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“I wish I could make it easier for you.”

“You are here. That helps.”

Elizabeth could scarcely bear the trust in the answer. She would have to bear it. Jane needed her attention, and no amount of wishing herself braver would perform the work in her hands.

“Shall I tell Charles to eat something?” Jane asked after a moment. “He will have forgotten.”

Reynolds smiled and went to the door. Sally was waiting outside for the next errand.

“Make certain he does,” Elizabeth added quietly.

The housekeeper passed on the message and returned to the bed. She looked down at the thread upon Elizabeth’s lap, then moved the small table closer so that nothing need be held unnecessarily.

Elizabeth kept her left palm against Jane. A little warmth came, faint beneath the draining cold. She did not abandon it to hurry the loop.

With her right fingers she began the turn they had practised.

Chapter Fifty-Two

THE SERVANT HAD scarcely closed the door before Charles asked whether another message ought to be sent upstairs.

Darcy looked at him. “To Mrs. Talbot?”

“Yes. She may require something now.”

“She has just sent word that she does not.”

“That was before he came downstairs.”

Darcy moved a chair nearer the fire. “Sit with me for a little while.”

“I am not tired.”

“I am.”

Charles looked at him, then sat. He rested his hands upon his knees and immediately rose again when somebody crossed the passage outside.

The footsteps continued toward the back of the house.

“I thought—”

“I know.”

Darcy had thought it, too.

It was Friday evening. Jane had been attended upstairs for hours, and the house continued to provide fires, meals, clean cloths, and answers to every ordinary question while withholding the one answer Charles wanted. Darcy knew more of what threatened her than his friend did. That knowledge gave him no means of obtaining news sooner.

He had seen Elizabeth briefly upon the landing earlier, before she returned to her sister. She had asked whether Charles had eaten. There had been no time for anything more private, and Darcy had not detained her to obtain an assurance she could not honestly give.

Now he sat with Charles and listened to the fire.

“She wanted me to go,” Charles said at last.

“Jane?”

“Mrs. Talbot said there was nothing more for me to do in the room just then. Jane told me to go with you. She smiled when she said it, as though she were sending me out for an agreeable walk.”

Darcy waited.