clock somewhere in the parlour struck once - one o’clock? She blinked. Had it really grown so late?

Navigating Netherfield in the dark was no easy task. Every doorway looked alike. She opened one door, then another, all unfamiliar drawing rooms and darkened studies. Just as she reached for the next handle…

“Miss Elizabeth?”

She nearly jumped out of her skin, whirling toward the voice.

“Mr Darcy,” she gasped, placing a hand over her racing heart. “You frightened me.”

“My apologies,” he said, his tone stiff but low. “I heard doors opening. I thought—” He broke off. “Are you well?”

“I am.” She tried to smile, though she felt far from composed. “I was looking for the kitchens, if you must know. I haven’t eaten much in the past two days, and I thought I might steal some bread and cheese.”

His brow lifted faintly.

“Steal?”

“Well,” she allowed, “perhaps borrow without permission.”

“I see.”

She looked at him properly then, noticing that he, too, was dressed not for company, but for comfort. His hair was slightly tousled, his coat unbuttoned, and she suspected—oddly—that he had been reading. Always reading.

“And you?” she asked. “Why are you awake?”

“I was in the library,” he replied. “I heard someone moving about.”

“You are always in the library, I think. As though it were your own private domain.”

His lips twitched, almost—a flicker of amusement gone as quickly as it came.

“Not always. But I value solitude.”

“Tell me something, Mr Darcy—do you keep a diary?”

The change was immediate. He stiffened, his expression guarded, his eyes suddenly wary.

“I do,” he said, carefully.

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing in curiosity.

“I thought as much. With your preference for solitude, you strike me as a man who prefers to commit his thoughts to paper, rather than speak them aloud.”

He said nothing. She felt entirely bare under his gaze, for he seemed to stare into her soul.

He was certainly not talented at conversation – it was unsettling to be looked upon in such a way.

She did not feel special, for he seemed to do it to everyone he spoke with.

She wondered if it was his intention to stare them into submission, ensuring that nobody spoke to him for too long – and that few wished to repeat the experience.

She would not be beaten.

“I do not mean it as criticism,” she continued. “There’s something admirable in it, really. To look inward and make sense of yourself on the page.”

Still nothing. Only that intense, unreadable gaze.

“I wonder,” she said, her voice softer now, “if you write the way you speak—measured, careful, never more than necessary.”

A flicker—something passed through his eyes, too fleeting to name.

“You seem to have made quite the assessment of me, Miss Elizabeth. Do you truly think that of me?” he asked, his voice low and steady.

“I do not know,” she replied, holding his gaze. “Perhaps I only wonder what a man like you allows himself to say when no one is listening.”

A moment passed. Long. Loaded.

“There are some things,” he said slowly, “that are easier to face in the silence of one’s own confession.”

Their eyes met. And in the stillness of the hall, with the house asleep around them, Elizabeth felt the breath catch in her throat.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” she whispered. “Only to understand you.”

He turned his face away slightly, the motion quiet but telling.

“I did not think you would care to. Indeed, few of our mutual acquaintances seem inclined to.”

“Then perhaps they did not try hard enough.”

“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, “if you are truly hungry… come. I will show you the way to the kitchens.”

She hesitated. Then nodded.

“Thank you.”

He turned, and she followed, unsure if it was food or something else entirely that now stirred her appetite.

She swallowed; her feelings were not true. She had been influenced by that discarded letter – which she still could not prove belonged to Mr Darcy, and even if it had…

Oh, it filled every romantic notion to be written about in such a manner, as well as inflame every sensibility she possessed. What sort of man held both desire and utter rejection of such?! It was an insult.

She followed him down winding hallways until they reached the kitchen.

He knew the way around Netherfield remarkably well for one who seeemed to so often hide himself away; did he make a habit of straying below stairs?

Did he lord himself above the servants as he did those in his company?

Such a man could not help but assert his superiority, she supposed.

“I am not sure what you will find.”

“I imagine all cooks are the same when it comes to their hiding places,” she said with a smile. “I have become an expert at locating food in the dead of night; with five girls, I am afraid we are rather like little mice scavenging for food at all hours.”

“I imagine such undisciplined habits would spoil your appetite.”

She said nothing in reply; trust him to take all the fun and joviality from life.

Miss Georgiana Darcy, she supposed, never ate between meals or strayed beyond where she ought to.

Lizzy was now well aware of Mr Darcy’s exacting standards and expectations of what a woman ought to be – and if he imposed them upon his young sister, then she felt very sorry for the girl indeed.

She scrabbled around in the pantry, Mr Darcy and his candle standing behind her, finding a block of cheese and some bread that had already been sliced. She took both plates and set them down onto the counter.

“Might I tempt you, Mr Darcy?”

His face, illuminated by the glow of the candle he held, darkened at once. Her breath caught, and they were locked in one another’s gaze.

“I…” he swallowed thickly. “Yes.”

She cut enough cheese for the pair of them, setting it on its own plate. She returned the rest of the food to its rightful spot, before returning to the hastily made feast before them. A creak from somewhere beyond the kitchen startled both of them.

“Shall we eat in the library?” she whispered. “If Mr Bingley’s cook is as terrifying as ours, I should not like to be caught.”

He nodded again, taking the plate in one hand, his candle still in the other. She walked in step beside him, unsure of the way. They walked in silence, and she was not sure what had taken possession of her that she wished to be alone in his company.

When they reached the library, she noted that the fire was still roaring happily in the grate.

“Were you intending to remain here for a while yet, Mr Darcy?”

“I often have trouble sleeping. There are times when I do not rest until three or four in the morning, and I did not want to be cold.”

“I see.”

They settled in front of the fire, Elizabeth taking a seat on the floor. She stared into the flames, nibbling at her cheese.

“Why did you ask about my diary?” Mr Darcy asked suddenly. “What interest is it to you?”

She could not say that she had found the discarded page confessing his ardent lust for an unnamed, unknown woman.

She could not tell him that the words had inflamed some sort of forbidden feeling within her, some burning between her thighs that both repulsed and intrigued her.

She could not tell him that she found herself thinking of him in the quiet moments where her sister slept, that her curiosity felt as though it would drive her mad…

“I have seen you more than once writing something, and I was just curious.”

“I see.”

“How long have you kept such a journal?”

“For as long as I could remember. I do not wish to speak of it; it is private.”

“By its very nature, of course. You do not say much, Mr Darcy. I was merely surprised that you are capable of confession at all.”

“I am a man with thoughts, Miss Elizabeth – unlike others, I do not allow them to exit my mouth without proper consideration.”

She bristled, his barb intentioned and perfectly executed.

Her pride was wounded, it was true, but she could not say she had been entirely undeserving of the insult.

To a man like him, her honesty and direct manner would surely be jarring.

She would much rather be as she was, than adopt even a percentage of his own character.

She said nothing in reply—though dozens of sharp retorts sprang to her lips. What point would there be in speaking them aloud? He would not understand. Or worse—he would understand too well and mock her for it, if not aloud, then behind those carefully shuttered eyes.

She chewed silently, her gaze fixed on the flames. The cheese was sharp, the bread dry—but it was sustenance. And she needed the steadiness of food far more than she needed the sharpness of further conversation.

Yet even as she kept her eyes on the fire, she could feel his presence beside her, still and unwavering. He had not touched his plate, though he held it in his lap.

“Do you truly think me so proud?” he asked suddenly, as though he had been wrestling with the question in silence.

She blinked, surprised by the openness of it.

“Do you truly want an honest answer?”

He turned his head toward her, and in the flicker of the firelight she saw something vulnerable in his expression.

She did not like it; she had never thought of him as vulnerable, for he seemed an impenetrable man without emotion or nuance.

To see him here, without pretence, was an intimacy she did not like.

“Yes,” he said.

She swallowed her bite.

“I think… you make it very difficult for people to know you. You speak rarely, and when you do, it is often with the expectation of being misunderstood.”

“I see.”

“I do not say it to wound you. Only that I think… you expect people to think ill of you. And so you give them good reason.”

He didn’t answer immediately. His gaze returned to the fire, and for a long moment they sat in silence, save for the occasional snap of the logs.

“I do not enjoy being misunderstood,” he said at last. “But I find it easier to be misjudged than misrepresented. Silence gives me control.”

She nodded slowly. That, at least, she could understand.

“I have said things to you—harsh things,” he added. “I do not regret the truth of them, only the manner in which they were delivered.”

“An apology, Mr Darcy?”

“Something like it.”

She looked at him, and this time, her gaze lingered. He sat still as a statue, but the candlelight and fire cast his face in a softer glow. She wondered—again—what lay beneath the pride. And whether it was truly pride at all, or simply a man’s desperate armour against feeling too much.

“You are not easy to like,” she said, and saw him flinch. “But I think…I think there is a reason you have so many friends who display such loyalty towards you as to not notice any flaws you might possess.”

He looked at her then—not a glance, not a polite flick of the eyes, but a full, focused gaze. It landed on her like the weight of a hand, and for a moment, she could not breathe.

“I think,” he said slowly, “you are the only person who has ever spoken to me in this way.”

She felt herself flush, but not with embarrassment, but with something deeper. Warmer.

“I imagine most are afraid to,” she said.

He was still watching her. She felt it in her skin.

“I think you enjoy provoking me,” he said.

“And you enjoy being provoked, or you would not rise to it.”

That earned the faintest smile. It curved his mouth like something secret, almost boyish.

She looked away, not trusting herself to return it.

Her eyes landed instead on the bookshelves lining the room—dark wood, rows of leather bindings, a world of knowledge she would never know entirely.

But for now, she was drawn back to the man sitting beside her, eating cheese in the dead of night, offering her pieces of himself in rare, flickering moments.

She rose, brushing crumbs from her skirt.

“I should return to Jane,” she said.

He stood, setting the plate aside.

“May I walk you back?”

She hesitated, the consequences of being caught so late at night wandering the halls with a man she was not related to.

Who would find them? Miss Bingley, perhaps, but neither she nor her sister would be in any hurry to cause a compromise that might result in the marriage of the man they so desired to make part of their family.

Elizabeth accepted his offer.

They said little as they walked, the candlelight swaying between them, casting twin shadows along the corridor walls. When they reached her door, she turned to him.

“Goodnight, Mr Darcy.”

“Goodnight, Miss Elizabeth.”

She opened the door, glancing back at him as she hovered between the safety of her room and the danger of him. He stared at her, as he so often did, but his eyes were not as hard and unforgiving as they had been before. As she nodded her head in farewell, he smiled.