Page 5 of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Exile

“It was two years later, when I was eighteen, that I learned of it.”

“He did not tell you?”

Now Richard was catching on. Darcy nodded. “Father kept it a secret from me until I came home from school, two years after he had put the stipulation in his will.”

“Just after the death of your mother?! Dear God! Darcy, why did you not tell me?”

“Tell you that my father distrusted me so much that he took it upon himself to select my bride?” It had been a deathblow to Darcy’s pride, the first of many more to come, it turned out.

“This girl, who is she? She could not have been more than a child.”

“She is eight years younger than me.”

“Practically an infant! What was Uncle George thinking?! Why, she might have grown to be an opinionated, overbearing shrew! This must be a mistake. A misunderstanding.”

“It is not a mistake. I saw the will with my own eyes.”

Richard opened his mouth several times, finally producing a labored, “How?”

“It was after Mother—” Darcy sucked in a breath and continued, “He left the door of the safe in his study open, the contents spread over his desk—her jewelry, her letters to him tied in a pink ribbon, a lock of Georgiana’s hair, his will. I read it myself.”

What had made Darcy so angry at that moment now filled him with sadness. He had removed his family ring and added it to the pile of his mother’s jewels. It was his first act of rebellion against his father’s wishes and the first step taken to remove himself from the burden of being a Darcy.

“Did you try to discuss the matter with him?”

“If by discuss you mean quarrel, then yes. That he would take away my freedom was bad enough, but to attach me to a young girl I had never met was unthinkable—for me and for her.”

“Of course! It was good of you to consider the girl.”

For all the good that had done! “Father was unmovable. He threatened to disinherit me if I refused to comply, so I left. It was the only way to get him to withdraw his offer.”

“Did it work?”

“After about a year, I received word that he had changed his will.”

“Who told you?”

“John Reynolds.”

“Mrs. Reynolds’s son? The solicitor?”

Darcy nodded.

“He is not with your family’s solicitor…” Richard snapped his fingers and squinted his eyes.

“Wrayburn & Associates,” Darcy provided.

A snap. “Right, Wrayburn. Reynolds is not one of their associates, is he?”

“No, and certainly not at that time. You forget he is only two years your senior.”

“Then, how could he know anything?”

“His mother. Nothing happens at Pemberley without Mrs. Reynolds’s knowledge of it.” Darcy shrugged.

“You wrote to Reynolds, but you would not write to me?”

Darcy groaned. It had been wrong of him, but at the time, he had done what he thought best. “You would have told the family where I was, and I was too selfish to allow it.” He breathed deeply, his confession pouring out on the exhale. “For the first time in my life, I was free, Rich. I worked and made my own living, and I was good at it. Very good. I earned men’s trust, and they respected me based on my merits, not just because they heard my father’s surname.”