“Love Lizba.” Little Tom rubbed his face against hers, and Harley enthusiastically joined in, licking both of them. Elizabeth didn’t have the heart to push the boy away, but the dog’s slobber was too wet to be tolerated. Just then, the door opened, and Thomas jumped up, shouting, “Da!”
Elizabeth startled, her traitorous heart filling with dread and anticipation, but it was only Georgiana, his sister, standing there with red-rimmed eyes, wringing her handkerchief.
“Elizabeth.” Georgiana’s voice cracked on the name. “I… may I come in?”
“Please,” she said. “Join me on the carpet. It seems we are both in need of a refuge from the sudden honesty of a Darcy.”
Georgiana crossed the room and sank on the floor. She patted Little Tom and let Harley lick her hand.
“He told me.” Her voice was small. “And I hit him.”
Despite everything, Elizabeth felt her lips twitch. “Did you?”
“With my fists. On his shoulders.” Georgiana demonstrated the motion, her hands curling into ineffectual weapons. “It did not hurt him, I am sure. But I wanted to. I wanted to hurt him as much as he has hurt me.”
“An understandable impulse.” Elizabeth shifted Thomas in her lap; he had begun to drowse, his head heavy against her shoulder. “I considered several options myself. Throwing the inkwell was among the front-runners.”
“You did not.”
“I did not.” Elizabeth’s voice hardened. “I took the key to Lady Amelia’s cabinet instead. It seemed more useful than a dramatic gesture. Though I confess the inkwell would have beensatisfying—especially the stain over his white and well-starched cravat.”
“I can be clever too,” Georgiana said. “I told him his love grew faster than his lies could keep up.”
Elizabeth rocked Thomas, stroking his hair as the boy began to snore. “One might equally observe that his lies were simply better planned than his declarations.”
“Elizabeth, he doesn’t mean to?—”
“Does he?” Elizabeth’s voice was cool. “He orchestrated this entire affair with military precision. I was chosen, you see, as the most desperate candidate available. He promised we would live separate lives, each on our own side of the door, raising his supposed nephew, abandoned by a wayward brother. Then, of course, he must carry me upstairs in a rainstorm, nurse me through a fever, ply me with sweets—much like his son here with the damp biscuits—and finally profess his love, all while neglecting to mention that the child in my care was his own.”
Georgiana flinched.
“Forgive me.” Elizabeth’s voice did not soften. “I should not speak so plainly in front of you. He is your brother, after all. Your beloved brother, who apparently lies as easily as he breathes.”
“He does not—” Georgiana stopped, then started again. “He lies badly, actually. To me, at least. I always knew when he was concealing something, even if I did not know what. The way his jaw tightens. The way he will not quite meet my eyes.”
“How fortunate for you.” Elizabeth’s tone was acid. “I, apparently, lack your powers of observation. I watched him tighten his jaw for months and merely thought him constipated.”
Georgiana’s hand dropped. The laugh escaped—guilty, horrified, entirely inappropriate—and once begun, it could not be stopped. She pressed both hands to her mouth, her shoulders shaking, tears streaming afresh down her cheeks.
“I am sorry,” she gasped. “I should not… this is not funny… he has hurt you terribly?—”
“He has.” Elizabeth’s voice was strangely calm. “And yet, here we are, two women who love him, sitting on a nursery floor while his son sleeps in my lap and his puppy drools on my hem. If we do not laugh, we shall drown in the absurdity of it all.”
“Or the tragedy.” Georgiana’s eyes grew wide. “I believe my brother when he says he loves you.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and drew Thomas closer. “Spare me the sisterly appeals for mercy. It would have been far kinder had he refrained from uttering words like love and devotion, family and affection. If only he had kept it strictly business—separate lives, mother the boy, indulge the puppy, the snails, the inevitable hedgehog or two. But he must needs outwit me, make a jest of poor, unclaimed Elizabeth, and see if he could coax me to…”
She could not finish, for he had succeeded. She had invited him to her bedchamber, prepared to lie perfectly still and let him have his way, undone by nothing more than a spoonful of syllabub, a borrowed line of poetry, and those imploring eyes—so like a basset hound’s when longing for that fat soup bone.
And this time, she could not suppress the sobs and the weeping as Little Tom stirred in her arms, and Harley, that sweet, slobbering dog with the ears too long and the eyes too big, licked her slowly and thoroughly, his tongue wetting her face faster than she could weep.
Like a man whose love grew faster than his lies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE KEYS TO PEMBERLEY
Elizabeth awokewith the peculiar conviction that Pemberley had emptied itself overnight. The soft tread of servants in the corridor, the distant splash of water as Clarice prepared her bath—these were the ordinary proofs of habitation, yet they did nothing to dispel the dread that slipped down her throat. It seemed entirely possible that Darcy, having seen the mask slip, had vanished with the dawn, leaving her to preside over the ruins of their little pageant.
