“Graham,” she amended, the name unfamiliar on her tongue. “I think I know what you wish to say, and I?—”
“Please,” he interrupted, holding up a hand. “Allow me to speak before my courage fails.” He drew a deep breath. “I know you believe yourself married to Mr. Darcy. I have seen the ring you wear, heard your stories, and witnessed your absolute conviction. But Elizabeth…” His voice dropped low. “What if you are wrong? What if the ceremony was not legal, or the license invalid, or the witnesses bought? What if Mr. Darcy himself, when he wakes, does not remember you as his wife?”
The questions hit her like stones, each one finding its mark in the secret fears she had tried so hard to suppress.
“You ask me to doubt everything I know to be true,” she said, her voice barely steady.
“I do not know the circumstances, and I know Mr. Darcy to be an honest man, but… could it be the man he supposed to be a reverend had defrauded him?”
“Are you saying I was never married? That it had always been a farce?”
“No, absolutely not.” Graham seemed to strengthen himself. “But the parish registry was empty. I only ask you to consider the possibility and to think about what that would mean for you and your child.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to leak. They did anyway. As she wiped them, she gazed at this solid, reliable man in front of her. He wasn’t handsome in the fashionable sense, but he was decent, kind, and rugged in his own right. A man who did not eschew hard work, and he was watching her with that mixture of hope and desperation she had pretended not to notice.
“What are you proposing, Mr. Pullen?” She resorted to formality, knowing she would have to injure him.
He took a deep breath, as if gathering courage for a leap from a great height. “Marry me. Today, if you’ll have me. I can give you a name, legitimacy for your child, and a home where you’ll never want for anything within my power to provide.”
The proposal hung between them, simple and sincere and utterly devastating in its reasonableness.
“You would claim another man’s child as your own?” Elizabeth asked softly.
“I would claim you both as mine,” Graham replied without hesitation. “The child would have my name, my protection, and my love. As would you.”
“You are too noble, Mr. Pullen. But you would do this even knowing my heart belongs to another? To Fitzwilliam Darcy?”
“Elizabeth, I know you made vows to another. I know your heart belongs elsewhere. But I also know that Mr. Darcy may never wake to claim you, and even if he does—” he hesitated, treading carefully, “his family seems determined to deny your marriage.”
Elizabeth’s hands moved protectively to her belly. The child kicked vigorously, as if protesting the suggestion that his legitimacy was in question.
“You paint a grim picture of my prospects, Graham,” she said, attempting lightness she did not feel.
“An honest one,” he replied. “But I also offer an alternative. Marry me, and neither you nor the child will ever face the world’s scorn. You would be Mrs. Graham Pullen, respectable wife of a respectable man. Your past would become irrelevant. I would count myself fortunate to call you wife and be a father to your child.”
Elizabeth looked at this good, kind man who was offering her everything she had lost—respectability, security, a place in the world—and felt her resolve waver for the first time since Darcy’s disappearance. Her practical side recognized the wisdom of Graham’s offer. What was she now but a cautionary tale? The gentlewoman who believed herself married to a man who lay dying without ever acknowledging her?
She was no longer a lady by society’s standards. An honest life as a steward’s wife was far preferable to existence as a fallen woman forever waiting for recognition that might never come.
And Graham would be kind. He would never mock her situationor speak of her disrespectfully, as society would do. He would never abandon her as her family had done. He would value her mind, respect her opinions, and treat her child as his own.
Elizabeth allowed herself to imagine that life—safe, secure, respected in a humble way. No grand estates or London seasons, but no scorn or rejection either. Just quiet dignity and genuine affection.
“You honor me more than I deserve, Graham.” Her heart ached at what she had to do to him. He was so earnest and hopeful, and she should have known his feelings were on his sleeves. “You are a good man.”
“You deserve everything good this world has to offer,” Graham replied fiercely. “Let me give it to you.”
“And yet, Graham.” She looked at him with eyes swimming in tears. “You deserve a wife who can devote herself to you. One who is not bound to another. It is not merely sentiment that prevents me from accepting. It is a vow I made to Fitzwilliam before God.”
“And if he does not live?” Graham asked quietly.
Elizabeth swallowed her fear, resting her hand on her belly where Darcy’s child rolled around restlessly. She could not, would not face that possibility, and yet… rational thought required it. She only wanted to remember—Darcy’s hands in her hair, his voice saying her name as if it were a prayer, the way he had looked at her as if she were the answer to every question he had never dared ask. Those moments had been true.
But Graham deserved an answer, and the pain of losing Darcy before she had started her life with him threatened to overwhelm her. “If that were to happen, then circumstances would indeed be changed. And I would count myself fortunate if your offer still stood.”
Hope flickered across Graham’s face, quickly tempered by the gravity of what such a circumstance would mean. “I pray it does not come to that,” he said, with a generosity that made Elizabeth’s heart ache. “But should it do so, my offer will remain.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth whispered, squeezing his hand before releasing it.
