Page 52

“Apparently. My father never spoke of it, but he never spoke of his brother at all, if he could help it. They were estranged for most of my life. My father avoided London, and my uncle would drop in at Longbourn without warning. He also sent small gifts and cards, remembering his nieces. I might have expected him to divide the inheritance evenly amongst us. Jane was always gracious, and the younger ones loved the candies he brought. But…”

“He singled you out, and you are struggling with it,” Darcy finished her thought, thankfully, as she wouldn’t have put it that way.

“Everyone wonders,” she concurred. “And I suppose once I have the tally, I can make settlements for my mother and sisters, and then, Fitzwilliam, we can repair what we need of Pemberley.”

“You do not need to,” he said. “Without my debts encumbering your estate, you are free to make gifts. I should not want a single penny of it.”

“Still penniless?” She teased, and he nodded.

“Yes, penniless but exceedingly proud. As far as your uncle’s will goes, you also came to me without a penny.”

They laughed as they crossed the garden doors, with Hannah chattering behind them about the primroses and whether Cook might be persuaded to make syllabub for dinner.

A footman approached Mr. Darcy at the doorway. “An express, sir, from Miss Georgiana Darcy.”

Darcy’s face paled as he pressed a coin into the courier’s hand, and Elizabeth let go of his arm and stepped back.

“I shall leave you, then,” she said.

Darcy looked distracted, but he held the letter. “Come to the library, and we shall read it together.”

Hannah bobbed her crooked curtsy and reached for Elizabeth’s pelisse with the discreet efficiency of a girl who recognized when her employers wished to be alone. “I shall air out the bedchamber, ma’am, and tell Mrs. Reynolds about the syllabub. And the guest wing—oh, she will be ever so pleased to have something to prepare.”

She disappeared through the servants’ passage before Elizabeth could respond, leaving a silence suddenly weighted by the express in Darcy’s hand.

“I shall leave you to read it in private,” Elizabeth said, taking a step toward the stairs. “Your sister’s correspondence is not my concern.”

“Elizabeth.” His voice stopped her. When she turned, his face had gone pale beneath its usual composure, and he was looking at the unopened letter as if it might contain something far worse than sisterly news. “I would—that is, if you would not object⁠—”

He broke off, and she saw him struggling with something: pride, perhaps, or the unfamiliar act of asking for help.

“I would be grateful,” he said finally, “if you would read it with me. Georgiana’s letters have been… concerning of late. And I find I should prefer not to face whatever this contains alone.”

Elizabeth studied his face—the set jaw, the carefully controlled expression she now knew concealed far more than arrogance—and made her decision.

“Then let us see what troubles your sister,” she said, and walked with him toward the library.

The room was quiet, fire banked low, the sunlight falling in long stripes across the carpet. Elizabeth crossed to the window to give him privacy, looking out across the grounds, the crocuses still brilliant and the primroses peeking along the fence posts.

She turned at the sound of tearing paper and a sharp intake of breath, a gasp, as if Darcy had been struck.

“Fitzwilliam?”

“She says she must marry.” His voice came out rough, halting. “At once. That she cannot wait for permission or propriety, and if I will not give my blessing, she will proceed without it. She is coming here, and she writes as though she has already left.”

Elizabeth moved toward him. “Marry whom?”

“A Mr. James Ashworth, second son of Lord Ashworth.” He looked at the letter again, as if hoping the words might rearrange themselves. “She has mentioned him before—that he wished to pay his addresses. But she spoke of courtship, of seeking my blessing in due time. Not this… precipitous insistence. Why would she demand to marry in haste?”

Elizabeth could think of several reasons, none good, but she did not wish to alarm Darcy. “But she is coming here, rather than eloping. That suggests she wants your approval, even if she claims otherwise.”

“The last time Georgiana trusted her own judgment about a man, I nearly lost her to George Wickham. Last summer, at Ramsgate. She was fifteen.”

The name dropped like a dead fly into the white soup. Elizabeth remembered the dark rumors surrounding Ramsgate. A planned elopement, a desperate rescue, and a fifteen-year-old girl nearly ruined by a scoundrel. She had not known it was Darcy’s sister.

“But somehow you prevented it, did you?”

“By chance, I arrived earlier than expected,” Darcy said. “I should never have left her with the Matlocks. I should have kept her here, where I could⁠—”