She did not say it. Not yet. But she leaned forward, took his hand across the desk, held it. “Thank you.”
Darcy lifted her hand to his lips and lightly kissed her knuckles, and for a moment the distance between them was not a wall but a window, something she could almost see through to the other side.
“When you are ready,” he said.
“Soon,” Elizabeth said, promising herself just as much as him.
Kitty was waiting in the morning room. She looked up when Elizabeth came in, read her face. “He is going to help.”
“He is going to settle the debts and arrange a quarterly allowance. Enough to keep Wickham afloat.”
“Good.” Kitty paused. “And the rest?”
“Not yet. But soon. I told him soon, and I meant it, Kitty. I can’t keep this up much longer. He knows something is wrong and he is being so patient about it that it is worse than if he demanded answers.”
Kitty’s expression changed. She crossed the room and closed the door.
“Elizabeth. You almost told him. Just now. I can see it on your face.”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“But you wanted to. You were sitting across from him. He was being kind, steady, offering to help with Lydia, and you wanted to tell him everything.” Kitty’s voice was low, urgent. “You can’t. You want to tell Darcy, who will go after him the moment he knows, and what do you think Wickham will do then? What do you think he will do to Lydia?”
The words hit Elizabeth like cold water.
“He killed a man who threatened to cut him off,” Kitty continued. “A man he supposedly loved. Lydia is a sixteen-year-old girl he married because he was paid to. If Darcy confronts him, if Wickham feels the trap closing, do you truly believe Lydia is safe?”
Elizabeth sat down. She had not thought of it that way. She had been so focused on the impossibility of telling Darcy about the ghosts that she had not considered what Darcy would do with the information, what Wickham would do in return, who stood closest to the blast.
“I need to get her out first,” Elizabeth said slowly. “Before anything else. Lydia has to be safe before we move against him.”
“Yes.” Kitty’s voice was fierce. “You need to get our sister away from a murderer before you hand your husband a reason to go to war with one.”
They were both quiet for a moment. Then Kitty said, more gently, “Georgiana asked me this morning if her father’s ghost wants to see her.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
“I told her I couldn’t see him, so I didn’t know. She accepted it. But she is going to keep asking, Elizabeth. She is patient, she is clever, she has nothing else to think about now that Mrs Annesley is gone. She is going to work it out.”
“I know.”
“So whatever you are going to do,” Kitty said, “you need to do it before Georgiana gets there on her own. And before you crack and tell your husband. Because once you tell Darcy, everything moves, and it will move faster than any of us can control, and Lydia isn’t safe, Lizzy. She is married to a murderer.”
Elizabeth could see the fear on Kitty’s face; the fear for the sister who Kitty had, after all, always loved best because she and Lydia were so close in age. Elizabeth was afraid for Lydia too, but not in the way Kitty was. She thought how she would feel if it was Jane in such a position, and nodded.
“I’ll figure it out, Kitty. In a way that protects Lydia first and foremost. I promise.”
Chapter Thirteen
Darcytoldheratbreakfast, looking up from a letter he had just opened.
“My uncle and aunt Matlock propose to come to us on Thursday for a visit of some few weeks, if it is convenient.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth said, because what else could she say? The Matlocks were Darcy’s closest family. Lord Matlock was his mother’s brother, Lady Matlock the woman who had tried to be a mother to Georgiana after Lady Anne died. They had every rightto visit. Darcy clearly wanted them here. Elizabeth could not explain that the prospect of houseguests filled her with a dread that had nothing to do with the housekeeping and everything to do with the fact that two more sharp-eyed observers in the house meant two more people she would have to hide from.
Georgiana brightened visibly. “Aunt Margaret! Oh, I am so glad. She will want to hear about the renovations of the rose garden, and my music studies, and... everything.” She looked at Elizabeth, looked away again quickly.
“She will want to hear about everything regardless of whether we wish to tell her,” Darcy said, but he was smiling.
