Page 2 of A Most Inconvenient Murder

The force with which he occupied the path made it impossible to believe he had found her by accident.

They stood for a moment in complete silence. Then he bowed deeply, the way men did in salons but rarely in fields. He straightened with visible effort.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, his voice low. “I beg your pardon for intruding. May I entreat a word with you?”

Whilst in the privacy of her room, she had prepared several replies for when she next saw him, ranging from the withering to the icy, but at this exact moment, none presented itself. Instead, she inclined her head with a composure she did not feel.

Mr. Darcy advanced with so much caution that she barely heard his step upon the gravel. A slight motion at the corner of his mouth might have passed for the shadow of a smile had it not borne so near a resemblance to pain.

“I have written what I could not say yesterday. If you would—” Here his voice caught infinitesimally. “Please permit me to place this in your keeping. I ask that you do me the honor of reading it.”

He held out a letter, folded and sealed in the correct manner. The paper was uncommonly thick, and the seal unfamiliar. It was a dark impression, not the Darcy arms from his signet ring she had seen him press into letters to his sister at Netherfield Park, but something less ornate. The envelope shook very slightly in his hand.

Elizabeth took the letter. For one instant, their fingers brushed, and she felt a chill pass quickly up her arm, so sharp it might have registered as pain. Yet, she did not drop the letter.

She nodded her pledge to read it.

Mr. Darcy stepped back. “Thank you,” he whispered, and bowed again, less deeply.

She expected him to retreat at once, but instead he remained.

Being in the habit of observing others, it struck her that if she had been watching any other couple in the lane, she would have thought he was unwilling to deprive himself of these last moments in her presence.

His gaze was unblinking. She could not tell if he was angry, wounded, or simply taking a mental inventory of her for future reference.

Her breath caught as she thought,Is it possible he does not despise me?

No, that impression had to be wrong. After the horrid way she had refused him, it could not be true.

“Good day, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, and this time, his words carried the full weight of farewell. He put his hat on, turned away, and walked up the path. He did not look back.

Elizabeth’s breath caught. Watching him until he vanished beyond the bend, she turned away, tucking the letter deep into an inner pocket, where its rectangular solidity pressed cool against her ribs.

For a few minutes she wandered about, unable to decide whether she wished to read the letter immediately, or to hurl it into the nearest fire and pretend she had never seen it. But she had promised. And ultimately, curiosity won out. The possibility of a private justification—or, more thrillingly, an apology—proved irresistible. But it could not be read in the open, where anyone passing might recognize the handwriting and bear witness. At the parsonage, the possibility of Charlotte entering her room unannounced was not merely theoretical. It would be much better to find a location out of doors that offered a bit of privacy.

She turned back toward the gardens, considering her options.

The solution appeared with the suddenness of a lightning flash: Lady Catherine’s hedge maze.

Elizabeth had discovered its existence only by accident, on a day when she was attempting to find paths where Mr. Darcy might not find her.

The maze was composed of tightly clipped yew, and at its center stood an abandoned marble fountain and a single wooden bench. As far as she could tell, no one ever went there except the gardener, who continued to trim the hedges even though his mistress was displeased with the labyrinth’s design.

It was, in short, the perfect place to read a letter that should never have existed.

Elizabeth quickened her step, her headache abating in proportion to her growing anticipation. The maze was at the far end of the grounds.

Stepping into the labyrinth, she was instantly enveloped in a stillness unlike any other on the property. The yews were so dense they absorbed most of the wind; the only sound was the uneven crunch of gravel beneath her feet.

Since the path to the center was already known to her, she arrived at the fountain quickly, heart pounding in her chest as if she had committed some great crime. The fountain itself was grotesque—two cherubs struggling with an urn that had, over the years, sprouted a tuft of lichen from its spout. The basin was empty of water; the surface speckled with last autumn’s leaves.

Elizabeth placed a handkerchief on the bench and seated herself before extracting the letter from her coat. The paper was smooth beneath her fingers—high quality. The blue tint on the pages led her to assume it was specially made.

The seal broke with a satisfying snap, and she unfolded it. Two whole sheets were covered on both sides, written in aprecise hand, utterly unlike the impetuous manner in which he had spoken the evening before.

He must have been awake all night, as she had been, though it looked as though his night had been spent more productively than hers.

She read the first side of a page. It was about Jane and Mr. Bingley, the page ending with, “The serenity of your sister’s countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched.”