courtesy. Then, releasing it quickly, he stepped back.
“Good day, Miss Bennet,” he said softly.
“And to you, Mr. Darcy,” she responded. He returned her a quizzical smile as her eyes once more curiously probed his, then with a tip of his hat, he turned back to Rosings Park. Once more in the shelter of the trees, Darcy smacked the malacca smartly into his left palm. This was progress! By Heaven, he could hardly wait until tomorrow!
The next morning it rained, and although the landowner in Darcy was grateful for it, the rest of him was reduced to pacing the halls of Rosings and growling at his cousin for little or no reason. Finally, when Richard could take no more of his bad humor, Darcy retreated behind a book in a corner of his aunt’s well-stocked but little used library. Doubtless she would have read them all if she had been a great proficient, Darcy thought wickedly and then chastised himself for his lack of charity. What was wrong with him? He knew what was wrong with him! He wanted to be in the grove with Elizabeth, her hand again on his arm, her closeness filling his senses.
Letting out a great sigh, he turned back to the book he had carelessly selected and tried to concentrate on the printed words before him, but a soft click of the bolt in the doorknob brought his head up out of it with a start. Was Richard trying to sneak up on him, the nod cock! The door swung open only inches before revealing the hand behind such stealth. Darcy’s eyes widened in surprise. Anne! The slight form of his cousin slipped inside the library and hastily, though softly, closed the door behind her. But no Mrs. Jenkinson! Darcy’s brow crooked in surprise. This was likely the first time he had ever seen Anne without her companion hovering over her. Not pausing to look about her, Anne walked straight to the shelves between the north-facing windows and began an anxious scan of them, book by book. The rigidity of her figure and the small sighs of frustration which carried across the room made it clear to Darcy that she was not meeting with success in her search of the lower shelves and would soon require the library stairs. His sympathy now bound to his curiosity, he rose from his chair.
“May I be —” He got no further. Upon hearing him, Anne cried out in alarm and whirled about to face him with such a look of fright upon her pale countenance that Darcy feared she would faint on the spot. For a moment both of them stood motionless, staring at each other until Anne’s eyes shifted away and she seemed, to Darcy, to shrink in upon herself.
“Cousin.” He began again, his voice pitched low. “May I be of some assistance? Tell me what you are looking for that I may help you search.” Anne looked up at him then, seeming to measure his sincerity. “Anne?” he pressed her gently.
“Wordsworth,” she whispered finally. “The first volume of his poems. Mrs. Jenkinson took it away before — Mama does not approve…” She stopped and blushed. “Please, I must find it.”
“Certainly,” Darcy assured her and turned to the shelves she had been searching. “Do you have reason to believe it here?”
“Mrs. Jenkinson always puts the books I have read here. Mama then knows what I have been reading.”
“I begin to understand!” Darcy smiled down at her before stepping closer to the shelves. “The book shall be found, Cousin.” The look of relief and gratitude Anne cast upon him was sad to see, and it tugged at Darcy that until this visit he had little considered how her life must be. The least he could do was find her book, and he set about it with a will.
“Aha! Found it!” Darcy plucked his quarry from between the two books where it had been wedged on a shelf above even his head. “Anne, here it is!” he cried and held it out to her. His cousin reached up, but he released it too quickly, and the volume fluttered to the floor, pages scattering everywhere. “Anne! Forgive me.” Darcy immediately bent to retrieve the pages.
“No! Do not concern yourself!” His cousin bent to the ruin of her book, but Darcy was before her. Turning over the volume, he saw that not a single page was missing. Puzzled, he took up several of the sheets of paper that lay around them.
“No! Please, give them to me,” Anne begged him. “Darcy!”
He rose then from the scatter and stepped away, his eyes traveling between the sheets he held in his hand and his cousin’s distraught countenance. Although he had spared them only a glance, he knew what they were. “Anne, allow me to look at them.”
“You will laugh at me!” she charged him.
“I promise, I shall not laugh,” he countered, looking straight into her fearful eyes. Taking the downward cast of her eyes as reluctant agreement to his request, he walked with them over to the window and began his perusal. He could feel Anne’s eyes upon him as he did so, her anxiety an almost physical thing occupying the distance between them, but he read on, unhurried. Several minutes passed until, turning over the last sheet, he looked to his cousin.
“These are quite good, you know. I especially like this one.” He handed her the top sheet.
“You do…truly?” Anne looked up at him uncertainly.
“Yes, truly. How long have you been writing poetry, Cousin?”
A hint of pleasure shone in Anne’s face at his words. “Almost a year now.”
“And have you shown these to no one?”
Anne shook her head. “No one, not even Mrs. Jenkinson. Mama does not approve of poetry, and Mrs. Jenkinson must answer to her. It is best if she does not know. I was working on these today and was surprised by her while I was consulting Wordsworth and so secreted my poems in its leaves.”
“But, Anne,” Darcy protested, “you cannot keep this forever to yourself! Share them with your family, at the least!” He sat down next to her and took her hands in his. For the first time, she did not flinch or pull away. “Anne?”
“You need not fear being saddled with me as your wife, Cousin. I know Mama wishes you to believe that I am becoming well, but I fear she is deluding herself. I am not better, Cousin, and I have come to the conviction that I will never be healthy enough to marry anyone.”
“Anne! My dear girl!” Darcy held her hands tighter.
“That was when I began to write,” she whispered near his shoulder. “I wanted finally to say something, create something…something beautiful, perhaps…without Mama’s interference or her criticism.” She paused, her breath catching in her throat. “I know people think little of me; and I do not blame them, for there is little to see or admire. But, I feel things, Cousin, deeply; and when I became convinced of my future, those feelings seemed to gather and burst through to paper.” She looked up at him, only a hint of a tear shining in her eyes. “I will never marry, never have children. These are my legacy, poor as they are. And I am not yet finished, not finished feeling, not finished writing what I feel. I could not bear Her Ladyship’s scorn nor, should she change her opinion, that she puff me about. Can you understand, Cousin? Will you keep my secrets?”
“Dear God, Anne!” Darcy stared at his cousin, then at their clasped hands as helplessness consumed him. Of course he would remain silent, but what did that signify in the face of her confession? “Can you be mistaken?” he finally managed.
“There is no mistake, Cousin.” Anne looked at him with the compassion he should have been offering up to her.
He looked down at her small hand resting in supplication upon his sleeve. There must be more comfort he could give than his vow. “I promise. Your secrets are safe, Anne. I would that there were more than my mere silence to merit your gratitude. I have avoided and ignored you shamefully, and I am heartily sorry for it.”
Anne gently disengaged her hand from his clasp and rose from the settee. “Do not berate yourself, Cousin. It was a game Her Ladyship forced upon us. Whereas I had not the strength or courage to gainsay her, you have handled her brilliantly. For that, you have my thanks.” A weary sigh escaped her lips, causing Darcy to rise in concern. “No, I am just a little tired. Please, I must return to my room. I am supposed to be resting.” She cast him a rueful smile. “It has been good finally to tell someone, Darcy. Strange that it should be you.” And with a curtsy, she was gone from the library, its door shutting softly behind her, leaving Darcy to the contemplation of the rain spattering against the great windows.
Anne did not appear at dinner that evening. Mrs. Jenkinson arrived late in the salon outside the dining room with her charge’s plea that she be excused due to a sick headache and fatigue. Dinner was, therefore, a desultory affair, for which the inclement weather was held accountable and for which an evening of billiards was prescribed as the most promising means of relief by an emboldened and fidgety Richard. His hopes were to be dashed, at least temporarily, by a demand from his aunt that he and his cousin undertake to relieve her boredom by presenting themselves at the card table in the drawing room immediately after their brandy.
