Page 86 of The Difference of a Darcy
At the outer gate, they paused.
“The main door?” she asked gently. “Or the back entrance?”
“I… do not know.”
She offered a half-smile. “One offers tea. The other offers work. I know which one I prefer.”
“We had determined to seek a tour of the estate, but if we later decide we wish to work here…” his voice trailed off.
“I did not think of it that way,” she replied.
“Nor did I until this very moment.”
They stood in silence, staring at the house for several moments.
“Let us try the servants’ entrance,” Darcy said at last. “It may give us more options.”
She nodded, and without letting go of his arm, stepped with him through gate.
The side path crunched faintly beneath their feet—gravel overgrown with moss and stray grass. The farther they walked, the more the silence pressed in around them.
Darcy had not taken the servants’ entrance in years. Not since boyhood, when he used to sneak down for a bannock ora honeyed apple, favored by the kitchen maids and scolded in equal measure by the cook.
Back then, the kitchen had been the heartbeat of the house—always hot, always loud. Even in the earliest hours, one could count on the thrum of activity: scullery maids at the pump, pots clanging, the warm scent of bread and boiling broth, the crackle of the great hearth, the ever-present rhythm of a house alive with purpose.
But now—
He pushed open the door, and the hinges groaned. The scent of damp stone greeted him first, musty and chill.
They stepped into shadow.
The kitchen was cold. Still. Silent.
No bread. No fire. No scent of stewing meats or fresh herbs hanging from the beams.
A few pots hung from their hooks, dull with dust. A chopping board lay forgotten on the long worktable, and a basket of root vegetables in the corner had begun to soften and rot. The great iron hearth, once the roaring heart of Pemberley, sat empty. Dead.
His chest tightened.
There should be ten people here. At least. Preparing for midday. Baking, boiling, braising. Someone humming a tune. Someone barking orders. The dog curled beneath the hearth waiting for scraps.
Now there was nothing. Only silence and the echo of a life that had once pulsed so vibrantly through these walls.
Elizabeth stood close beside him, her gloved fingers brushing his sleeve.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered.
He could not answer.
His jaw clenched, and he swallowed the sharp ache rising in his throat. He had feared to see the neglect outside—but this? This lifelessness?
It was grief. As if a dear friend had passed in his sleep and none had noticed.
He stepped forward slowly, his boots echoing against the flagstones. Elizabeth remained at his side, her presence steadying. She said nothing, only matched his pace as they passed through the scullery and into the narrow hallway beyond.
He turned left, navigating by memory. Past the butler’s pantry. Past the linen room. The air was stale here, like a house that had not drawn breath in weeks.
The familiar door stood half-open ahead.
