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Darcy looked at her. “Did you feel anything when you first arrived?”

“No announcement, if that is what you mean. I was tired, and I was trying to discover whether Jane would be comfortable. I did not step out of the carriage knowing how to be a witch.”

The last word startled him. She saw it, and her chin lifted.

“I have tried several other descriptions. None makes a ribbon move more respectably.”

“I was not objecting.”

“Then forgive me.” She glanced down at the paper. “I am still learning not to object myself.”

He read the copied passages about warmth and Elspeth’s care of women in the old chamber.

She told him last about touching the cover and briefly seeing a narrow bed, smelling damp wool, and hearing a key turn while awake.

Darcy’s fingers tightened upon the edge of his chair.

“A key.”

“I did not see who held it. Or even what it opened.”

“I was holding one.”

Both women looked at him.

“In my second dream,” he said.

He had meant to begin with that one. It was easier to describe, and its connection with the account she had given was plain enough to make the choice appear natural. Yet she had laid out her own experiences without selecting only those which could be told comfortably.

“There were two dreams,” he continued. “The first came after our visit to Mrs. Bell, the evening before we took the basket.”

Elizabeth looked at the date upon her paper. “That was why you asked me about Nicholas.”

“Yes.”

He had concealed the reason while wishing her to answer him freely. The recollection did not make the admission easier.

“You were in the first part of it,” he said.

She raised her eyes.

“In the house as it is now. At an open window.” He stopped, then made himself continue. “You came toward me. We kissed.”

Reynolds looked down at the papers without attempting to move any of them. Elizabeth remained very still.

“I beg your pardon. It is not a thing I had intended to describe.”

“You have not offended me,” Elizabeth said quietly.

Darcy took that assurance with more gratitude than he could show before the housekeeper.

“The room changed afterwards. The window was narrower. There was smoke beneath the beams, and your clothes were different. The woman called me Nicholas and said I had betrayed her. She was crying.”

“Did her face change?” Elizabeth asked.

“I cannot be certain. I knew you at the beginning. Afterward I was trying to understand why she was afraid of me.”

He had remembered the kiss many times and the tears with reluctance. He could not turn that difference into evidence merely because they were listening.