Yet instead of provoking her anger, the gesture softened her. She invited him to rise and then embraced him.
“What is your real name, Andrew?”
“Andrew Stevenson, madam.”
The duchess noticed the glimmer of amusement in her husband’s eyes.
“You were remarkably clever. You told only the lies that were necessary and concealed most of your real story.”
“Yes, sir. Apart from claiming that Mrs Kendall was dead and that I was her son, everything else was true.”
“Clever boy!” Thomas exclaimed. “That is why I did not discover the deception sooner. The stories themselves were true.”
“Yes. My father never intended to send those letters to America. I was six or seven when I found the first of your letters in the wooden box. Paper is precious and rarely used to light a fire, so I kept it. I learned to read because of that letter. From then on, you became my family. In our world, people do not show much affection to their children, and after my mother’s death, I was even more alone. You became my family. I knew everything about you, as you recounted your lives in every letter. Please allow me to remain with you as a footman or a groom. Let me stay here. I am willing to do anything.”
The duchess looked once more at her husband, seeking approval for what she had in mind. No words were necessary between them.
“You wished to marry Miss Bennet. That is quite a descent,” Thomas observed, though the anger and anxiety had left his voice.
Again, Andrew lowered his eyes to the floor.
“Yes. In that way, I could have remained here forever, but afterwards, I would have told you the truth about Mrs Kendall being alive. Please believe me.”
“That is rather difficult to believe, but why Miss Bennet?”
“Because I lost my head. I felt as though I truly were her grace’s grandson, and for a duchess’s grandson, only Miss Bennet seemed suitable. In truth, I liked Miss Kitty.”
“And if you had been Andrew Stevenson, would you have courted her?”
“Yes!” he said, still avoiding the gaze of the older couple, who were trying very hard to appear severe.
Chapter 29
Elizabeth woke the following morning in the midst of a beautiful dream. Yet, when she recalled the events of the past few months, she decided that reality was even better. Looking up at the magnificent ceiling, painted with plump angels in the style of centuries past, she thought of Darcy’s house—their house—for in less than a month she would live there with her husband. There was nothing old-fashioned about his home. The few rooms she had seen, especially her parlour, were elegant and furnished in the latest taste. Whether Pemberley resembled it or not, she liked both the old and the modern; what truly mattered was the master. The master of those houses, the master of her heart and body. The memory of the previous day swept over her in a warm tide of pleasure and anticipation.
She did not hear the knock at the door, but she saw it slowly opening, and then Jane’s head appeared.
“You are not sleeping!” she cried reproachfully, leaping into her sister’s bed as she had done all her life in the bedroom they had shared at Longbourn.
“I have only just woken up!” Elizabeth protested.
“I knocked!”
“I did not hear you.”
“Of course you did not. Now that you are almost Mrs Darcy, you require a butler to announce your poorer sister.”
They laughed as they always had. Then they fought with pillows, the only war two good little girls ought ever to know.
“My poor sister, what is she doing awake at seven o’clock in the morning? Does she have no duty towards her husband?” Elizabeth teased.
“Not every morning,” Jane replied, and the new Mrs Bingley blushed as she realised what she had just said.
“You still blush. I thought that would disappear once you became a married woman.”
“It will…or perhaps it will not. I am still not accustomed to speaking of intimacy.”
“And yet your sister waits eagerly for your wisdom, wishing to know what she may expect from married life.”
