They spent the next hour in the strongroom, Mrs. Reynolds explaining accounts and expenditures while Elizabeth listened, questioned, and—where she felt confident—approved. The sums were staggering by Longbourn’s standards, but Mrs. Reynolds presented them with the calm authority of a woman who had managed such figures for decades, and Elizabeth found herself absorbing more than she had expected.
The Pemberley farms had produced a surplus of grain the previous harvest, now being sold at advantageous prices. The home farm required new fencing for the sheep pastures. The tenant at Derby Grange had requested permission to expand his dairy operation, a proposal that would require capital investment but promised increased returns within two years. The household itself consumed a small fortune in candles, coal, and provisions, but the expenditures were reasonable for an estate of this size, and the servants’ wages were generous without being extravagant.
By the time they emerged from the strongroom, Elizabeth’s head was awash with figures, but for the first time since Darcy’s departure, she felt something other than helplessness.
She had signed documents, approved expenditures, and chosen jewels for a dinner party she would host in her own right, as mistress of Pemberley.
Clarice had been right: a wise woman built her house, one decision at a time, until the edifice and its architect became indistinguishable.
Or perhaps she was simply too stubborn to let it fall. Had Darcy wagered on her obstinacy? He was not a man given to rashness, and she could find no explanation for his trust but the least sentimental one.
He would keep her too occupied to miss what he could not provide. At least she would not go to her grave without the kiss of a husband replacing that earlier, unearned one. For he hadkissed her, and in so doing, touched her heart, and for that, she could at least be grateful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE HIDDEN CHAMBER
Elizabeth had barely writtenthe invitations when Prue Duntze’s pattens clattered up the front steps, where she had no doubt slogged through the mud left by a fractious Derbyshire shower. She shook off her cloak and surrendered her pattens to the Jamison, who bore them away at arm’s length as though they had personally offended him.
“I came as soon as I heard,” she announced, her tone suggesting that the French had landed at Dover. “Hannah told the post boy who told our cook, who told my mother, who told me at breakfast—though I suspect Mother intended it as disapproval rather than information.”
“What exactly is the tale being spread?” Elizabeth set aside the estate correspondence she had been reviewing.
Prue patted Elizabeth’s arm. “Why, the fact that your husband gave you the keys to the entire kingdom.”
“And good afternoon to you, too, Miss Duntze,” Elizabeth said dryly. “How delightful of you to call.”
“Oh, do not be proper with me.” Prue waved away formality as she might wave away a persistent fly. “We are past that, surely. You sat on a nursery floor and speculated about parish registries with me. We are practically confederates by now.”
Prue had battered her way into Elizabeth’s trust by sheer force of pattens, and Elizabeth, who made a habit of keeping friendship at arm’s length, found herself unexpectedly warmed by her irrepressible enthusiasm.
She inclined her head and set aside her quill. “Very well. Tea, or shall we dispense with that as well?”
“Tea would be lovely. I am parched from the walk, and Mother’s chocolate this morning was thin as water.” Prue settled into the chair opposite Elizabeth, letting out a breath as she tugged her stays. “Now, tell me everything. Is it true you have access to the strongroom? The wine cellar and Lady Anne’s jewels?”
“Mrs. Reynolds has been most thorough in her orientation.” Elizabeth rang for tea, privately entertained by the speed with which news darted along the invisible trails binding great houses to parsonages. Hannah, she supposed, would need a gentle reminder about discretion, though she doubted such advice would prove any more effective than instructing Harley to leave the slippers unmolested. Still, Prue showed no sign of knowing anything about Little Tom’s parentage, so Hannah’s discretion, at least where it counted, remained intact.
“And Mr. Darcy simply handed you the keys before departing for London?” Prue leaned forward. “Miss Entwhistle is beside herself. She is convinced there is a romance in it—a grand gesture of trust, a declaration through deeds rather than words. She has been composing speeches about it all morning.”
“Miss Entwhistle might benefit from composing fewer speeches and more inquiries into reality.”
“Oh, she would never do that. Reality is far too disappointing for her tastes.” Prue accepted her tea with a grateful sigh and cradled the cup as though it were the holy chalice itself. “But you must admit it is rather extraordinary. Georgiana tells me the master hardly speaks to anyone, keeps his own counsel, guardshis privacy as fiercely as a dragon guards gold—and yet here you are, barely a month married, with the keys to everything.”
Elizabeth thought of Darcy’s note, still tucked in her writing desk beside the ring she could not bring herself to discard.Nothing has changed for me. Nothing will.She thought of his eyes in the library, dark with grief and desperate hope, offering her confessions while terrified she would dismiss them as unceremoniously as he had once called her not handsome enough to tempt him.
“Mr. Darcy is a man of unexpected depths,” she said. “I am only beginning to understand them.”
“Oh, and speaking of misunderstandings.” Prue took a noisy sip of tea before setting down the cup and wiggling her shoulders so rapidly Elizabeth almost expected her nose to twitch. “Georgiana came to the parsonage yesterday and showed me an extraordinary letter from her brother, you know, the George Wickham who signed the registry with such flourish? She mentioned you had examined it as well.”
Elizabeth’s spine stiffened, though she kept her expression mild. “I glanced at it briefly.”
“Did you notice anything peculiar about the timing?”
“You refer to the miracle of a letter traveling from Bombay to Derbyshire in less than a month’s time?”
Prue’s eyes widened. “You noticed.”
“One of my neighbor’s nephews is stationed at Gibraltar,” Elizabeth said, “and she despairs of hearing from him more than twice a year. India is considerably farther. If Mr. Wickham sailed at the end of March, he would scarcely have cleared the Bay of Biscay by April third—let alone reached Bombay and penned a letter describing elephants and bazaars.”
