Page 8 of Rosings Park (Happily Ever Afterlife #2)
CHAPTER EIGHT
W ith a loud gasp, Darcy sat straight up in bed. His heart was beating aggressively against his ribs, and his body was covered in a sheen of perspiration. Spots flashed before his eyes against the background of general darkness, popping like champagne bubbles as he adjusted to his sudden wakefulness.
Tangling the fingers of both hands deep within his disordered hair, Darcy leant forwards to prop his elbows upon his knees and concentrated his attention on slowing his pulse. Blasted dream! He had not suffered one so terrible in quite some time, not since just after Elizabeth had soundly rejected his first proposal. Then, he had heard her echoing voice berating him endlessly, calling him ungentlemanly and unfeeling, declaring that he was the last man in the world she could ever be prevailed upon to marry.
This latest dream also featured Elizabeth, he was fairly certain, yet it was somehow worse than before. The previous spring, Darcy had been consumed by his own failings, but he could at least be assured that she was alive in the world somewhere, presumably thinking ill of him. This dreadful vision…he shuddered to even think of it.
Unbidden, the image of a ghastly pale woman cloaked in a gown of deepest cobalt swam before his mind’s eye. Her features were indistinct, but Darcy was confident that she was his wife and that she was in some sort of danger. The harrowing element of the dream was that he could never quite reach her even as he gave vigorous chase; she slipped out from beneath his fingers time and again until she simply melted into the mist. Gone, leaving him alone and cold without her.
A surge of irrational alarm rose within Darcy, and he reached blindly for Elizabeth across the mattress. When his hand met with emptiness, he employed the other to more thoroughly search the bedclothes, but his increasingly frantic exploration turned up no sign of his wife.
“Elizabeth?” he called out, then waited impatiently for her reply. Silence. “Elizabeth? Are you there?”
When Darcy’s second entreaty was met with no response, his mind began conjuring all sorts of calamities that might have befallen her. With shaking hands, he scrambled to untangle himself from the sheets, intending to conduct a thorough investigation of the bedchamber; perhaps she had moved to one of the sofas and fallen asleep? The low light cast by the dwindling fire showed no sign of her, but he would tear apart the room until he discovered her and confirmed she was still with him.
Ding . Creak .
Somewhere in the darkness, a bell rang out and a hinge squealed. He turned to the door, which he only just noticed was propped open; a sliver of light from one of the wall sconces lining the hall was visible.
Well aware of his wife’s penchant for wandering about Pemberley when she could not sleep, Darcy felt he now knew where she had gone. He breathed a sigh of mixed relief and irritation before rising, donning his banyan, and rushing out after her. He was beset by a wave of cold as he departed and made a point of pulling his robe more tightly closed.
Darcy conducted a thorough search, beginning with Lady Catherine’s favourite withdrawing room and continuing along the corridor of various parlours and dining spaces, peeking into each in case his wife happened to be within.
He even peered into the room in which Anne was laid out, but there was no one present—save the dead. Anne herself was stretched out across the table, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of flowers and blocks of ice, appearing pale and wan. She looked just as she used to when she lived, which was unsettling, and he almost thought she might simply wake at any moment. Her perfect stillness ultimately convinced him that she would not, and a tightness formed in his throat.
What if Elizabeth is taken in childbed? Will she be laid out in the same fashion?
Darcy’s entire body quaked violently at the errant, tormenting thought. She will be well…she has to be well. I could not bear it.
After whispering a quick prayer over his cousin, he backed swiftly out of the parlour and closed the door. He felt inexplicably more at ease with a barrier in place between himself and Anne’s body.
Once that part of the house was eliminated, he moved on to the opposite side. He took the corridor leading to the library and his uncle’s study; had the layout of the manor not been dated prior to his marriage to Lady Catherine, Darcy might have supposed that Sir Lewis had arranged it so as to avoid her. Perhaps it was she who instigated the division.
A sound tickled Darcy’s ear, and he stopped in the middle of the hall, listening. Soft whispers floated towards him on the still air, light and feminine. The relief he felt was staggering; he had found his missing wife.
In retrospect, Darcy ought to have gone to the library first, knowing how much Elizabeth favoured the one at Pemberley, but he had no notion that she even knew where it was when he began his search. He arrived at the doorway and peered inside. The moonlight pouring in through the windows revealed her position immediately; there she was, seated with Mrs Collins near the fireplace. His shoulders sagged as if some invisible string holding them taut had been cut.
He was about to call out to her when Elizabeth emitted a sharp gasp and jerked in her seat, a hand rising to clutch her heart. Darcy crossed the threshold, immediately concerned that she was in some sort of pain. “Elizabeth, are you well? What are you doing out of bed?”
“I could not sleep, but I am perfectly well. I came downstairs to sit with Charlotte.”
Darcy nodded at Mrs Collins, who acknowledged him in like fashion, before returning his full attention to his wife. “You ought not to be roaming the house in the middle of the night. What if you were to take a spill on the stairs? Or get lost?”
Even in the dim lighting, which cast shadows upon Elizabeth’s face, he could see a scowl forming. “I am perfectly capable of walking down the stairs, and I was never in any sort of danger.”
Not that I could possibly have known that. Disregarding her protestations, Darcy reached down and grasped Elizabeth’s hand, tugging her to her feet. She followed his direction reluctantly. “Come back to bed. You require your rest.”
“If I must.” Turning to Mrs Collins, Elizabeth said, “Apparently, I am for bed. I thank you for sitting with me.”
Mrs Collins also stood. “It was a pleasure. I shall see you in the morning, while the gentlemen are at the church.”
“Will you not require rest after sitting up with Miss de Bourgh?”
With a glance at the clock, Mrs Collins assured them both, “Mrs Knight will relieve me in a quarter of an hour, then I shall sleep. I bid you both a good night and pleasant dreams.”
Darcy mumbled his own goodnight before leading both ladies out of the room and towards the entrance hall, where they parted. Mrs Collins disappeared down the darkened corridor, while Darcy led Elizabeth up the main staircase towards the family wing. The newel posts at the base, a pair of dragon busts, winked impudently at him as they ascended.