Darcy took the letter, recognizing Elizabeth’s hand on the direction. He broke the seal and read quickly, conscious of Wickham watching with undisguised curiosity.
My dear husband,
I write to inform you that the Apethorpes called yesterday. The visit went tolerably well—better than I had feared, though there were complications involving Harley and a great deal of screaming. Thomas is well and asks for his Da constantly. I have assured him you will return soon.
Mrs. Reynolds and I have settled on Saturday next for the dinner party. The guests include the Cathcarts, the Duntzes, and the Matlocks. I have managed not to burn the house downin your absence, though Jamison came perilously close when asked to bank the fire for Lady Apethorpe.
Please return when your business allows. Pemberley is not the same without its master.
Your servant,
Elizabeth
Darcy read it twice, searching for what lay beneath the formal words.Your servant. Not your wife, not your devoted, merely your servant—the same closing he had used in his own letter to her. She was holding him at arm’s length, and maintaining the distance he had created with his lies.
And yet.Pemberley is not the same without its master.Was there longing in that, or merely duty? He could not tell. He had never been able to read Elizabeth with certainty, and now, with everything broken between them, he understood her less than ever.
“Good news?” Wickham inquired, his tone falsely solicitous.
Darcy folded the letter and tucked it into his coat. “My wife informs me of a dinner party this next Saturday. If you intend to attend, you will conduct yourself with absolute propriety.”
“Propriety is my middle name.”
“Your middle name is Thomas.” Darcy’s voice was ice. “The same name you fraudulently attached to a child who was never yours. Do not test me, George. You will sign the papers, behave yourself at dinner, and then you will leave Pemberley and never return.”
Wickham’s smile did not waver. “We shall see, brother. We shall see.”
He strolled toward the door, pausing only to glance back over his shoulder. “Give my regards to Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Tell her I am very much looking forward to renewing our acquaintance.”
Darcy’s hand shot out, catching Wickham’s arm before he could turn away. “When did you meet my wife?”
Wickham’s smile widened. “Did I say I had? Perhaps I am merely anticipating the pleasure.” He freed his arm with an easy twist. “Good evening, brother.”
And with that, Wickham vanished. Darcy summoned his coat and stepped into the London night, carrying with him a disquiet he had not brought in.
Pemberley is not the same without its master.
No indeed, because as it stood, he was not the only one who entered this inconvenient marriage with secrets.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
LOVE IS PATIENT
Darcy did not botherto change from his riding clothes. The late afternoon sun slanted through the old oak grove as he approached the lake on foot. Mrs. Reynolds had directed him as soon as he had arrived with Wickham in tow, and he had wished to see his wife first.
“The mistress has been spending her afternoons at the pavilion, sir,” she said, with a look that conveyed rather more than her words. “Reading.”
A twinge caused him to swallow at the thought of her reading material, and he did not wish to know what she might have discovered. He had given her the key to Amelia’s cabinet, and if she had chosen to use it—if she had spent his absence perusing every word his former lover had written about him—that was her right. He had forfeited any claim to privacy when he confessed the truth in the library.
Days on the road, riding beside the barouche procured for his wayward brother, had afforded him ample opportunity to turn Wickham’s insinuations over and over, until even the rhythm of his horse’s canter became a form of torment.
When had his wife met George? His brother was neither a traveling curate nor a member of the militia, although Darcyhad exerted inordinate efforts to secure him an honorable occupation. He had lurked in the darker corners of London, frequented gaming tables, and coffee shops where radical ideas were debated?—
He could not picture Elizabeth debating with libertines, parrying cards, and drinking wine. She preferred walking on paths of solitude, alone with her thoughts, and climbing the hills for the views. Her reading material went no further than her father’s respectable, if somewhat damp library, and her wit was aimed at gentlemen she found annoying, and truth to tell, there were no true gentlemen in Wickham’s vicinity that she would find interesting.
His path to the lake led him through the south gardens, past the rose beds his mother had once tended and the ancient oak that had served as his childhood fortress. Pemberley in late spring was impossibly beautiful—the grounds bursting with color, the air sweet with blossom—and yet Darcy barely saw it. His mind was fixed on the pavilion, and the woman who waited there.
The path curved through a stand of willows before opening onto the prospect of the lake—that perfect oval of still water his mother had called Pemberley’s mirror. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the grass, and somewhere in the reeds, a moorhen called to its mate.
