Page 24 of The Cherry Trees of Rosings
“I am well.”
Charlotte “hmm-ed” non-committally.
“I also noticed you talking to yourself in the garden some days ago.”
Elizabeth paused with her teacup halfway to her lips. Then she quirked her eyebrows. “I was… entertaining myself.”
“I would say you are usually better at concealing the truth than that.”
Elizabeth huffed.
“Well, Mr. Collins leaves me no opportunity to debate. So I took it upon myself to keep my wits sharp.” She took a careful sip of her tea.
“By talking to Mr. Darcy?”
Elizabeth almost spluttered into her cup. She could feel her face flaming. Charlotte raised an eyebrow pointedly.
“I know you are hiding something.” The intensity was back in Charlotte’s eyes. “Can you not trust me to aid you? It would not be right if something were to happen to you while you are in my care.”
Elizabeth sighed.
“Charlotte, I beg you to trust in our friendship and not ask. It will give you sleepless nights.”
Charlotte looked at her in alarm. “What is that supposed to mean!?” A deep frown of suspicion etched itself on her face. “Didyou have a secret understanding with Mr. Darcy? Is this grief over what happened to him?”
“Of course not!” Elizabeth said, equally alarmed.“I have never held Mr. Darcy in any esteem. You know what he did to Mr. Wickham, and how he behaved in Meryton. What he said about me!”
Then she sighed again, setting her cup down on the table between them. “Yet… the circumstances are such that it calls to my basic humanity.”
Charlotte pressed her lips.
“Eliza, I would not pry usually, but you have been unwell in sudden bursts. What am I supposed to think? Please tell me no one has importuned you.”
Elizabeth shook her head and gazed out of the window. If only matters were as dramatic as what Charlotte was hinting at, it would be comical and ridiculous—for certain!—but not what it actually was.
The sunlight was so bright, it almost hurt her eyes. Elizabeth blinked rapidly.
“I am perfectly well, Charlotte. Perhaps I will tell you someday.”
Chapter 16:
Revelations
Mr. Darcy did not make an appearance that night.
Neither did he show up the next morning.
Elizabeth could not help but feel a great foreboding about his absence. Yet, she carried the unfinished letter with her—the fresh sheets she had copied out in ink—wherever she went. She hoped he would appear eventually.
…and that night too, she went to bed in her morning dress.
Not her dinner clothes. Those had gotten horribly wrinkled the last time she slept in them.
“Miss Bennet?”
Elizabeth jolted awake at the sound close to her side.
She turned her head. Mr. Darcy was kneeling on the floor next to her bed. His tall frame, suddenly, at a more companionable distance from where she lay.
