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Elizabeth’s eyes stung.

“I was speaking to myself.”

“Then I hope you will listen.”

“I am trying.”

Her sister’s fingers touched the back of her left hand, a small, weary attempt to comfort her. Elizabeth could scarcely endure being comforted by Jane at such a moment. She made herself receive it.

The candles burned lower. Reynolds replaced one, shielding the new flame with her hand. Beyond the bright space about the bed, the room had grown indistinct. The window showed only a dark reflection of the candle nearest it.

Mrs. Talbot asked Jane a question. Elizabeth listened to the answer without letting the warmth go. When the midwife asked her to move her chair a little aside, she did so, keeping her palm lightly upon Jane’s arm until they were settled again.

The thread eased.

She dared not look at it too eagerly. She could feel the change against her right fingers, a little space where there had been none. Her left palm remained warm.

Jane asked for water.

Mrs. Talbot passed the cup toward Elizabeth while Reynolds attended to the fresh cloths. Elizabeth let the working thread rest upon her lap and took the cup with her right hand. She could not leave Jane thirsty because she had made some progress with a piece of linen.

Jane lifted her head a little, and Mrs. Talbot supported her while Elizabeth raised the cup.

The warmth weakened.

Cold pressed beneath her left palm once more. Upon her lap the loose turn drew close, its free end moving across the linen packet.

Elizabeth looked at Reynolds.

“Will you take this, please?”

The housekeeper set down the cloths and came at once. She took the cup from Elizabeth’s right hand and held it while Jane finished drinking.

“I can do that,” Reynolds said quietly.

“Yes. Thank you.”

Elizabeth returned her right hand to the thread. The small loop had almost closed. She laid it against her fingers without forcing them through, allowing the warmth to gather beneath her left palm before she attempted to open anything.

Reynolds put the cup upon the table and drew it nearer her own place. Elizabeth need not leave the one thing only she could do whenever another useful task presented itself.

She looked at her sister.

Jane’s hair had fallen against her damp cheek again. Elizabeth wanted to brush it away. Instead she asked Reynolds, who did it gently and remained beside the pillow until the next pain had passed.

The warmth steadied.

Elizabeth had feared the strangeness within her for so long that even now some part of her expected to become somebody else when she used it fully. She looked at the face before her, the familiar curve of Jane’s cheek, the mouth she had watched smile at Charles across a crowded room, and felt no confusion about whom she loved or why she remained.

She was Elizabeth Bennet. Jane had asked her to stay.

The gift which had found her at Pemberley could serve that affection. She need not borrow another woman’s love or anger to make it her own.

Her right thumb moved the free end across her palm. She kept her left hand warm against Jane through the whole movement.

This time, when the pressure tightened, she did not answer it by pulling. She held the opening as gently as she could and continued the warmth, letting the strand move only as the turn allowed.

The loop widened.