“You have done well, ma’am. Very well indeed.”
Elizabeth felt the weight of that touch, the significance of it, appreciating her maid’s observation.
“I dressed Lady Amelia in the mornings,” Clarice said without intonation. “For nearly four years. I knew.”
“I see.” Elizabeth’s voice was steady, although a chill had overtaken her veins, unsure of the implications. “And you are telling me this because?”
“You are not her.” Warmth softened her maid’s features as they gazed at each other in the mirror. “You never were. She entertained… you didn’t.”
She was circling the question of Thomas’s paternity—of whose blood ran in his veins.
“It does not much matter, does it?” Elizabeth heard herself say.
“No,” Clarice agreed. “I believe he has never considered the possibility.”
“He does not need to know.” Elizabeth made her decision, her eyes drifting to the crack in the ceiling she had studied on so many sleepless nights. “And I shall have that plastered over tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The look Clarice gave her contained newfound respect, perhaps understanding, and she departed as silently as she had entered.
Crossing to her desk, Elizabeth retrieved the folded papers Prue had pressed into her hand as the guests departed—the torn registry pages bearing George Wickham’s false signature, the lie that had brought her to Pemberley.
The connecting door opened at her touch, and she stepped through without hesitation, without ceremony, as though crossing that threshold were the most natural thing in the world.
For it was.
Darcy turned from the fire, and his eyes found hers with the expression she had come to know so well—wonder and tenderness and a love so vast it seemed impossible to contain.
She went to him. His arms came around her, warm and solid, and she melted in his embrace, breathing him in, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.
Then she drew back, looking up into his face, and held out the folded papers.
“Prue gave these to me as she was leaving. The old registry entries with the false signature.”
Darcy took them, understanding dawning in his eyes. “The documents Blythewood asked Duntze to remove.”
“I thought we might dispose of it.”
“Yes, together,” he agreed, his voice thick.
Crossing to the fire, standing side by side, Elizabeth took one edge of the papers, Darcy took the other, and with a flick of their wrists, they consigned George’s treachery into the flames.
Her hand drifted to her belly and rested there, Darcy’s gaze following the movement with both hope and understanding.
“Elizabeth,” he breathed.
She smiled, leaning into him, feeling the warmth of his body and the promise of the future stretching out before them like a path bathed in golden light.
“Our family is complete,” she said. “Now there is only us.”
“Maybe not.” His familiar smirk was the last glimpse as he reached past her and extinguished the candle.
EPILOGUE: FROM AUNT JANE
It remains onlyto recount what followed, for happy endings, though agreeable in their way, are apt to leave the curious reader peering behind the curtain, wondering how the players fared once the applause faded and ordinary life resumed its unremarkable march.
The marriage of Miss Jane Bennet to Viscount Drake took place at Michaelmas, as Mrs. Bennet had so emphatically announced, and proved to be everything that lady could have wished—a triumph of maternal strategy that she would recount to anyone who would listen for the remainder of her natural life, and to several who would not. The ceremony was conducted at Longbourn church with all proper solemnity, and if Mrs. Bennet’s bonnet was perhaps more elaborate than strict propriety demanded, no one who valued their peace of mind saw fit to mention it.
Jane was, as all had long predicted, a beautiful bride and an even lovelier viscountess, her gentle disposition perfectly attuned to the management of a great house and a husband whose devotion, steady and unflagging, was perhaps precisely the tonic Jane had always required. The Viscount, for his part, declared himself the happiest of men at every opportunity, tothe immense gratification of his mother-in-law and the gentle mortification of his wife.
