Georgiana cautiously took the bundle and looked like she might sway on her feet. Elizabeth showed her the light switch, to Georgiana’s awe, before promising they would talk in the morning. “Oh,” Elizabeth said, stopping at the door. “I should show you how the bathroom works. You’d think I’d be better at this.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s not like this is my first time acclimating a time traveller.”
“Mrs Reynolds explained as much as she could.” Pemberley’s housekeeper had fallen through time in the 1980s and had found a home and a purpose living in the past. “I remember what she said about bathrooms and cars, although the bathroom is far less alarming, I suspect.” Georgiana paused. “She also said I would be allowed to wear trousers,” she whispered. “Is that true?”
Elizabeth laughed and hugged her again before wishing her goodnight. After peeking into Sandra’s room, Elizabeth found Darcy in their bedroom. She could tell by the way he moved around the room that he was on edge.
“Tell me about it, Fitzwilliam,” she insisted.
“I am not sure it’s wise for Georgiana to stay in the house,” he said as he readied for bed.
“You were going to stick your own sister in some distant building? I can almost understand your wanting to do that to me, a stranger you couldn’t trust, but she’s yoursister. And you entrusted her with everything you valued.”
Darcy took off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. “I trust in her talents and her honour. But this is a perilous situation for us. If she changes one thing as a result of what she experiences here, we could lose everything. If she doesn’t want to return, our lives fall apart.”
Elizabeth huffed and put his shirt in the laundry basket. Men were the same no matter when they were born. “She already said she’s going back in September.”
Her husband’s shoulders lowered, but not enough for her liking. They moved around one another in silence, getting ready for bed like they did every night, but for a man who was just reunited with his long-lost relative, he was extraordinarily tense.
“What could she possibly do after she returns that could impact us?” she asked.
Darcy counted on his fingers. “She doesn’t marry, she marries someone else, she decides against having children. Or she sees something here that makes her question her choices for Pemberley. Records were not kept and forged through the centuries to get me here. If she changes something, it means things are not the same when I tried to come back. All of that could mean that when I returned in 2013, there was nothing here for me. No documents, no identity, no?—”
“No Pemberley?” Her voice was a ragged whisper. How important had recovering part of what he left behind been to him? Would he have stayed in this time if he found her but not Pemberley?
He looked hurt, and she hated she had made him think she doubted him. What was wrong with her to say that to him?
“I never wanted Pemberley,” he said roughly. “I wanted to findyouand live a full life here. And one can’t move in this modern world of yours without identifying documents and numbers. What if Pemberley was still in ruins when I came back, with no identity waiting for me? How would I have found you?”
“Frank and Gwen would have helped you. He’s your best friend.” Elizabeth stopped his movements around the room and forced him to look into her eyes. “If he had called me and said you returned, I would have been on the first plane.”
Their friends had become family, and they were even more valuable because she and Darcy were without relatives of their own. He by nature of when he chose to live, and she because her mother and sister never bothered. “They would have helped,” heagreed, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “But how could we have lived together without a single document proving who I am?”
She gave him a sorrowful look. “Undocumented people live like that every day.”
He opened his hands and sighed. “Maybe I wanted better for you than to live with that anxiety. I never wanted to be a man you could not legally marry.”
Some of those outdated values came along with Darcy through the stone circle. They were ingrained in who he was. Climbing into bed, she said, “I just wanted you.”
“And I wanted to take care of you—yes, I know you do not need it.” He joined her and said, “What if she changes something and I never found you in 2013?” A tremor went through his voice. “What if Sandra doesn’t exist because Georgiana makes a different choice based on what she sees here?” He fell back onto his pillow. “Why is she here, Elizabeth?”
“Maybe she just wanted to see her brother. Don’t push her to talk until she’s ready.”
He exhaled, and it felt like a sigh of agreement. “We can welcome Georgiana, but she learns nothing about her future or her descendants.”
“Is that why you hid the portrait?” The painting was of Georgiana, her husband Philip Willers, Pemberley’s loyal steward, and their ten-year-old son. It was painted around 1840. “Has Georgiana married Mr Willers yet?”
Darcy shook his head. “She wore no wedding band, but they marry in 1826, and the year is half over,” he added with a hint of worry in his voice.
“Then maybe he’ll miss her so desperately after her three-month vacation that he throws himself at her feet when she returns and professes his love.”
Darcy gave her a sceptical look. “I think you are misremembering his character.”
Elizabeth held back a sigh at not being able to coax a smile from him. She remembered Mr Willers as being a friendly widower about Darcy’s age with a calm manner and an attention to detail. “You never know what lengths someone will go to for the person they love.”
This drew a half-smile and an affectionate look, but they faded. “Georgiana can’t know what happens if she marries Mr Willers.”
“That she loves her husband, Pemberley thrives, and they have a son and a grandson they adore? Yeah, how awful.”
Darcy had been lying on his back, but he turned to look at her. “She marries him, and her son dies young, putting Mr Willers in an early grave from his grief, and she raises her grandson, whose daughter helps perpetuate the arrangement to keep Pemberley intact for us. If Georgiana learns her only son dies in the Crimean War, she might never approve of his commission. She might not even marry Mr Willers if she knows what will happen.”
