“Now, if you’ll excuse us for a minute, I believe I ought to beg some writing material from your kind hostesses so we can send some letters to explain where the two of you got to, before we end up with a search party trying to track you down,” he said.
The second he and Elizabeth left the library, I slumped down into a chair, my legs unable to hold me up for much longer. His talk of letter writing had me keen to write my own letters to Charlotte, to explain where I had gone and sharestories of Llangollen, and to my cousin, to express my gratitude for letting me leave, but they would have to wait. I was too preoccupied with the realisation that I would get to see Pemberley again. I could beg gingerbread off Ruth and tell Emma of my wild adventures. I could play my harp and my piano and blow the dust off my chess set. I could choose a book from the library and settle down to read with Kitty’s head resting in my lap. I had told myself I’d never see the house again, and I needed to undo every single one of the goodbyes I’d said to it in my mind.
“George?” Kitty said, skimming her fingers over my cheek to draw my attention up to her. “Is everything all right?”
I surged up to pull her into a hug, then kissed her without a hint of hesitation. I was so giddy I felt I could explode with it, and I spun her around, the soles of her shoes barely skimming the floorboards.
“Put me down!” She laughed, both her hands on my cheeks as she kissed me back.
Even when I stopped bearing any of her weight, she still swayed against me, clinging to me. Although I was now safe in the knowledge no one would ever make me let go of her, I still struggled to do it willingly. Kitty Bennet was born to stand in my embrace and I in hers. It felt like we had finally righted an imbalance in the universe. From the look of absolute wonder in Kitty’s eyes, she felt it, too.
Epilogue
Open books covered the library floor, a patchwork of texts and images that Kitty was poring over. She flitted from one volume to the next, pulling the smaller books into her lap as she interrogated the pages for information, as if she hadn’t read them all dozens of times already during the five months she’d officially called Pemberley home.
“Do you think we can visit Greece?” she asked, looking up from a map she’d folded out of an atlas.
“I think we can visit Greece next time,” I said with a laugh.
In order to stay out of the way of Kitty’s apparent plan to open every travel-related book within Pemberley’s library, I’d settled myself on one of the armchairs with a battered copyofRobinson Crusoe. Exchanging the atlas for a book of watercolour landscapes, she picked her way across the sea of paper and climbed unceremoniously into my lap. I protested, sacrificing my place in my novel in order to keep ahold of her, but couldn’t keep the fondness out of my complaints.
“Look how beautiful it is,” she said, gesturing down to the image in the book.
“Extremely beautiful,” I agreed, not looking away from her face as I tucked a curl behind her ear, “but we’re only going as far as Switzerland. It’s a two-month trip, love. If we go to Greece, we’ll miss the birth of our niece or nephew.”
Kitty huffed, resting her head on my shoulder. We’d been over our travel plans countless times, but her excitement still got the better of her. This trip was a short one, planned to take us back to Llangollen for a visit, and then to give Kitty a taste of the Continent. We were due back before Elizabeth gave birth. A proper journey could come later—if Kitty wanted to go to Greece, I’d take her there.
“Elizabeth and Jane are making me look bad,” Kitty said with a sigh. “Married to successful men and now Lizzy’s going to be a mother. At least Mary’s still at home, or I don’t think I’d ever hear the end of it.”
I pressed my lips to her temple in a silent reassurance. She promised me that her future featured me and only me, that she’d never marry regardless of how much her mother might insist, but I knew she wasn’t quite like me. She could love a man. The fact she chose to stay with me in the face of her family’s potential disapproval was a blessing I did not take lightly.
“Considering Mary still assures me in her letters that she can dream up no worse torture than receiving suitors, I daresay you’re safe for a little longer,” I said.
Since returning to Pemberley, I’d found myself with more than a few new letter-writing commitments. My letters to Mary had begun rather formally, but now I wrote to her as easily as if she were my own sister, exchanging book recommendations and chess tips between Pemberley and Longbourn. I had started writing to Charlotte immediately, filling page after page with details of Plas Newydd and its inhabitants.
Lady Catherine had firmly decided that my brother and I were beyond help, and other than a lengthy letter to Darcy detailing my failings, it seemed perhaps we were both finally free of her. Still, I sent Charlotte letters for Anne, trusting her to pass them on without my aunt getting the chance to read them.
Obviously keen to forge a connection with the Salter family, Lady Catherine had apparently presented her own daughter as an alternative bride. Anne confided in me that she’d never before pretended to be as weak and sickly as when she first met Lord Salter as a suitor. He had never returned. The letters were more contact than I’d had with Anne for years, but she was far more agreeable than her mother and, amid our lengthy exchanges, I could see the beginning of a shy friendship.
Then there were, of course, letters to Lady Butler and Miss Ponsonby, in which I still expressed my gratitude andappreciation for their kindness, and assured them of my brother’s continued support of Kitty and me.
The most important letters, however, were those I was sending all over the country, trying, perhaps in vain, to find Frances. With Darcy’s help, I was attempting to track her down to confirm that she was safe. If she needed money, he had promised we could provide it. If she still wanted a job after all these years, she was welcome back. I had gotten far enough to know she was not welcome with her family anymore, but there were still leads to exhaust, and I would not let the matter rest until I had followed each and every one. I desperately hoped she had built herself a comfortable life alongside the girl with whom she’d been caught.
Kitty kissed my jaw, trailing her fingertip over the inside of my elbow to spark shivers up and down my arm. She knew how best to try to talk me into something.
“It will be hard for Mother to play matchmaker if I’m in Greece.”
There was a tone of sweet persuasion to Kitty’s voice, her eyes sparking with hope. If we hadn’t already promised Elizabeth and Darcy we’d be there to help them with their newborn child, it would have been all too easy to give in.
“Next time,” I assured her. “We can spend as much time in Greece as you like.”
“You know,” Kitty began, innocently, “Sappho was Greek.”
I felt myself blush, even though I had been the one to show Kitty the scraps of her poetry that survived. A well-loved copy had been delivered courtesy of one Charlotte Collins after I’dtold her all about Llangollen in my letters, and Elizabeth had ensured it was rebound in a deep red leather and gilded with silver foil. I’d only ever treasured one book quite as much in my life, and I kept it next toThe Disposition of an English Ladyin the drawer beside my bed.
I’d let Kitty read the English translations herself, and recited her the original Greek. It felt like the closest I might ever get to seeing a published account of how it felt. How I felt. There were those who tried to argue Sappho felt no love for women, but I understood what I read. The original texts, free from any translator’s attempts to adjust the meaning, did not lie.
“I am aware,” I said, tracing my thumb over Kitty’s cheekbone. “Is that why you want to go to Greece?”
