Darcy lifted him down, and Elizabeth noticed he had been standing next to a perfectly functional library stepladder.
“Thank you. Where would I be without your help?” he said, taking the book while his son beamed. Darcy winked at his daughter for helping him to indulge her brother. “Now, if you borrow this, you must tell me what you think of it.”
She smiled a gap-toothed smile and nodded. She would be finished in three days and chatter Darcy’s ear off about it until she begged for another one.
Elizabeth came farther into the room. “Why do you two not run along to Nanny while I talk to Papa?”
Her daughter took her book in one hand and her brother’s hand in the other. He was sure to collect his ball on his way to run up the stairs. Elizabeth still wished they would have more children. In fifteen years, the Gardiners had three more, and all her sisters had several children. Jane and Bingley had six, and they had been married nearly as long.
Darcy always comforted her by saying he was glad to not have her health threatened, that endless confinements and nursing would drain her.
“I am exceedingly happy with our two, but there are twelve years between my sister and me,” he said, coming up behind her. He rarely mentioned his sister but, whenever he did, he no longer mentioned her in a tone of frustration. “I do not yet despair of having another child to spoil.”
She smiled. He was dedicated to continuing to try, at least. From the look in his eye, he was clearly thinking the same thing and willing to begin now. “We have to go out after we see to the children. Mrs Ballston has married off the last of her daughters and is hosting a ball. I am told we must be the first couple that trips on the light fantastic toe.”
Darcy feigned resignation. “Very well. But after I dance with you and the new bride, I am hiding in the card room whilst you charm everyone who crosses your path until you allow us to come home.”
She agreed, but Darcy looked at her for a long moment. “What is the matter, dearest?”
“How can you tell anything is the matter?”
“I have always been able to tell. What is left to decide is if you willtell me about it. I don’t want my wife to feel that she must keep secrets from me.”
“I don’t want to be a wife who keeps secrets. I was just struggling with my own feelings about what happened outside.” She took a steadying breath before she told him, “I saw Georgiana at Berkeley Square.”
Surprise flooded his countenance. “Was Wickham with her?”
“No, and she wore all black, so I suspect he is dead, unless she is mourning someone else. She was reluctant to speak to me. She said she was in London on business and just wanted a glimpse of us—and she asked for my forgiveness.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Did she not want to see me?”
She saw how that hurt him. “She is ashamed. She is also ill, it seems.”
He exhaled heavily. “The pox?”
She nodded, and he muttered a curse under his breath. “She is at a hotel until Friday, if you want to go to her. I think apologising to you would bring her some comfort.”
He was quiet, pacing slowly in front of his desk. “Is it too late to give her that?” he asked her. “I am not angry, but to tell her I forgive her seems an insult to you.”
“To me?” she cried.
He came up to her with quick steps. “I will never forget your dead-eyed look, the dark circles like bruises under your eyes. You hardly ate. You felt like you did not deserve to be happy. I have never seen anyone in such despair, although you desperately tried to hide it. She may not have wanted to go through with calling you an adulteress, but she knew it was wrong and helped Wickham anyway.”
Elizabeth put her arms around him. “It was my fault for involving myself and keeping the truth from you. I forgave her a long time ago. Don’t hold on to anger for my sake. I am waiting on Lady Catherine in a week, after all,” she added with a laugh, “and she thought I married you for your money and could be paid to be unfaithful so you could divorce me and marry her daughter instead.”
Darcy gave a faint smile and put his arms around her waist. “If you agreed, you could have escaped me with enough money to damn thepublic consequence of the scandal. What would your price have been?”
“Well, I have two hundred a year as Mrs Darcy, and a settlement and a home for life too. She would have had to at least match that. And compensate me for the irreparable infamy that came with it.” She kissed him quickly. “But by then, I felt an attraction and a respect for you. I was halfway to being in love with you, and there is no price on that.”
Darcy gave her a lingering kiss, but she pulled back and said, “Ibbetson’s hotel, until Friday.”
She knew his sigh was of having further kisses postponed and not the task at hand. “If she agrees, I will see her tomorrow.”
When Darcy returned homeafter calling on Georgiana, he expected to find Elizabeth out. It was rare they had a disengaged evening during the season, so it surprised him that she was writing in her journal in the library. She must have stayed in to meet him when he came back. Seeing her in what had once been his space, and knowing how she had been shut out of such spaces when she was single, made him smile.
And he could admit to being delighted that she waited for him, that he had someone to come home to.
“Writing all of your secret thoughts?” he asked as he entered.
