“No,” Wickham said, struggling now. “No, wait. I confess. I confess it, do you hear? I was desperate. Darcy! Georgiana! Please!”
Georgiana trembled, but Elizabeth held her fast.
The men dragged Wickham toward the door. His boots scraped across the floor; his voice broke into open sobbing before they reached the hall.
“Darcy! For pity’s sake!”
Darcy looked at the fire.
He listened until Wickham’s cries faded down the passage, then to the closing of the front door, then to the silence that followed.
Only then did he turn back.
Georgiana was weeping, but not as she had that first night. Elizabeth’s arms were around her, one hand smoothing her hair, her own face pale and damp-eyed but fierce. Richard stood with his jaw set and his gaze fixed upon nothing. Mr. Philips released a long breath. Sir William looked older than he had an hour before.
Darcy crossed the room and knelt before Georgiana.
“It is over,” he said quietly.
Her eyes lifted to his, frightened still, searching.
“He cannot claim you,” Darcy said. “He cannot take you. The paper is false.”
Georgiana’s face crumpled.
She reached for him, and Darcy gathered his sister into his arms while Elizabeth held them both.
No one spoke.
There was nothing more to say.
Chapter 32
Once matters had been resolved with Wickham—for Elizabeth did not feel he merited the title of even a mere mister—everything returned, with surprising speed, to its usual state.
Ornearlyits usual state.
Longbourn still rang with Mrs. Bennet’s exclamations, Lydia’s laughter, Kitty’s questions, Mary’s moral observations, and Jane’s soft attempts to soothe them all. Mr. Bennet still retreated to his library when domestic joy grew too loud for his constitution, though Elizabeth had lately caught him smiling into his book more often than reading it. The younger girls still spoke of balls, ribbons, officers, and the astonishing fact that villainy might enter a drawing room wearing a handsome face. Mrs. Philips still gathered and dispensed every acceptable particular with an industry that would have suited a government office.
Yet everything was different.
Elizabeth was engaged to be married.
Not merely betrothed in the ordinary way, with settlements to consider and congratulations to receive and new gowns to be made, but betrothed to Darcy—to the man she had secretly admired, defended, wondered over, misunderstood, loved, andalmost lost before she had ever properly had him. There were moments when she could scarcely credit it. She would be seated with her needlework or walking the garden path or listening to her mother determine, for the sixth time in one day, which lace best suited a bride of her complexion, when the truth would rise up within her with such force that she had to lower her eyes to hide the smile.
She was to marry Darcy.
And if her joy had needed any increase, it was found in those who came with him. Georgiana remained at Netherfield until all fear of immediate danger had passed, and by the end of that time Elizabeth could not imagine thinking of her as anything but a sister. She was shy still, and often quiet, but there was sweetness, humor, and unexpected strength beneath it. She had faced Wickham’s exposure with trembling hands and a lifted chin, and Elizabeth loved her more for both.
Colonel Fitzwilliam—Richard, for she had been given leave to call him so—declared that any sister of Darcy’s who had defeated a scoundrel by spelling was entitled to every privilege of family. He came and went between Netherfield and Longbourn with such cheerful freedom that Mrs. Bennet nearly forgave him for not being the heir to an estate. He teased Darcy without mercy, charmed Mrs. Philips, frightened Lydia into something very like respect by promising to introduce her only to officers who knew how to behave, and treated Georgiana with a brotherly mixture of nonsense and watchfulness that Elizabeth could not help admiring.
On the whole, she had no cause to repine.
A wedding date was set. Marriage contracts were drawn, examined, argued over, and signed. Mr. Philips took his duties so seriously that Elizabeth suspected he enjoyed terrifying the other solicitors. Lord Matlock approved everything with a care that made her grateful, and Lady Matlock wrote to Elizabethwith such affectionate warmth that Mrs. Bennet carried the letter about for two days as proof that her daughter was beloved by an actual countess.
Elizabeth’s own fortune remained, to her relief and some amusement, exactly as Lord Matlock had arranged it. Netherfield was hers, protected in law and destined for her children, though its income might be directed in such ways as good sense permitted. Darcy, after the first shock of discovering her hidden wealth, had said only that he was glad for her security and still more glad she had not been obliged to sacrifice it. Elizabeth had looked at him carefully then, searching for wounded pride or disappointment, but found none. He seemed, if anything, quietly grateful that one more burden had been removed from their shoulders.
It was then she knew, fully and finally, that she had chosen well.
