Pride and Pursuit: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Riana Everly

Author:Riana Everly [Everly, Riana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Alternate Universe
ISBN: 9781778129759
Goodreads: 218177339
Publisher: Bay Crest Press
Published: 2024-09-29T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Confessions

What had he said? Darcy shook his head at Elizabeth’s sudden change of mood. Was she crying? She had dashed off at once towards the cart, but he thought he had seen the mist of tears in her beautiful eyes. He made a move towards her to offer comfort and to apologise for whatever he had said, but then recalled his sister, just days ago.

“Leave me be, Will,” Georgie had wept. “When a girl’s heart is broken, she sometimes wishes for solitude, not for the presence of the man who broke it.” At the time, Darcy had been alarmed that Georgiana believed him to be the cause of her distress, rather than that vile Wickham, although Georgie had corrected herself later. But now, when it seemed that he had caused Elizabeth’s present unhappiness, the intent asserted itself on his brain.

He would refrain from intruding upon her misery for now, and hoped that she might condescend to confide in him at some later time.

He stretched and went to see once more to Dobbin’s needs, allowing Elizabeth some privacy whilst she spread the hay into some semblance of a mattress and prepared for sleep. He stoked the fire and checked the clothing, which would hopefully be dry by morning, and arranged the smaller damp canvases around the area as best he could to guard it from any winds.

There were no more tasks to delay the inevitable. It was time to join Elizabeth in the cart. He was already in his nightshirt, so all he needed to do was crawl into the cart under the canopy and try to pretend she was not there.

But the sounds emanating from the cart were not reassuring. Elizabeth seemed to be moving and rolling over again and again, clearly not comfortable.

“Is there a problem?” he whispered through the growing darkness. “I hear you shifting. Is something amiss?”

There was a long space of silence, then the sound of her moving around again.

“The hay,” she breathed at last, “is not what I had imagined. It is rough and irritating to my feet and head, where my blanket does not cover. I have tried to arrange the blanket to cover it all, but then there is not enough to cover me! If only we had thought to purchase some other lengths of cloth. I would take down the canvas canopy, but we need it to keep us dry. Oh, bother! I might be better trying to sleep on the cold and wet stones.”

She sounded quite miserable. Darcy could picture her, brows drawn close, bottom lip quivering, and he wanted to do nothing as much as pull her into another comforting embrace. But that was impossible.

She shifted again, a restless sound from under the canopy. He had a thought.

“We could…” Darcy started, but then went silent.

“Yes?”

He chastised himself for his foolish notion. “No. It would never do. I cannot believe I even thought of it.”

More shifting, then a frustrated short from the cart. “What is it, Will? Just say it. This is no time or place for your elevated social niceties.

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