“That is a fine line, Lizzy.”
She knew it. But it was the first thread she had pulled on that might lead to something tangible, so it was a line she must walk nevertheless.
She found Darcy after the household had retired, in the sitting room they shared. He was by the fire, not reading, simply sitting. He looked up when she came in, and some of the tension in his face eased at the sight of her.
“You have been quiet today,” he said.
“I have been thinking.”
“That is usually my failing, not yours.”
She sat in the chair opposite him, drew her feet up beneath her skirt, because it was late, they were alone, and she was tired of sitting like a portrait.
“Mrs Reynolds finally told me what she meant, that day I first toured Pemberley with my aunt and uncle, when she said Wickham had turned out very wild.” She watched his face. “A girl named Sally Wilson?”
Darcy set down his glass. “Sally Wilson,” he said. “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“Wickham.” He said it without inflection. “The child is Wickham’s. Sally was seventeen. Her father came to me after mine died. He was wretched about it, ashamed, as though it were his fault his daughter had been preyed upon.”
“What did you do?”
“What I could. I gave the Wilsons a larger farm, one that had come vacant that autumn. I found a young man willing to marry Sally and raise the child as his own. Joseph Cooper, a farrier’s son from Lambton. I settled an income on the child. Sally married Cooper within the month, and he works with Joseph Wilson on the farm; they do well.”
“And you did all of this at two-and-twenty.”
“Who else was there? My father was dead. Georgiana was ten. I handled it because it needed handling, and because Wickham was, in some wretched sense, still my responsibility.” He paused. “I’ve never told anyone about Sally. Mrs Reynolds knows because she was here and because nothing escapes her. But I have never spoken of it.”
“You are speaking of it now.”
“Because you asked. And because I’m tired of carrying things alone, Elizabeth. I’ve been carrying things alone since I was two-and-twenty, and I find that I no longer wish to.”
Elizabeth felt the weight of that, and the ache of knowing she was still keeping from him the thing that mattered most.
“I should like to visit the Wilsons,” she said. “With you. I am mistress of Pemberley now. Sally is one of our tenants, and I should like to meet her, see that she and the child are well.”
“We can go tomorrow, if you wish.”
“I wish.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You are still building something, Elizabeth. I can feel it. Every question you ask, every conversation with Mrs Reynolds, with my aunt. You are gathering threads, and I cannot yet see the pattern, but I know it has to do with my father.”
“Yes,” she said. “It does.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Soon. I promise you. Soon.”
He studied her face in the firelight. Then he stood, crossed the room, held out his hand.
“Come to bed,” he said. Not a demand. Something gentler.
Elizabeth took his hand and let him draw her to her feet. He did not release her. His thumb moved across her knuckles, and he was looking at her with an expression that had nothing to do with Wickham or secrets. He was looking at her as though she were the only real thing in the room.
“Darcy,” she said, and he kissed her. She kissed him back, and for a few minutes the weight of everything she carried lifted and there was nothing but this.
He led her through the connecting door to their bedroom, and closed it behind them, and the rest of the evening belonged to no one but themselves.
