Page 47

I remain, Madam, your obedient servant,

J. Sowerby

A bank draft for the six hundred pounds was attached to the end of his letter. She set it aside, the realization dawning that she was wealthy only on paper with no ready cash.

The bulk of her eighty-thousand-pound estate was illiquid: obligations, debts owed to her uncle by people who might or might not pay, shipping interests that might or might not return, and a quarterly payment already missed.

Would she ever see the money? Or would these assets also be drowning in debt or devaluation?

Taking a deep breath, she set aside Sowerby’s letter and broke the seal to her uncle’s last message.

She would have known his hand anywhere: the broad, slanting strokes that leaned forward as if his thoughts outpaced his pen, the ink blotted where he pressed too hard on the downstroke, the particular way he crossed his t’s with a flourish that had made her laugh when she was nine and he had been teaching her to fold and direct a letter.

My dearest Lizzy,

If you are reading this, then you have married Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, and I am dead, and you are likely furious with me on both counts. I accept this. I have earned it.

You will want to know why I did what I did. The solicitor’s letter explained the conditions; this letter will attempt to explain the reasoning, though I suspect you will find it insufficient. You always did demand better arguments than I could supply.

Elizabeth’s throat tightened. She could hear his voice in the words—wry, affectionate, unrepentant—and the loss of him struck her fresh, as if she were learning of his death for the first time rather than weeks after the fact.

I have read your letters. All of them. Every one, from the first you sent me at twelve years old describing Mrs. Long’s unfortunate turban, to the last, in which you wrote of a gentleman whose gaze followed you across every room in Meryton with an intensity you found—what were your words?—“annoying, invasive, and suggestive of either contempt or the sort of interest a naturalist takes in a species he has not yet classified.” You wished, you wrote, to teach him that not every woman in England was flattered by ten thousand a year and a talent for staring.

Her breath caught. She remembered those letters—every careless, witty, overwrought, embarrassingly candid letter she had dashed off between assemblies and dinners—full of observations and complaints and the small dramas of country life. He had always shared a laugh with her, and she knew he enjoyed her tales and foibles.

And she had told him everything about Mr. Darcy.

You described him very well, Lizzy. Better than you knew. I saw in your descriptions a man who watched you not because he wished to survey your faults, but because he could not look away. You wrote of his pride, his silences, his infuriating habit of appearing wherever you happened to be and saying nothing useful once he arrived. You called him rude, presumptuous, and possessed of an expression suggesting permanent digestive distress.

And yet you wrote of him in every letter. Not once. Not twice. In every letter for three months, he appeared, and you savaged him with your pen, and I, who have made my fortune reading men’s characters from a considerable distance, saw what you could not.

I read those letters, my dear, with the eye of a man who has loved unwisely and well. And I thought to myself, what I would have given to be that young again, and I decided I would give you what I lost myself. A chance.

Elizabeth’s hands shook as she continued reading, her uncle’s familiar voice threading through the worst realization of her life. He was meddling, even from beyond the grave, and he did not consider it a prank or a joke.

And so I made my arrangements.

The fortune is real. It is yours, absolutely, held in trust by Mr. Sowerby, and no husband, however tall, however proud, however afflicted with the staring disease, may touch it without your consent. I have arranged matters so that Mr. Darcy can never afford to be unkind to you. Ever.

I will not explain the mechanism. Sowerby will, when the time is right, or you will discover it yourself, for you are cleverer than anyone has ever given you credit for. Suffice it to say that your husband’s comfort depends upon your goodwill, and this was by design. If he treats you well, he will prosper. If he does not, he will find his circumstances… constrained.

You will think me high-handed. You would be correct.

One day, when you have stopped cursing my name, I hope you will understand why.

Do not be too proud to be happy, my girl. It is the Bennet failing, and I should know.

Forgive me, if you can. Remember me fondly, if you cannot.

Your devoted uncle,

Henry

P.S.—The sugared almonds at Christmas were always meant for you, whatever I told your sisters.

Elizabeth let the letter slip from her fingers to the counterpane. Her vision blurred, and she found herself weeping—not for grief, but with hot, indignant tears, as the full measure of her uncle’s interference became clear.

She had brought this marriage of inconvenience upon herself with her pen, her wit, and her absolute inability to keep her opinions to herself. She was entirely at fault.