Page 144 of The Difference of a Darcy
When he descended the stairs, the scent of holly and evergreens greeted him, and he froze. The halls were still hung with garlands, the side tables adorned with ribbons, and in the corner of the drawing room stood the same evergreen boughs decorated with mistletoe and candlelight.
A maid hurried past with a tray. She bobbed a curtsey and smiled up at him. “A happy Christmas to you, sir.”
He stopped in his tracks.
Christmas.
His breath caught. He turned sharply toward the tall clock in the entryway. It struck eight. The same day. The same hour he left Rosings last time.
A wave of dizziness washed over him. He put his hand to the newel post to steady himself. His pulse hammered in his throat. His mind seized at fragments—Elizabeth’s breath warm against his shoulder in the carriage, the weight of her head upon his arm as she slept next to him.
The clean snap of a snowdrop stem. The smoothness of a pebble turning beneath his thumb. He could feel them. He couldtastethe salt at Elizabeth’s lips.
“I have gone mad,” he murmured aloud.
The dream—the life—they had shared—it had felt so real. Every moment vivid, alive.
He pressed his hands against his temples. “It cannot have been a dream.”
And yet the house said otherwise.
He moved toward the door, needing air, needing space to think. He would go for a walk—to clear his head. Perhaps the cold would restore sense to him.
But sense did not come. Panic did instead.
If it was a dream—then what?If it truly was Christmas morning, then it had been only last night that he had proposed.
Badly. Disastrously.
His stomach twisted.
If the world had truly returned to its former state, then Elizabeth’s last memory of him was of that humiliation, that dreadful speech in which he had offered his heart and insulted her in the same breath.
And she hated him.
He hesitated at the door, uncertain whether to go to the parsonage at once or to wait until later in the day. To call soearly would seem desperate, even unhinged. And yet to wait felt impossible.
He stepped outside into the cold. The air bit at his cheeks, but he barely noticed it. He walked without direction, his thoughts racing.
What if it was all a dream? What if she remembers none of it?
His chest constricted painfully.
What if she still despises me?
He had nearly reached the trees before he realized where his steps had brought him. The stream that fed the small pond lay ahead, rimmed with a thin crust of ice, the surface clouded and gray. A hush rested over the little hollow as if the very air remembered secrets. He stopped at the fringe of reeds and looked down upon the water, and his heart beat so hard he thought it might break a rib.
He stopped at the bank, staring out across the thin sheen of frost. His breath clouded before him.
This was where it had begun—his despair, his words to the unseen fae. He could almost hear his own voice echoing through the cold air:I wish I had never been born.
He closed his eyes. The memories did not fade. They rose—Elizabeth in the kitchen, bare-armed and fierce with a broken bottle; Elizabeth by the river, anger bright as a brand; Elizabeth beneath his hand, soft as a prayer. The taste of her. The look in her eyes when she saidI love you. The flower ring. The vow.
If it had been a dream, then it had been the truest one he had ever known.
What if none of it happened?The thought would not be driven away. What if she remembers nothing?What if I am alone with these shadows, and she is left with only the memory of a proud fool who offended her?
He forced his eyes open and stared at the water until the blur of panic steadied into focus. If it had been only a dream, then he would build the reality with his own two hands.
