Page 44 of A Most Inconvenient Murder

At last, Mr. Darcy rediscovered language.

“Mr. Collins?” he repeated, as though the words themselves required it. “That toad of a man—” He cut himself off. She suspected the rest was not meant to be said in mixed company.

Elizabeth laughed, sharp and involuntary. It splintered the cold and, for a moment, even the tension. “He is my cousin, and the next in line to inherit Longbourn when my father passes.”

Mr. Darcy’s face, which had been a study in horror, now collapsed into incredulity. “And he—”

“At first, his interest was directed at Jane,” said Elizabeth. She tasted the oddness of this, even as she explained it. “My mother told him she was already spoken for. So, he tried for me. But I could not bear—” She spread her hands, unable to finish.

Mr. Darcy stared at her, unblinking, and then—quite suddenly—laughed. Not a full-throated thing, but a sound so honest and unprepared that she found herself staring at him as if she had never seen a man laugh before.

“I am sorry,” he said at once, trying to smother it. “But the very notion—”

She joined in, though hers was more of a snort. “It is quite ridiculous.”

“No,” he said, “it is exactly as I should have expected of your family’s circumstances, though I am not proud of my own expectations in this matter.”

Elizabeth felt the heat in her cheeks, but this time it was not mortification, only the unfamiliar sensation of being understood without cost.

They stood like that, facing each other across three feet of frozen mud, until a rider appeared around the curve of the lane. It was not a postman—too well-dressed, too controlled in the seat—but a servant of some standing, the livery unfamiliar.

Mr. Darcy moved toward the lane, signaling him with a lift of the hand. The rider slowed, then stopped, dismounted, and produced a small package from the bag at his side.

“For you, sir,” he said, offering it.

Mr. Darcy took it. At once Elizabeth knew—this was the Bow Street report.

She felt her pulse in her ears. The object was in plain wrapping, neatly tied with cord, sealed with red wax.

Mr. Darcy examined it but did not open it.

He turned to Elizabeth, voice lower. “Would you walk with me? I prefer to open this out here.”

She nodded, unable to muster sarcasm or even a token protest. The two of them left the lane, taking the narrow path that ran along the edge of the Rosings’ south lawn, and followed it in silence to the little bench beneath the dead oak—shielded by the curve of the hedge and left them nearly invisible from the house or road.

Mr. Darcy brushed the frost from the seat, motioned her to sit, then took the place beside her. The proximity was intimate in a way that neither had prepared for, and yet, neither flinched from it.

He held the package out to her. “Would you?”

Elizabeth took it, fingers numb with cold and something more complicated. She found the knot at the end of the cord, tugged it loose, broke the seal, and let the brown paper fall away.

Inside was a folded sheaf of paper; the sheet was not sealed, bearing the heavy hand of a coroner’s report.

The text was brief and factual. Bow Street had examined the contents of the tin and confirmed that it contained cyanide in sufficient quantity to kill within an hour of contact with the lips.

Elizabeth read it in silence—twice—before passing it to Mr. Darcy, who read it with the same attention, his lips tightening at the confirmation.

When he finished, he closed the report and rested it on his knee. He said, “It was exactly as you reasoned.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “It was exactly aswereasoned, Mr. Darcy. I could not have managed any of it alone.”

He turned toward her, and she saw his expression was wholly unguarded. “Nor I,” he said. “I do not think I ever did anything important in my life with another person. Even the guardianship of my sister, though Richard is technically co-guardian, he usually leaves decisions up to me. It is an entirely new sensation.”

Elizabeth found herself smiling. It was not a triumphant smile, nor even a particularly happy one, but it was real, and it lasted.

They sat, side by side, as the sun’s early light finally climbed the hedge and found them.

The evidence was complete. The case, at least on paper, was closed.