The result of Anne allowing Stevens to dress her hair, apply a delicate lip stain, and alter the gown was that she held Richard’s complete attention as she walked elegantly up the nave to meethim at the altar. Even Phillip, who stood with him, was stirred by her beauty.
During the wedding breakfast, no one was more delighted than Lady Helen. She drew her new daughter into her arms and held her. When she released Anne, she said, “I am so pleased. At last, I have a daughter. And I see how you look at him. You love my son.”
All the guests had scattered into the dining room or drawing room with plates in hand, laughing and chatting. In a corner of the drawing room, Darcy stood beside Elizabeth as she and Richard spoke together. She was pale and subdued, unlike her usual self. Perhaps the shock of Seton’s accident had negatively affected her. Or the soaking in the lake had sickened her. She had not touched the food he had served her during the wedding breakfast, and now she would not look at him. That was when he knew something was wrong between them.
His attention was recalled when he heard her ask, “And do you foresee conflict with Lady Catherine over your wedding, Colonel?”
Richard looked down at his hands before answering. “My aunt will be furious. We married without her knowledge to avoid her interference. When there is love, nothing else matters. A quiet ceremony among those who care for you is sufficient. My wife is very unlike the two Fitzwilliam sisters.”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “How is that, sir?”
“She had a father who loved her, and it was he who raised her. Unfortunately, he passed, and she was left to the caprice of her mother.”
Darcy frowned. “Uncle Henry is worse even than Lady Catherine. He is a proud, prejudiced, and unfaithful man.”
Richard’s eyes shadowed. “My mother married up. She was the daughter of a baron, and in those days, a woman rarely defied her parents' will. At their insistence, she married my father, heir to an earldom, though she knew he was a rake. My father has never been faithful to her, and their marriage is not a happy one.”
Elizabeth’s brow creased. “Why, if he was proud, did he marry beneath himself?”
Richard sighed. “My father is a gambler, as was my grandfather. They needed her dowry. Lady Catherine will storm and rail, but our happiness is assured, and I will protect Anne from her mother. I care not what my aunt thinks or says. If she does not comport herself, she will move to the dower house, or, if she prefers, to a seaside resort.”
He looked at his cousin. “Darcy, your mother was cut from the same cloth. She was as proud and prejudiced as her siblings. She never accepted your father’s lack of position or title. Fortunately, Uncle George did not care. He loved her despite her flaws. He was too good for her.”
Darcy looked at him as though at a stranger. “Richard, what do you mean? How do you know of my mother’s supposed cruelty?”
Richard spoke incredulously. “Our mothers were childhood friends, Darcy. They discussed everything.”
Darcy shook his head. “I do not remember contempt between my parents.”
Richard raised his brows. “Perhaps you were too young to understand. Speak to Mother. She will recount how LadyAnne scorned your father, through manipulations, softening her cutting remarks with a laugh or a smile, as if she were only teasing. But she meant every word. She hurt your father, often in front of others, yet nothing she did altered his love for her.”
Darcy was still disbelieving. “How do you know all this?”
“I am four years your senior, Darcy. I remember her cruelty.”
Elizabeth sniffed, and Darcy’s gaze swept over her. He turned back to his cousin. “I do not understand her reasoning. My father was the best man I have ever known. He was faithful, loving, and respectful. He was wealthier than her father, a brilliant investor. My father was everything your father and grandfather are not. And yet you tell me she disrespected him simply because he had no title or elevated connections?”
He was angry. Darcy’s gaze turned toward Elizabeth, and he saw her wiping her cheeks with a handkerchief. She murmured an excuse and turned away.
Darcy embraced his cousin. “I congratulate you on your marriage to Anne. You have married a good woman. And thank you for opening my eyes to my mother’s prejudices. I begin to see myself for what I am, a proud and prejudiced fool who has not understood his good fortune. Excuse me.”
He left the room to find his wife and discover why she was crying.
Elizabeth hurried up the stairs, entered her bedchamber, and locked the door. She stood looking into the room, unseeing. His words were running through her mind:I married the wrong woman.She had had to hold back her tears through the entire ceremony and through the wedding breakfast. How she did it, she knew not.
She leaned against the door, then slowly slid to the floor. She pressed her head against her knees and let the tears fall.
How had this happened? She had become her mother. She was living with a man who regretted her. She had not been good enough for Alexander, and now, from the lips of the man who had vowed to cherish her, she learned she was not good enough for him either.
She forced her thoughts back to the night he had proposed marriage, when she had first learned what he thought of her. He had told her so himself, and she had not misunderstood him. He loved her, yet he had said she was beneath him by every measure of society. Had she refused him then and fled, she would now be free, and so would he. That pain would have been less than what she was suffering now. But she did not flee from him. She went after him. Why had she done that? Now he was trapped with the wrong woman. They were both trapped.
Elizabeth blew her nose. But how could she bear never to see Fitzwilliam again? Never to be held within his embrace?
She thought over every look, every act he had shown Abby since the first day her friend had arrived at Pemberley. There had been nothing in his manner to suggest divided loyalty.
How could she endure, knowing he thought of another? Knowing he thought of Abby, one of her closest friends, the very woman she had invited into his house?
She heard a soft tapping at the door, then the knob turned. “Elizabeth?”
