Chapter Text
The doctor came without delay.
His step sounded brisk upon the corridor boards, his manner composed in that particular way of men long accustomed to urgency. He entered with purpose, gloves still in hand, his coat carrying the faint chill of the morning air, and paused only briefly to take in the scene before him.
Mary sat as she had been left, propped carefully against her pillows; the colour while not yet fully returned to her face, no longer the alarming pallor of the previous day; her breathing perhaps shallow, but steady enough to satisfy a casual glance.
It was not a casual glance he gave her.
He moved closer at once, setting aside his gloves, his attention narrowing with professional focus.
“Well then, Miss Bennet,” he said, not unkindly, though with the brisk assurance of habit, “we shall see how you fare this morning.”
Mary looked at him.
There was awareness there now, clear and present, following his movement, marking his approach.
It was not that she lacked understanding. L
That much was evident.
“Can you tell me how you feel?” he asked.
A pause.
Her lips parted.
Nothing came.
The faint crease returned to her brow, deeper now, more pronounced for the effort that followed. Her throat worked, visibly, as though the word formed somewhere beyond reach, trapped where it could neither advance nor retreat.
“Y…”
The sound faltered, dissolved, leaving only breath behind.
The doctor’s expression did not change at once. He had seen weakness before, had seen the lingering effects of shock, of fever, of distress upon the body.
“Again,” he said, gently enough. “There is no hurry.”
Mary tried.
The effort showed more clearly this time. It touched every part of her; the slight tightening of her shoulders, the faint tremor in her hand where it rested against the coverlet, the concentration that gathered in her eyes as though the act required all that she possessed.
“Y… y…”
The sound broke apart entirely.
Silence followed.
The doctor’s gaze sharpened.
He reached for her wrist, his fingers settling lightly against it, measuring the pulse that answered there. Regular. A little weak, but not alarmingly so.
“Have you pain?” he asked.
Mary shook her head, a small, deliberate motion.
“Dizziness? Confusion?”
Another small shake.
She understood him.
That much was certain.
He withdrew his hand slowly, studying her now with greater care. His attention shifted, assessing, searching for something less easily named. He watched the way her eyes tracked him, the clarity within them. He noted the absence of tremor beyond what weakness might explain.
“Try once more,” he said, quieter now.
Mary drew a breath.
It was a careful thing, that breath, measured and shallow as though she feared the consequence of taking more. Her lips parted again.
Nothing.
The frustration came more swiftly now. It could not be hidden. It showed in the tightening of her jaw, in the faint, helpless shift of her fingers against the coverlet.
The doctor straightened.
For the first time, uncertainty touched his expression.
“It may be,” he began slowly, choosing his words with care, “that the shock to the system has been… considerable.”
Mrs Gardiner, who had remained close, watching with mounting concern, leaned forward slightly. “You believe it will pass?”
“I believe,” he replied, with measured caution, “that the body has endured a severe trial. Deprivation of air, even for a short duration as it was, may produce effects not immediately predictable.” He glanced back at Mary. “The faculties are not… impaired in the manner one might expect from fever alone. She understands, clearly. Yet speech somehow…”
He stopped.
There was no ready conclusion.
No neat explanation to offer.
“I have seen,” he said at last, more quietly, “cases in which the voice fails following such an event. Temporary, in most instances. Though the mechanism…” He shook his head, faintly. “It is not well understood.”
Mrs Gardiner’s hand tightened upon Mary’s. “But she will recover?”
A pause.
“I see no cause,” he said, carefully, “to believe this state permanent.”
It was not certainty.
It was the closest he could give.
He turned back to Mary, his tone softening. “You must not distress yourself, Miss Bennet. Effort will not hasten the return of what has been… interrupted. On the contrary, it may hinder it.”
Mary watched him.
She did not appear reassured.
“Rest,” he continued. “Quiet. A warm room, free from agitation. You must be kept from exertion, both of body and of mind. In time, we shall see improvement.”
In time.
The words settled into the room with quiet weight.
He gave a few further instructions, simple things, practical things only, before taking his leave.
The door closed.
Silence followed.
It did not last long.
Mr Gardiner, with gentle firmness, insisted that his wife withdraw, that she rest herself. She protested, softly at first, then with greater insistence, though the fatigue of the night lay too plainly upon her to be denied.
“You have done all that could be done,” he told her. “And more besides. She is safe now. You must rest.”
Finally relenting, she gave a soft touch to Mary’s hand, “I shall return shortly, my dear.”
Mary nodded.
The door closed once more.
The room grew still.
And Tom remained.
He had taken the chair beside the bed almost without thought, as though it had always been his place to sit there. His posture was composed, outwardly calm, though the tension had not entirely left him. It lingered in the set of his shoulders, in the quiet watchfulness of his gaze.
He had not trusted himself to speak since the doctor’s departure, not when there was so much he did not understand, and nothing he could do to mend it.
It was enough, for the moment, that she was there.
That she breathed.
He would have remained so indefinitely, content (if such a word could be applied in such a context) to keep his vigil in watchful silence.
But Mary moved.
Her hand shifted from where it rested atop the coverlet, hesitated only briefly, and then, with a deliberation that betrayed effort, extended toward him.
For a moment, he did not respond, as though uncertain whether the motion had been intended, whether it was conscious or merely the wandering of a weakened limb.
Then her fingers reached further.
Seeking.
Him.
He leaned forward at once, his hand meeting hers before the effort could falter, his fingers closing gently around her own.
She held on.
Tom stilled.
Mary’s gaze lifted to his.
Her lips parted.
“D…”
The sound caught.
She tried again, more urgently this time.
“D… d… d…”
The effort cost her. It showed in the strain at her throat, in the faint tremor that passed through her hand where it held his.
Tom’s breath caught, almost imperceptibly.
He understood.
“Do not,” he said, very quietly.
Her fingers tightened.
He did not look away from her.
“I am not going anywhere.”
The words settled between them, steady, certain.
Mary’s grip did not loosen.
Nor did his.
Ryder returned in the evening with the careless brightness of a man who had spent the day determinedly occupied elsewhere - Tom was unsure of where he had been but he kept the faint echo of trees and lakes and outdoors about him, sitting uneasily now amidst the heavier atmosphere inside the inn.
Tom was where he had been for much of the past days.
At Mary’s door.
He did not lean this time, nor pace, nor sit. He stood, still and upright, as though the act of remaining there required no effort at all, though the truth of it lay in the set of his shoulders, in the quiet vigilance that had not once left him.
Ryder slowed as he approached. He had timed it well - having arrived at a moment when Tom alone waited on Mary; Mr Gardiner attended to urgent business in his room and Mrs Gardiner fetching an evening meal from the cook for them all to enjoy.
For a moment, he said nothing, as though uncertain whether he would be received at all.
“Hayward.”
Tom turned his head, just enough to acknowledge him.
“You have returned.”
There was no warmth in the observation but neither was there hostility. It was simply a fact.
Ryder hesitated, then gave a small, almost self-conscious nod. “Yes. Miss Bingley and the Hursts insisted upon… a number of excursions.” He gestured vaguely, as though the details themselves held little weight now. “I came as soon as I was able.”
Tom inclined his head once.
Silence lingered between them, thin but present.
“May I see her?” It came quieter this time.
Tom’s gaze rested on him properly then.
“It is not my decision,” he said, evenly.
Ryder exhaled, a trace of impatience beneath the breath. “Yes, you have said as much before.”
“And I will continue to do so,” Tom replied, just as calm, though there was something firmer beneath it now. “It remains hers.”
But he gestured at the door and Ryder did not wait for further permission, stepping past the threshold.
The room within was softly lit, the last of the evening light filtering through the narrow curtains, casting everything in muted gold.
Mary sat upright in the bed, a book (his book. Lyrical Ballads, if Tom wasn’t mistaken, and he very rarely was) in her hands.
She had been arranged with care, the pillows placed precisely, the coverlet drawn neatly across her lap. A light dressing gown had been laid over her nightclothes, its folds carefully smoothed, its presence lending her an air of composed propriety that might, at a distance, have suggested nothing at all had been amiss.
She looked well.
She looked like herself.
Ryder stopped, just for a moment, as though the sight of her struck him more than he had anticipated.
Then he crossed the room.
“Miss Bennet,” he said, his voice softening as he reached her side, his hand already extending to take hers, “I’m most relieved to see you looking so well after…”
He faltered, the words trailing where they could not quite find their place.
Mary inclined her head.
She did not speak.
Ryder did not notice.
He continued, pressing gently onward, as though speech alone might bridge whatever distance remained.
“Miss Bennet, I … I wanted to sincerely apologise for what happened.” His hand tightened slightly around hers. “I put you and Mr Hayward in grave danger. I’m full of regret.”
Her expression softened, a faint smile touched her lips.
Still, she said nothing.
A pause followed.
It stretched, longer than comfort allowed, though Ryder pressed on, mistaking her silence for restraint rather than inability.
“It was never my intention to intrude on your time there,” he said, his tone shifting, becoming more deliberate. “But I needed Hayward’s help, and I…”
He stopped, drawing a breath, steadying himself.
“You see… Lady Catherine de Bourgh unexpectedly named me as her heir.”
The words settled into the room with quiet significance.
Mary’s gaze flickered.
Not to Mr Ryder.
But to Mr Hayward.
It was brief, almost imperceptible, but it was there.
Tom did not move.
He remained where he stood, near the corner of the room, his expression carefully controlled, though something tightened faintly at the edge of it.
Mary’s gaze returned to Ryder.
He mistook the shift for interest.
“I find myself, quite suddenly, in possession of means I had never anticipated,” he continued, a note of earnestness entering his voice. “Security. Position. The ability to offer… more than I could before.”
He leaned forward slightly, his grip on her hand firm, insistent without quite realising it.
“I have never met anyone who makes me think like you do. Who makes me see the world like you do. I’ve certainly never met anyone who speaks as plainly as you do and I admire that greatly.”
Mary watched him.
Listened.
Silent.
“Although there is something of a gulf between my ideals and the world we live in,” he went on, a faint, almost self-aware smile touching his expression, “I like to think you and I could carve out an interesting existence. Together.”
He drew a breath.
“I shall now do what I should have done weeks ago.”
His voice steadied.
“Miss Bennet… would you consider accepting my hand in marriage?”
The question hung in the air.
Mary’s breath caught, her fingers tightening slightly in his grasp, her lips parting.
“I…”
The sound broke.
She tried again, more urgently, the effort immediate and visible.
“I… I… I…”
The word refused her.
Frustration rose, swift and undeniable, and she turned. Not to Mr Ryder, but to Mr Hayward.
She shook her head, once, sharply, as though denying the failure of her own voice, as though sheer will might force it free.
It did not.
“I…”
Nothing.
The silence deepened.
Ryder’s expression shifted, confusion breaking through at last.
“Miss Bennet?”
“Mr Ryder,” Mr Hayward said, his tone controlled, though firm beneath it, “Miss Bennet is fatigued.”
Ryder glanced at him, startled. “I only…”
“She requires rest,” Tom continued, stepping forward now, placing himself not between them, but near enough that the distinction scarcely mattered. “This is neither the time nor the condition in which such matters ought to be pressed.”
Ryder hesitated.
Looked back at Mary.
She withdrew her hand, and that was answer enough.
Something in his expression faltered.
“…very well,” he said, though without conviction. “I did not mean to distress you,” he said, more quietly now, though the certainty he had entered with had thinned. “I shall… leave you to your rest.”
Mary inclined her head once more.
Ryder did not look back again as he crossed the room and stepped out into the corridor.
Tom followed, closing the door gently behind him.
The quiet of the hallway settled around them.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then, abruptly:
“What is wrong with her?”
Tom’s gaze shifted to him.
“Wrong?”
“Yes,” Ryder said, frustration threading through the word now, sharpened by confusion. “It is not that she would not answer. She could not…”
“There is nothing wrong with her.”
Tom held Ryder’s gaze, something steady and unyielding beneath the calm.
“She nearly drowned,” he said, his voice lower now. “She nearly died. That does not come without consequence.”
The words landed.
Ryder said nothing.
For once, there was no ready reply. No defence.
Only silence.
He looked away first.
A faint tension passed through his expression, something unsettled, something he did not care to examine too closely.
Then, without another word, Mr Ryder turned.
Mr Ryder left.
And Mr Ryder did not return.
Tom remained where he was for a moment. The corridor felt colder now, emptier for the absence of the other man, though whether that absence brought relief or unease he could not immediately determine, instead choosing to turn the latch once more and step back into the room.
Mary sat where she had been, yet not as she had been.
The book lay open still upon her lap, but her hands no longer held it with that careful composure. One pressed hard against the page, crumpling it slightly at the edge, while the other had risen to her mouth, as though to contain something that would not be contained.
Her breathing had quickened.
Not the shallow strain of illness, but something sharper. Uneven.
Her eyes, when he saw them, were bright in a way that did not belong to health.
“Miss Bennet?”
She startled at the sound of his voice, her head turning toward him at once. For a moment, something like relief flickered there, swift and unguarded.
Then it broke.
Her expression tightened, the fragile control she had maintained before him, before Ryder, before them all, giving way with quiet, undeniable force. Her hand dropped from her mouth, only to hover uncertainly between them, as though reaching for something she could not quite grasp.
Tom crossed the room without hesitation.
“Was it Mr Ryder?” Tom began, his tone hardening almost imperceptibly, “did he distress you?” She shook her head, her fingers curled against the book, tightening further, the page bending beneath them.
“Then I…” he paused, a faint frown touching his brow, “did I?”
Her gaze snapped to his.
The answer there was so immediate, so absolute, that it stilled the thought before it could fully form. No.
Not him.
Never him.
The breath he had not realised he held eased, though only slightly.
“Then what is it?” he asked more quietly.
Mary made a sound then - not one recognisable as a word, merely a broken, frustrated breath that seemed to catch somewhere deep within her chest, rising only to falter before it could become anything more.
Her hand lifted again, this time not toward him, but toward the book. She pressed it forward, not offering it so much as presenting it, her fingers trembling faintly where they held it open.
Tom’s gaze dropped.
The page had been creased where her hand had gripped it, the neat lines of print disrupted by the slight distortion. He recognised it at once, though that was not unusual. He had known the volume well, it having once been his, after all.
He looked back to her.
“I do not understand,” he said, though gently now, the confusion tempered by something softer.
Mary’s expression shifted, the frustration deepening into something far more fragile, her hand hovered over the page, then tapped it once, twice, the motion unsteady but deliberate. Her gaze did not leave his, as though urging him to see what she could not say.
Tom’s eyes returned to the book.
He read the line silently.
Then the one below it.
Perfectly clear.
He frowned faintly, his mind turning it over, searching for what she meant him to find.
“Is it the print?” he asked after a moment. “Is it too small? Your glasses?”
She shook her head at once.
“No,” he said, more to himself than to her, the thought already shifting. “You see it clearly.”
Her fingers tightened again.
He looked closer.
Not at the words themselves, but at her. At the way her gaze rested upon the page, not moving across it, not following the line, but fixed. As though each word stood alone, disconnected from the next.
As though there was no meaning in them.
The realisation came quietly.
And when it did, something in his expression changed.
“You cannot…” he began, and stopped.
Mary’s breath caught.
Her hand dropped from the page, only to curl tightly into the fabric of the coverlet, as though the absence of that meaning left her with nothing to hold.
She shook her head again.
Not in denial this time.
In confirmation.
Her eyes closed briefly, as though the admission itself cost her something, though she had not spoken a word.
“You understand me,” he said slowly.
Mary nodded.
“You understand what is said to you.”
Another nod.
“But the words…” he glanced once more at the page, “…they do not return to you.”
Her fingers tightened again, her breath unsteady.
Yes.
For a moment, neither spoke.
There was nothing to say that would lessen it. Nothing that would restore what had been taken.
Tom drew in a slow breath.
Then, very carefully, he reached for the book.
Mary did not resist.
Her grip loosened at once, though her gaze followed it, fixed upon the page as though it might yet yield something if only she tried hard enough.
“It is not gone,” he said, though quietly, not as a reassurance he could prove, but as something he chose to believe. “It is only… out of reach for the present.”
Her eyes flickered to his.
There was doubt there.
He did not argue it.
Instead, he shifted slightly in his chair, drawing it closer to the bed, and opened the book more fully in his hands. The creased page smoothed beneath his fingers, the lines settling back into place.
“May I?” he asked.
Mary hesitated.
Only for a moment.
Then she inclined her head.
Tom began to read.
“No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip”
Mary watched him, her gaze lingering on his face, on the movement of his mouth as the words formed, as though she sought them there, as though perhaps they might return to her if she could only follow closely enough.
Tom did not stop.
“And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
“Most musical, most melancholy” Bird!
A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.”
He continued, the rhythm of the poem settling into something steady, and slowly something in her eased.
Her gaze drifted not away entirely, but downward, softening, no longer searching, no longer straining to catch what would not come. The tension in her hand loosened, her fingers uncurling where they had pressed so tightly into the fabric.
Her breathing steadied.
The lines she could not read, the words she could not summon, existed now beyond her reach - and yet, they were not lost entirely.
They lived in his voice.
Clear. Certain.
For the first time since the frustration had taken hold, she allowed herself to stop trying.
Her eyes closed.
Tom’s voice did not falter.
“Nature’s sweet voices always full of love
And joyance! ’Tis the merry Nightingale”
If he noticed, he gave no sign. The cadence remained unchanged, the tone steady, the words unfolding as they had been written, untouched by the quiet shift that had settled over her.
Mary listened, the poem and his voice becoming indistinguishable - both sound and sense, woven together.
It was beyond frustrating, everything that had been taken from her.
And yet not taken, which somehow made it all the more worse.
Her thoughts moved as they always had, clear and ordered, words forming with perfect precision in the quiet of her mind. She could think of anything she wished to say, could construct it as carefully as ever she had before, each phrase measured, each meaning exact.
But when she reached for it, when she attempted to bring it forth into the world, it vanished.
Unreachable.
It lingered somewhere just beyond her grasp, as though separated from her by a thin, invisible barrier she could neither see nor understand. She knew the word. She could feel it. She could almost hear it, if she listened closely enough to herself.
And still, she could not speak it.
It settled into her a persistent aching awareness of everything she should have been able to do, and could not.
She tried, at first.
Repeatedly.
To speak.
To form even the simplest word.
Each attempt ended the same way: a fractured sound, a breath where a word should have been, the faint tightening of her throat as though the rest had simply… refused to follow.
Tom never rushed her.
If it took her a moment, he gave her a moment.
If it took longer, he gave her longer still.
And when at last the word came, halting, imperfect, but hers, he received it as though it had never been otherwise.
He helped her sit when she wished to sit, his hand steady at her back, careful of her breath, mindful of the way even small exertions still cost her more than they should. He adjusted the pillows without needing to be asked, noticing the smallest discomfort before she had found a way to express it.
And always, he remained.
It became, without either of them naming it, an understanding.
Mary needed him, not in any dramatic sens that she would have voiced even if she had possessed the ability, but in the quiet, undeniable reality of her present state. He steadied what faltered. He gave time where time was required, and he never once made her feel the lack of it.
It was some time later when Tom found himself alone with Mrs Gardiner in the small parlour below.
Mary slept upstairs, her rest still necessary, though less troubled now than it had been.
Mrs Gardiner sat opposite him, a cup of tea cooling forgotten in her hands. There was a weariness about her still, though softened now by relief rather than sharpened by fear.
Tom had not intended to speak on the matter.
It had lingered, however, at the edges of his thoughts, returning again and again without resolution, until at last it pressed itself forward.
“You have not written to her family.”
It was not an accusation.
Merely an observation.
Mrs Gardiner looked up, not startled, but thoughtful.
“No,” she said after a moment. “I have not.”
Tom inclined his head slightly, though his gaze remained steady.
“She has been… very ill.”
“She has,” Mrs Gardiner agreed quietly.
A pause followed.
He chose his words with care.
“I would not presume to understand the particulars,” he said, “but I had thought…” He stopped, then corrected himself. “I had wondered that they might wish to know.”
Mrs Gardiner studied him for a moment longer, as though weighing not only the question, but the man who asked it.
“When her condition was uncertain,” she said at last, “it seemed kinder not to.”
Tom’s brow faintly furrowed.
“Mrs Bennet nerves are… well,” she continued, a touch of delicacy entering her tone. “To inform her that her daughter lay at risk of death, at a distance she could not immediately traverse, would have caused a great deal of agitation. Without aiding Mary in any practical sense.”
Tom said nothing, though the explanation settled into place with a certain clarity.
“And now?” he asked.
Mrs Gardiner’s expression softened slightly.
“Now Mary improves. She is no longer in danger.” A small pause. “And so the necessity is less immediate.”
He considered that.
“She may choose to inform them herself,” Mrs Gardiner added. “Or not.”
Tom’s gaze lowered briefly, thoughtful.
He knew only fragments of Mary’s family, gathered in passing conversation, in quiet remarks offered without emphasis yet not without meaning. Sisters she spoke of with fondness, though there had always been something else beneath it, something unspoken that lingered in the spaces between her words. A mother whose absence, by Mary’s own admission, was something nearer relief than regret.
He had not pressed her on it then.
He did not now.
“She will not,” he said after a moment.
Mrs Gardiner regarded him with mild surprise. “You are certain?”
He did not hesitate.
“For as long as she can avoid it.”
The certainty in his voice was quiet, but absolute.
Mrs Gardiner did not immediately reply. When she did, it was with a faint, almost sad understanding.
“You may be right.”
Tom’s jaw tightened slightly, though the expression did not fully form.
He saw it then, with a clarity that left little room for doubt.
Had they been told, had word been sent at once, there would have been only two outcomes.
Either they would have known, and not come.
And in that absence, in that silence, every quiet fear Mary had never spoken aloud would have been confirmed.
Or they would have come.
And in coming, they would have brought with them noise, agitation, expectation - everything that Mary, in her present state, could not endure. Every small step she had made toward recovery would have been pressed upon, hurried, undone.
He knew enough.
Enough to understand that neither outcome would have served her.
“She is better as she is,” he said at last, more to himself than to Mrs Gardiner.
Mrs Gardiner inclined her head, not in full agreement, but not in opposition either.
Mr Gardiner had made the decision with quiet efficiency.
There had been no great announcement, no prolonged debate, only a series of small, practical actions that led inevitably to the same conclusion. The carriage had been ordered. Trunks brought down. Accounts settled. What had been intended as a leisurely stay had drawn, instead, to an early and necessary close.
It was for Mary.
That alone sufficed.
The air of departure settled over the inn from the morning onward; servants moving with purpose, footsteps passing more frequently along the corridor, doors opening and closing with soft insistence. The ordinary sounds of travel, yet to Tom they carried an unfamiliar weight.
London.
He knew it must be so. There could be no argument against it. Proper care, familiar surroundings, physicians of greater experience if required, the quiet authority of her uncle’s household; all of it spoke in favour of returning.
And yet.
He had not left her side in days.
Not truly.
Even when the door had been closed, even when propriety had required distance, he had been there, within reach, within call, within hearing. Every breath, every cough, every fragile improvement had unfolded beneath his watch, as though by remaining he could ensure its continuation.
In London, that would end.
The understanding of it sat heavily, though he did not give it voice. It would not be proper. It would not be permitted. He would be expected to withdraw, to resume his place at a distance, to become once more what he had been before; a gentleman acquaintance, nothing more.
The thought did not sit easily.
He found her in the small parlour they had been using these past days, arranged now not for illness, but for departure.
She sat in a chair by the window, wrapped not in the loose, pale garments of recovery, but in something warmer, more structured, suitable for travel. The colour returned faintly to her face, though not entirely, and there remained a fragility to her still; a lightness, as though she had not yet fully returned to herself.
A shawl rested about her shoulders, drawn close against the lingering chill, her hands folded loosely in her lap.
She looked up as he entered.
There was no surprise in it.
Only recognition.
Tom closed the door behind him, the soft click of it sealing them, for a moment, away from the movement and noise beyond.
“They will not be long,” he said, though the words were unnecessary. He crossed the room and took the chair beside her, not too close, though nearer than strict propriety might advise.
Mary inclined her head slightly.
A quiet settled between them.
Tom rested his hands lightly upon his knees, his gaze lowering for a moment as though gathering something not easily shaped. He had not intended to speak, and yet the words pressed forward all the same.
“I owe you an apology.”
Mary’s eyes returned to him at once.
He did not look at her immediately.
“This time in the Lakes should have been restorative,” he continued, his voice measured, though there was a tension beneath it that had not quite left him. “The day on the boat was meant to be…”
He stopped.
The memory rose too quickly.
The water.
The stillness.
He drew a breath, steadying it before continuing.
“I failed to prevent what occurred,” he said at last, more quietly. “And for that, Miss Bennet, I am… deeply sorry.”
Mary watched him, her expression softening, and her hand shifted slightly in her lap, then lifted, the motion deliberate, toward him.
Tom did not hesitate this time.
His hand met hers, enclosing it gently.
Her fingers tightened faintly around his, as though anchoring herself before she attempted what came next.
“M…” she began, then stopped.
A breath.
She tried again.
“R… r… rem…” The sound faltered, broke apart, frustration flickering across her face before she pressed on, more slowly. “Re…mem…”
He waited.
She closed her eyes briefly, gathering what she could, then opened them again, fixing her gaze upon him with quiet determination.
“Boat,” she said at last.
The word came imperfectly, but clear enough.
Tom stilled.
“Sun,” she added, after a moment, the faintest hint of a breath between the syllables. “Po… poe…try.”
Her grip on his hand tightened slightly.
“Sc… scared,” she managed, the word catching but holding.
A pause.
Then, softer still:
“You.”
The final word was little more than breath shaped into sound, but the meaning lay unmistakably within it.
Tom’s throat tightened.
She watched him, searching his face as though to ensure he understood, as though the effort had not been misplaced.
“N…n…” she tried again, though the words came more broken now, slipping between her grasp. “not…”
Her brow creased, frustration rising, but she did not let go of him.
“Do not,” he said quietly.
She stilled.
“You need not say more,” he continued, his voice gentler now. “I understand.”
Mary held his gaze for a moment longer.
Tom let out a breath he had not realised he had been holding.
Relief came, sharp and sudden, though he did not show it beyond the slight easing of his shoulders. He had feared, more than he had allowed himself to admit, that she might remember it all. Every moment. Every terrible second beneath the water.
That she might carry it with her, the way he did himself.
That she might look at him and see not the man who had brought her back, but the one who had not reached her soon enough.
Instead, she remembered the sun.
Tinturn Abbey.
There was fear. But there was also its absence.
His hand tightened, just slightly, around hers.
“I am glad,” he said, and the simplicity of it carried more weight than anything more elaborate might have done.
Mary’s fingers shifted again, a small movement, but purposeful. She turned her hand within his grasp, not withdrawing, only… fitting more closely.
Her thumb brushed once, lightly, against his.
Tom stilled.
He drew a slow breath.
“Everything that has occurred here…” he began, his voice softer than before, “it reminds me how small and insignificant we are.”
Mary’s gaze followed each word with quiet attention.
“How in the blink of an eye,” he continued. “We, everything that we have created will be gone.”
Tom’s gaze lowered briefly to where their hands met, drawing something steadier from the contact, before he looked back to her.
“I think there’s a lesson here Miss Bennet,” he said, more quietly now. “That during this short time on Earth, we should be brave.” A faint pause. “We should follow our hearts.”
Mary watched him still. There was something in her expression now; brighter, trembling faintly at the edges, as though hope had found its way in and did not yet know how to settle.
“I do not know how much of our conversation that day on the boat you recall,” he went on, a faint, almost self-conscious breath leaving him. “But perhaps now,” he continued, with a brief glance aside, as though ordering thoughts that did not easily align, “would be a good time to continue it.”
He paused then.
It was not a short pause. It stretched, quiet and uncertain, as though he stood at the edge of something without quite knowing how to cross it.
“Though I spend so much of my time absorbed in poetry, when it comes to my own emotions … I do not always find it easy knowing where to begin.”
“I…” Mary managed, her voice soft and unsteady, yet present. “Same.”
The word came haltingly, but it was enough.
Tom’s expression shifted, something gentler entering it.
“Miss Bennet…” he began, then stopped.
The formality faltered.
“Mary,” he said instead.
The name settled between them.
Mary felt it at once. It moved through her, quiet and certain, sending something warm and unsteady through her chest, something that made her breath catch just slightly as she looked at him.
Tom did not look away.
“I am most glad that we were able to be here together,” he said, and though his tone remained measured, there was no mistaking the sincerity beneath it.
“You must know, that I have grown so fond of you during our time together. There is no one I long to talk to like I do you. No one.”
Mary shifted at that.
He saw it, the flicker of self-consciousness, the awareness of her present limitations pressing in where it had not before.
But he did not allow it to remain.
“Even now,” he said, at once, firm in a way that left no room for doubt, “even after everything you have endured… there is no one who makes me feel more like me.”
He held her gaze.
“If that makes any sense at all.”
Mary nodded, quickly, the hope there now unmistakable. It rose as though it had been waiting only for permission.
Tom drew in a breath.
“I wondered,” he said, and for the first time there was something of uncertainty beneath the words, something unguarded, “whether you might do me the very great honour of … becoming my wife.”
He did not even allow her a moment to respond before continuing.
“I do not have much, no great wealth or Italy. I have had to work for everything that I have, everything I will have. But I can offer you my love,” The words did not tremble. They did not falter. “And my devotion. And the hope to build a family one day.”
Mary’s vision blurred.
It came all at once, without warning, the tears gathering faster than she could contain them, spilling over before she could so much as attempt to stop them.
Her breath caught, uneven, her hand tightening around his with sudden urgency.
Of words, there were none.
None that would come.
But she nodded.
Once. Twice. Again.
Fiercely now, as though the motion itself must carry everything she could not say.
Something in Tom’s expression broke open, and he moved closer, only a small shift, closing the space that had remained between them until there was scarcely any at all.
His free hand rose, hesitating only a fraction before it came to rest lightly against her cheek.
Mary did not draw back.
If anything, she leaned into it, her breath unsteady, her eyes still bright with tears as she looked at him.
He kissed her.
Mary made a small, broken sound against him, something between a breath and a sob, her hand tightening where it held his as she returned it without hesitation, without thought, as though there had never been any question of doing otherwise.
Tears slipped freely now, from her, from him both, though neither paid them any mind.
They did not need to.
For a moment, the world beyond them ceased to matter entirely.
When they parted, it was only by the smallest degree.
Not distance, only breath.
“Yes…” Mary tried, her voice catching, breaking, but she pressed on, desperate now to give shape to what she felt. “Y-yes… M…M…”
Tom’s expression softened, something almost like quiet amusement touching it through everything else.
“Mary,” he said gently, “I think now we’ve kissed you can call me Tom.”
The faintest breath of a laugh escaped him. “It may be easier.”
Mary looked at him.
“Tom,” she said. The word came, clear and certain, as though it had always belonged to her.
“Love,” she managed, softer still.
It was the only word she could give.
It was enough.
Tom did not ask for more.
He understood.
He leaned forward once more, closing what little space remained between them, his hand still at her cheek, hers still clasped in his.
They kissed again.
And that was the precise moment the door opened.
Mr and Mrs Gardiner stepped inside.
For the briefest of moments, the scene held itself exactly as it was: Mary seated, breath still unsteady, Tom bent close to her, his hand at her cheek, hers clasped firmly in his; the space between them all but gone, the air still carrying the warmth of what had just passed.
Mr Gardiner stopped.
Quite entirely.
The sort that came when the mind required a moment to reconcile what the eyes insisted upon presenting. His hand remained upon the door, which he had not yet fully released, his expression shifting - first to surprise, then to something more measured, though the former had not entirely faded.
“Well,” he said, after a pause that was just long enough to be unmistakable.
Mrs Gardiner, who had come to stand just beside him, took in the same scene in rather less time.
There was, perhaps, the smallest flicker of startlement, no more than a breath’s worth, before it gave way to something far warmer. Her gaze moved between them once, quickly, taking in not merely the closeness, but the unmistakable expression upon Mary’s face, the brightness in her eyes, the way her hand clung to Tom’s as though it had found its proper place there.
Understanding followed at once.
“Oh,” she said, very softly.
Mary started then, the awareness of their presence arriving all at once. She drew back, though not far, her breath catching again, colour rising swiftly to her cheeks. Her hand did not leave Tom’s, though it tightened reflexively, as though unsure whether to release or remain.
Tom, for his part, straightened at once, though not abruptly, and certainly not guiltily. There was, however, a moment where composure and something very near to it had to be consciously reassembled.
“Mr Gardiner. Mrs Gardiner,” he said, with all the steadiness he could summon.
Mr Gardiner cleared his throat.
“Yes,” he replied, adjusting his grip upon the door as though it had suddenly become of great importance to him. “Yes, quite.”
Another pause.
Then he stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind him with deliberate care.
“I believe,” he said, glancing once more between them, “that we may have arrived at a moment of some… significance.”
Mrs Gardiner did not trouble herself with such restraint.
“My dear Mary,” she said, moving forward at once, her expression openly warm now, her eyes bright with unmistakable pleasure. “Have we cause to congratulate you?”
Mary looked at her, then at Tom, then back again. The colour in her face deepened further, her breath catching once more, though this time it carried something entirely different from strain.
She nodded.
It was small.
It was everything.
Mrs Gardiner’s smile widened at once, her hand coming to rest lightly over Mary’s where it still held Tom’s.
“Oh, my dear,” she said, and there was no mistaking the affection in it. “I am so very glad.”
Mr Gardiner, who had by now recovered sufficiently to allow his expression to settle into something far more composed (though not without a trace of lingering amusement) inclined his head toward Tom.
“Well, Tom,” he said, “you have been expeditious.”
Tom met his gaze, and though there was a faint warmth in his expression now that had not been there before, he did not attempt to deny it.
“I felt,” he replied, simply, “that delay would serve no useful purpose.”
Mr Gardiner considered this for a moment.
Then, with the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, he nodded once.
“No,” he said. “I imagine it would not.”
Mrs Gardiner’s gaze moved between them once more, lingering just long enough to take in the way they still held one another, the closeness that had not entirely been surrendered, even in the presence of company.
“However,” she added, with a gentleness that did not quite conceal its firmness, “we must now attend to rather more immediate concerns.”
Tom’s brow lifted slightly. “Of course.”
“We are leaving,” Mr Gardiner said, as though this were explanation enough, which, in truth, it was. “The carriage is prepared. Everything is in readiness.”
Mrs Gardiner’s expression softened further, though her tone took on a note of practical resolve.
“And,” she continued, with the faintest glance toward Tom that carried more meaning than the words alone, “as delightful as this… development is, it does rather alter the arrangements for the journey.”
Tom blinked, just once.
“I beg your pardon?”
Mrs Gardiner smiled.
“You will not sit beside her in the carriage.”
The statement was delivered with perfect calm.
Tom opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“I see,” he said, after a moment.
“And,” Mr Gardiner added, folding his hands lightly behind his back, his tone entirely reasonable, “you will not be alone together.”
Tom’s gaze shifted briefly to Mary.
Mary, who was attempting very hard not to smile and not entirely succeeding.
“Until such time,” Mr Gardiner continued, with quiet satisfaction, “as you are married.”
There was no mistaking the finality of it.
Tom drew in a breath.
“Of course,” he said.
It was, perhaps, the only answer available to him.
Mrs Gardiner’s eyes softened at that, though the firmness did not lessen.
“It is a very small price to pay,” she said kindly.
Tom inclined his head. “A negligible one.”
Mary made a small sound then, something very near to a laugh, though it caught and broke as so many of her attempts still did. She brought her hand lightly to her mouth, though her eyes shone with unmistakable amusement.
Tom glanced at her, and for a moment, just a moment, the restraint slipped.
His thumb brushed once, lightly, across her hand.
Then he released it.
Only because he must.
“Come, my dear,” Mrs Gardiner said, reaching to assist Mary to her feet with careful attention. “We must not keep the horses waiting.”
Mary rose, slower than she once might have done, though with Tom already there, his hand hovering, not quite touching, not quite withdrawn, ready should she falter.
She did not.
But she did not move far from him either.
And though propriety, and carriage arrangements, and the watchful eyes of relations would soon insist upon distance - for that one last moment, in that small, sunlit room, they remained very near indeed.