Page 12 of A Most Inconvenient Murder

“You could. And you should,” said Charlotte, “because if you do not, someone else will. You may as well seize the advantage.”

Elizabeth sat back, her mind racing. The possibilities were laid out before her, each one less plausible and more compelling than the last. She wanted desperately to believe that Mr. Darcy was innocent of any wrongdoing. Still, she could not quite silence the voice in her mind that whispered:you thought him incapable of interfering in Jane’s happiness, and you were wrong about that.

She was saved from further rumination by the arrival of a letter, delivered by a young, red-faced servant girl who had clearly run all the way from the post office.

Charlotte accepted it, then handed it to Elizabeth with a knowing glance. “It is from your Aunt Gardiner. I recognize the hand.”

Elizabeth broke the seal, her own hand steady for the first time since finding Mrs. Blackstone. She scanned the letter, her eyes catching on the essential lines informing her that Jane was not well. She had grown pale and thin. The Gardiners wished Elizabeth could come to London sooner than planned to help Jane through her present melancholy. If she could not, she begged that she should write more often.

Elizabeth’s stomach twisted. She had noticed that although Jane continued to write to her with apparent good spirits, there was an emptiness in her letters that troubled her. She had expected that someone like her beloved sister would not heal from heartbreak easily, but seeing it in black and white made the fact suddenly intolerable. She folded the letter and placed it on her lap.

“Jane is suffering,” she said, as if the words required confirmation.

Charlotte nodded. “I suspected as much. But time, Lizzy—time will do for Jane what nothing else can.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Not if the cause of her suffering walks the same earth, unpunished for his interference.”

The words were out before she could stop them. She glanced at Charlotte, expecting censure, but found only sympathy.

“Is it Mr. Darcy, then?” Charlotte asked, as gently as she ever asked anything.

Elizabeth sighed. She could not tell Charlotte of the proposal or of the letter, but she had to tell hersomething.

“Colonel Fitzwilliam told me he boasted of recently saving Mr. Bingley from what would have been a dreadful marriage.” Elizabeth hesitated, then nodded.

“So, of course, you confronted Mr. Darcy.”

“Yes. He told me, without shame, that he separated Jane from Mr. Bingley. He believed himself justified.”

She had not read his entire letter yet. Since he had been so harsh towards her family in person, there was no telling what he might say in writing. She did not feel up to hearing it just now.

Charlotte’s face softened further, as if she had been expecting this confession all along. “Did you set him to rights?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “How could I not?”

Charlotte looked out the window for a few moments before saying, “Then perhaps he will right his wrong?”

Elizabeth inhaled quickly. “That—I had not thought of it. I do hope you are correct.” She reached across the table and gripped Charlotte’s hand. “You are the best of friends.”

Charlotte squeezed her hand. “As are you.”

Elizabeth smiled the first genuine smile of the day.

They sat together for several minutes in companionable silence, watching the fire consume its slow, methodical course.The only sound was the tick of the clock and the occasional hiss of sap in the burning wood.

At length, Elizabeth stood. “There is something I must do. I wish to walk the grounds to see if I can find any clues to what happened. I promise I will be careful, and that I will not be long.”

Charlotte rose as well. “Lizzy, please know that if you are not returned in one hour, I will organize a search party. And then, when you do return, I will force you to listen to Mr. Collins reading several of his most recent sermons. In a row.” She looked at the ceiling, then back at her. “And you do know that once he begins, we may never get him to stop.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I promise I will only look for places to investigate more fully on the morrow.”

A few minutes later, wrapped in her walking coat, Elizabeth checked that the letter from Mr. Darcy was still in her pocket. It weighed heavily against her side.

The late afternoon air met her with a welcome chill. The clipped hedges cast long shadows across the lawn. The western sky had already begun to soften toward evening.

She walked without any destination, grateful for the quiet, the conversation with Charlotte lingering in her mind. Before long, it yielded, as it almost always did, to the mystery itself.

She spent her time thinking about the path between Willow Grange and Rosings, the places where Mrs. Blackstone might have been observed, and whether anyone could have approached her without attracting notice. Every answer seemed only to produce another question.