He rose from the chair and tucked the letter into his ledger. “We shall call it an investment,” he murmured. “Something she may still inherit, in some form.”
Elizabeth looked up at him with wide eyes. “Papa?”
He smiled at her and lifted her into his arms. “How would you like a new book tonight?”
Her grin was immediate, brilliant. “Yes, please!”
He laughed and kissed her curls. “Very well. You shall have two.”
But later that evening, when she sat upon his lap and pointed out simple words with her tiny fingers—so bright, so quick—he felt the faintest flicker of unease.
He pushed it aside.
After all, there would be a son. And no one need know that Elizabeth was not his.
∞∞∞
Two weeks later…
Ten-year-old Fitzwilliam Darcy stood stiffly beside his tutor, his spine ramrod-straight and his hands clasped behind his back in a posture that had been drilled into him not by Nurse, but by his own iron will.
The gravel drive stretched before them in gleaming lines, swept only an hour before. The afternoon sun threw long shadows from the front columns of Pemberley House, and the horses stamped restlessly in the distant stable yard, as though they, too, were awaiting the carriage.
The shoes pinched his toes. They were a shade too small—grown tight over the winter—but he had not said so when dressing. Father would expect his son to look neat for the occasion. He had not mentioned it when last in town, and now it was too late.
He did not wince. He would not.
Beside him, Mr. Hargrave cleared his throat in a low, dry way that signaled he meant to speak but would do so without turning his head. “You are not required to salute the carriage, Master Darcy. This is not a parade.”
Fitzwilliam did not glance up. “No, sir.”
“You may relax your shoulders.”
“I prefer not to.”
There was a pause. Then: “Very well.”
The boy continued to watch the drive, silent, with an expression that looked rather too much like his father’s.
It had been nearly two years since his mother’s death. Sarah Wickham Darcy—dark-haired and laughing, with a way of making Fitzwilliam feel seen even when she was only adjusting his collar—had died in a fall on the hunting course near the edge of the estate. Her mare had returned without her.
George Darcy had not spoken for two full days.
Fitzwilliam remembered the way his father had sat in the chair by the fire afterward, unmoving. The servants had tiptoed. The house had hushed itself. And Fitzwilliam—serious already, quieter than other boys—had fallen into a silence that pleased no one, but which none dared correct.
The only voice that reached him during those months had been his cousin, George Wickham.
George was the only child of Sarah Darcy’s brother, John Wickham, Pemberley’s steward. His education had been paid for by Fitzwilliam’s grandfather, and John was more than happy to work for his sister’s new family upon completing his schooling. The son of a footman and a disowned earl’s daughter could have drifted into obscurity, neither fish nor fowl in the eyes of most of society, but Pemberley offered stability and dignity. The estate valued service over pedigree, and George Darcy—following his father’s example—had promoted John not merely for family connection, but for years of proven loyalty and skill.
Young George—or Georgie as he was often called to avoid confusion—had grown up alongside Fitzwilliam, making him more of a brother than a cousin. Fitzwilliam had never once questioned the bond the two shared. Georgie had been beside him at the nursery table, in the schoolroom, on every pony ride through the fields. A few months older and infinitely more mischievous, George possessed charm like other boys had freckles, and he used it liberally to get both of them out of trouble.
But George was not here today. This moment—the arrival of Fitzwilliam’s father with his new wife—was not a cousin’s affair.
The sound of carriage wheels cracked like thunder against the silence of his thoughts.
The great gates had opened. A smart black traveling carriage, trimmed in brass and pulled by four grays, made its way up the lane with deliberate grace. At its window, a gloved hand lifted in greeting.
“Here she comes,” Mr. Hargrave murmured.
