Page 78 of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Exile

“Mother,” Mrs. Schweitzer snapped in quiet warning.

Before Lady Catherine could reply, Robbie said, “There has never been an agreement between Anne and me.”

Elizabeth sucked in a breath. Another engagement? She looked at Anne, whose eyes rolled upward in daughterly frustration while her husband patted her hands and clucked his tongue at his mother-in-law for upsetting his wife.

“Mother, I am married. I have a husband I love and children who bring me more joy than I deserve. Let Darcy have the same.” She looked at her cousin, her eyes brimming with the strength of her sentiment. “We ought to be ashamed of how we treated you. I am. I am sorry, Darcy, and it is my sincerest wish that you might allow me to be the friend to you that I ought to have been.”

Mr. Schweitzer kissed his wife’s temple. “Beautifully said, my love.”

Lady Catherine snorted. “I do not understand a word he says.”

Mr. Schweitzer did not trouble himself to make another attempt to speak more clearly, though he did kiss his wife again. She smiled at him while her mother scowled at his displays of affection. “We wish to be Darcy’s friends, Mother. To be the family we ought to have been to him all along.”

Sitting back with a huff, Lady Catherine said, “Very well, but do not expect me to be happy about it.”

“I would not dream of it, Aunt,” Robbie said under his breath.

His eyes met Elizabeth’s, and there it was: the crinkle at the corners, the twitch tugging his lips into a slow smile, the expression in his eye that communicated with her as clearly as words. This is my family. Do you find them so fearsome now? She pressed her lips together. She was not ready to laugh. She was not ready to forgive. Not yet. There were questions she needed answered and truths she needed time to contemplate before she could trust her own heart.

But there was a gauntlet of emotions in Robbie’s expression—too many for the greatest actor in the world to perform. This was him. This was real. That, at least, was something. That, for now, was enough.

Mr. Wrayburn cleared his throat. “If the family is quite ready, perhaps we might proceed to the reading of the will.”

CHAPTER 42

Darcy pulled his gaze away from Elizabeth with considerable effort and settled in the master’s chair. “Pray proceed, Mr. Wrayburn.”

Not a breath was heard as Wrayburn broke the seal.

The formal language of the opening passages required patience. Darcy listened to the recitation of his father’s name and place, the date of the composition, the declarations of sound mind and disposing memory, all the while watching the room. Lord Matlock’s hands rested on his knees with studied composure. Lady Matlock had produced her handkerchief. Lady Catherine sat with her cane planted before her like a pike. Richard caught Darcy’s eye briefly and looked away, his face carefully neutral. Wickham had gone very still, his eyes alert. Elizabeth's hands were folded in her lap, her attention fixed on Wrayburn.

Finally, the solicitor reached the section addressing the assembled parties, and the temperature of the room changed.

“To my son, Fitzwilliam Darcy”—a brief, unnecessary pause that Darcy suspected Wrayburn had rehearsed—”I bequeath the whole of the Pemberley estate, comprising all lands, tenements, the personal estate, monies, securities, livestock, household goods, furnishings, plate, linen, books, and all other effects whatsoever and wheresoever…”

The list went on at length. Darcy kept his eyes on Elizabeth.

“…provided upon this express condition.” Wrayburn set down the page with great deliberation. Another unwelcome pause. Content that he had everyone’s rapt attention, Wrayburn continued, “That within two years from the date of my decease, the said Fitzwilliam Darcy shall lawfully marry Elizabeth Bennet, she proving to be a young lady of exemplary character and understanding whom I have observed to possess the virtues most conducive to the happiness of my son and the prosperity of this estate.”

Darcy watched her receive it. The slight lift of her chin. The press of her lips. He could not read her expression with any certainty. His father had been correct in his assessment of her character. Elizabeth was everything he claimed in his will and more. So much more.

He had hoped that his father might have softened the terms, that some amendment might have been added—a clause allowing Elizabeth to refuse without forfeiting the arrangement that the original will had not contained. He had hoped this for her sake. He wanted her choice to be a choice, freely made.

“I do hereby declare that if Fitzwilliam Darcy does not marry Elizabeth Bennet within two years of my departure from this mortal plane, or if Elizabeth Bennet refuses the marriage, then the aforesaid inheritance shall become wholly void…” Darcy bowed his head briefly. Stubborn to the last. He had known it, had known his father would not relent, and yet something in him had held the hope regardless. “…in lieu thereof, I give unto my son Fitzwilliam Darcy only the terrestrial globe in my study as a reminder of the vast world beyond these walls which he will have forfeited by his own choice or his failure to secure said Elizabeth Bennet's compliance.”

Richard produced a sound that was half laugh, half cough, quickly suppressed.

Before anyone could speak, Wrayburn's clerk moved to the object behind the solicitor's table—a shape that had sat covered in dark cloth since before the room had filled, unassuming and unremarked upon—and drew the cloth away.

The globe stood on its mahogany cradle exactly as Darcy remembered it. How he had loved that globe! The brass meridian ring, the ivory degree markings, the painted oceans faded at the poles where his small hands had rested most often. He had stood before it as a child and traced the coastlines with one finger, memorizing countries and planning expeditions while his father read at the desk behind him. At the ripe age of eight, he had decided, in the solemn way of an eight-year-old boy, that he would one day put his feet on every shore he could name. He had named them all, eventually. He had stood on many of them.

His father had remembered. The globe was not an expression of his father’s displeasure. It was an olive branch, proof that he had noticed and had cared. The burn behind his eyes was immediate and unwelcome and entirely beyond his ability to prevent.

“The globe?” Richard said through a chuckle. “That old thing?”

“George Darcy always did have an inappropriate sense of humor,” Lady Catherine announced, with a disapproving glance at Richard that suggested she held him personally responsible.

Darcy did not trust himself to speak. He looked at the globe and thought of a boy who had wanted nothing more than to see the world and a father who had noticed and never said so, and he thought that this was perhaps the most his father had ever managed to say about love. He blinked. He breathed. He kept his eyes closed until it was safe to open them.