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“You have tried,” she conceded. “The roses you could ill-afford, bought from a neighboring estate. The potted shrimp from last evening’s dinner, brought from the coast at considerable expense, because you remembered—from some conversation at Netherfield, some passing remark—that I am fond of them. The packet of sugared almonds you had Hannah place on my dressing table. The lavender soap that Hannah tells me you were most careful about. You tried, Mr. Darcy, and that is what makes this so very difficult to understand.”

His face reddened. “I am sorry to have disappointed you, Mrs. Darcy.”

“I believe one of my conditions, to which you eagerly agreed, was that I would not be condescended to,” she said as clearly as the cold would allow.

A muscle tightened in his jaw. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me, Mr. Darcy, that you did not marry me for my uncle Henry’s wealth. Because I had begun to think rather well of you—the conditions you met, the linens you selected, the expense of the roses and shrimp you could ill-afford. You wanted me to feel welcome, but you haven’t told me the truth. Of this.”

She swept her hand at the landscape—of the house with missing shutters and water stains in the ceiling, of the grounds that resembled Longbourn’s neglect, of entire wings closed and furniture draped, of the head housekeeper drying roses and lavender and making sachets for the linen press. And mostly, of the pervasive cold, the empty coal scuttle, and a young housemaid posing as a lady’s maid.

“I did not marry you for your money.”

“Your story is that you married me for your honor, Mr. Darcy. That you did not wish to let the clock run past Lady Day, when the money would have been yours. That is what puzzles me.” She stared at him in a way that made him squirm and clench his jaw. “Perhaps having a wife with an eighty-thousand-pound fortune gives you better terms for taking out a debt? Or you might persuade me to pay?”

“I will not take your money. Do you not understand?” Darcy’s eyes flashed with either anger or frustration. “I had no other way of ensuring that you and your family received your uncle’s fortune.”

“It never occurred to you that you could have refused the will or simply returned the money to my family without marrying me?” Elizabeth pinned him with narrowed eyes.

Darcy shook his head, his glower deepening, his eyes meeting hers. “My creditors would have the first claim. They would go to court and seize every farthing.”

“So you married me to protect my inheritance from your own creditors.”

“I married you because it was the only way to ensure the money remained yours. Your uncle tied it up for you alone from the day of our wedding. Sowerby holds it in trust for your sole and separate use, and no husband can touch it, nor any husband’s creditors.”

“How very noble,” she concluded. “You bought hothouse roses, paid for a private room at the inn while you slept in a common room. You owe money you cannot pay, and do not deny it. I heard that the bank draft had insufficient funds, and you did this to protect a family you viewed as beneath you.”

“Yes. My estate is mortgaged to its roof-tiles, my sister’s dowry is at sea, my tenants receive forbearance because I cannot afford to press them for rents I need to survive, and I married you—I married you, Mrs. Darcy—because I could not afford not to, and because refusing would have cost your family everything, and because⁠—”

“Because what, Mr. Darcy?” She tilted her chin to show him she was not frightened. “Because my uncle’s will was intolerable? And while you might have taken the fortune and paid off your debts, you chose instead to saddle yourself with a wife you did not want and a household you cannot maintain?”

Darcy turned away, his gaze fixed on the neglected parkland, shoulders rigid. Elizabeth felt the sting of having pressed too far, the sharpness in her chest giving way to a hollow chill. She could not deny his sacrifice, yet he would not concede that he had gained anything in return.

He would insist he wanted nothing from her while she was now mistress of this crumbling estate, nor would he admit that she would be his salvation once her uncle’s holdings passed to her.

And because she was Elizabeth Bennet, and Elizabeth Bennet never held her tongue, she said, “It appears, Mr. Darcy, that I have married a truly noble gentleman, who is also quite penniless.”

He turned away from her, his profile looking out toward the lake. The north wind pulled at his coat and raked through his hair. His gaze was steady, unblinking, fixed on the distance.

“I am no fortune hunter,” he said. “And I am not honorable. Because when you asked me to marry you, an honorable man would have told you about his debt and shame, about the legacy his father left, his desperation and despair, his sister’s dowry risked at sea, but I could not say it. I looked at you, and I could not make myself say it, and now you know why.”

She didn’t, but Elizabeth had no words left. The wind gusted between them, carrying the first drops of rain, and Elizabeth wrapped her arms around herself against the cold, shivering down to her bones.

“Madam.” He stepped back, and the distance between them widened like a wound. “I shall leave you to your thoughts. To your prejudices. And to your pride.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE DARCY SEAL

The wind followed Elizabeth from the pavilion to the house. She had stopped looking at the weathered window sills and uneven pathways, and looking back at dead vines would not improve them.

Biting her lip, she let herself in through the south terrace door, only for the indoor chill to wrap around her shoulders. She had entered this marriage to secure her family’s fortune, but if she were entirely honest, she had imagined being envied as the new Mistress of Pemberley, gracing assembly rooms and society balls in new silks and jewels. She had never imagined shivering before banked fires, sleeping beneath heavy furs, or choosing between soap and rose water.

The Darcy who had stalked through Hertfordshire was proud of his family name and paraded about as though he owned the horizon. He was known to possess ten thousand a year to Bingley’s five, and he had seemed to spend money with equal freedom. But in bitter retrospect, perhaps he had merely been the guest offering Bingley’s wines, dining at Bingley’s tables, and riding in Bingley’s carriages.

Still, she ought not to have called him penniless—least of all to his face, on his own neglected grounds, beside the lake his grandfather had stocked with such optimism. She had earned every sharp retort he had delivered. But apology was a luxury for another day. Not before she calculated, with proper precision, what this alliance—so hastily forged—would cost them both.

Climbing the stairs to the family wing, she found Hannah in the corridor, her arms laden with fresh linens.