Page 31 of A Most Inconvenient Murder

He offered his arm, not in the perfunctory fashion of the drawing room, but as if it were a question she could refuse.

She took it, and together they stepped into the corridor, then quickly into the next room.

As he let her out the French door, Mr. Darcy said softly, “We will find the truth, Miss Elizabeth. I give you my word.”

She glanced at him, saw in his eyes the same determination that thrummed in her own chest. “Yes,” she said. “We will.”

She walked away, down the path that he had indicated, picturing him dashing up the steps to his chamber to make certain she was safe.

Elizabeth could not help but feel that the letter at her heart, unread but ever present, was not the only message awaiting its time.

Chapter 10

Upon her arrival at the parsonage, Elizabeth was notified that Mr. and Mrs. Collins had already left for their engagement at Rosings, and that she was expected to follow.

Changing as quickly as she could, she returned to Rosings along the same path, walking around to the front entrance.

As the footman took her coat, Mr. Darcy justhappenedto be walking past. He offered to escort her to see Lady Catherine.

They walked side by side toward the next ordeal with Lady Catherine and the slow unwinding of Rosings’ secrets.

Elizabeth entered the drawing room at Rosings with every wild impulse locked behind a mask of practiced calm.

She had come prepared for the atmosphere to be as heated as it had been the last time. Still, it seemed the staff, determined to demonstrate loyalty to their mistress in her hour of distress, had exceeded even their usual excess. The fire under the marble mantel roared at a size better suited to the deepest of winter than a bright afternoon in April. The faintest whiff of rosewater contended with a much less subtle bloom of hothouse lilies, arranged in a blue-and-white vase so tall and slender it seemed to exist solely to provide Lady Catherine with a thing to mention, and then to mention again.

Every person in the room was already arranged as she had seen before, but it struck her as more theatrical now. Lady Catherine herself occupied the largest chair, as always, as if she were a monarch at a private audience. The cane, which Elizabethhad never seen used for its intended purpose, lay across her lap like a baton that she only used to conduct the rest of the household. She was mid-monologue when Elizabeth arrived, expounding on the necessity of strict discipline in managing a parish school. Mr. Collins, standing a few feet away, bobbed his head at each new imperative as if the fate of England depended on the strength of his approval.

Colonel Fitzwilliam, holding a teacup, was occupying the window seat, his gaze scanning the room. His posture was such that made Elizabeth think he had much experience detecting both threats and opportunities in every crowd.

After escorting Elizabeth to her assigned chair, Mr. Darcy stationed himself near the writing table at the far side of the room, as if he had started towards the fire but thought better of it at the last moment. She could tell, even at this distance, that he was in a state of retreat: all his attention was funneled inward, the line of his jaw tense, his eyes fixed somewhere just above the rim of a ledger book that lay closed on the table. Thinking… always thinking. He was at once the most visible man in the room and the most absent, a paradox she had come to understand in him and, lately, even to admire.

Miss Anne de Bourgh was seated in her usual chair near the fireplace, one shawl draped over her shoulders and another over her knees. Hands folded in her lap, her gaze traveled repeatedly from the burning logs to the window and back again. Elizabeth guessed it was her secret wish for the fire to be gone and the window to be opened.

Beside Miss de Bourgh, and marginally behind her, perched Mrs. Jenkinson. The companion’s attire was as neutral as the rest of her persona: a clean but nondescript gray dress, a small cap rested at a slightly imbalanced angle, and a work-basket in her lap containing the same unfinished piece of whiteembroidery that Elizabeth had seen her with last week. For all the impression of labor, the needle had not advanced more than a few centimeters, as if Mrs. Jenkinson’s true occupation was something other than needlework.

Charlotte had claimed the other end of the settee Elizabeth occupied, as usual. She greeted Elizabeth with a squeeze of her hand, the pressure communicating caution, watchfulness, and readiness.

Elizabeth accepted a cup of tea from the maid. She settled herself more firmly beside Charlotte, the angle of their knees suggesting casual intimacy but also a readiness to rise at the first sign of trouble. She did not bother to greet Lady Catherine, who had not paused in her monologue to allow for the interruption of their entrance; nor did she glance at Mr. Collins, who had turned his face toward Elizabeth now with an expression of nervous expectation, as if he had been waiting for her to put forward yet another urgent matter upon her arrival.

As Elizabeth took a sip of her tea, Mr. Collins relaxed and returned his full attention to his patroness.

Then Elizabeth began to watch.

Not Lady Catherine, whose need to dominate the room required no observation, but the edges of the scene, the places where power accumulated without being noticed, the subtle transfer of attention from person to person, the way that tension built up and resolved itself within a gaze, the twitch of a wrist, and the half-swallowed word.

It was not difficult to detect, after ten minutes’ careful observation, that Mrs. Jenkinson was the most attentive person in the room, not to Lady Catherine, and not even primarily to Miss de Bourgh, whose small movements and inhalations she tracked with a kind of practiced vigilance. No, it was thecompany as a whole that Mrs. Jenkinson mapped with her eyes, always recalibrating her attention to the points of greatest potential.

Colonel Fitzwilliam shifted in his seat, and Mrs. Jenkinson’s chin lifted a bit. Her eyes remained upon him until his movement ceased.

A footman entered with a fresh pot of tea, pausing near Mr. Darcy. Mrs. Jenkinson stilled entirely until the footman retreated.

Lady Catherine raised her voice to hammer home a point about the moral laxity of the lower classes. Mrs. Jenkinson looked at Miss de Bourgh, scrutinizing her young charge for signs of distress.

Elizabeth, who had once prided herself on the ability to remain unseen in a crowded room, found herself impressed by the quiet efficiency of this surveillance. It was, in fact, the exact opposite of Lady Catherine’s method—not the exercise of force, but the accumulation of detail so sophisticated that it rarely attracted notice at all.

She let her gaze drift, careful not to let it rest too long on Mrs. Jenkinson, but attentive enough to note the particulars. The angle of the companion’s chair allowed a direct line of sight to both the fire and the two principal doors. The subtle, almost imperceptible tensing of her posture whenever Miss de Bourgh’s hand moved toward her teacup, as if ready to intervene at the first sign of spillage.

It was as if Mrs. Jenkinson was expertly managing the environment to ensure that nothing and no one entered or exited her orbit unaccounted for.