37

The residents of Netherfield once again slept rather later than usual, having imbibed a great deal the night before. Dinner had been an elegant and lively celebration of Charles and Jane’s anniversary. He had given a very fine speech that left more than just Jane misty-eyed with feeling, and afterward they had all practised their dancing steps together – this time without the verbal assault of the French tyrant Charles had employed.

Heavy rain battered the house as Elizabeth left the nursery and made her way to the library, where she supposed Captain Darcy would likely find her. She was pleased to find they were of one mind, for he was already there.

He sat in a window seat, the dark clouds outside forming a dramatic backdrop as he beckoned her to join him. She sat very near him, and after they had bid one another good morning, she opened the book in her lap. Inside the pages, she had tucked the final letter, and the handkerchief pouch that contained his other communications.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and broke the seal, slowly unfolding the ivory parchment. Captain Darcy wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer as she began to read it.

Dearest Elizabeth,

For dearest you remain, after all this time. Perhaps I write to you in vain, but I must throw myself on your mercy, if you are actually reading the letters you have never responded to. Do you fear to write because I am in mourning, or because we are not engaged?

On that point, I beg you would not doubt me. I consider myself honour bound to you, for I had meant to ask for your hand the evening I was obliged to leave Kent so hastily. We did make promises to one another, though perhaps I ought to have begged your cousin Collins to marry us that very night. If you bear me any resentment for not speaking my heart more plainly, I will do so now – marry me, Elizabeth. I am despondent without you.

The last three months have been the most painful period of my life, between the difficulties of managing Pemberley, my own grief, and the indescribable torment my mother and sister have succumbed to. And yet thoughts of you consume me. I need you, Elizabeth.

I lay awake at night thinking of our time together, of the sounds of your laughter and the feel of your lips on mine, the feel of you in my arms. When the struggle of running my estate and caring for my mother and sister begins to feel insurmountable, I think of you here at my side, facing it all with me, and I yearn for you with a desperation no words can convey.

I know it is pathetic of me to beg, and selfish of me to ask you to take on such difficulties – and this is hardly the romantic proposal you deserve – certainly it is far from what I had imagined when last we were together. But I cannot live without you, and know not how I shall carry on as I must if you do not consent to become my wife. I could face anything with you as my bride, for your love and wisdom would strengthen my own will, and your comfort would ease the wretched darkness that my life has become.

Pemberley is failing, and has been since before my father’s passing. My mother is a ghost of her former self, and Georgiana is so disconsolate I fear she may do herself some harm. I am a broken man with little to offer and everything to gain in you as my wife. I can give you only the promise that all will be well again – I know not when, but with you here, I might overcome any obstacle, and my mother and sisters would benefit from your lovely spirit. You would be our salvation, and I will devote the rest of my life to your happiness, and the comfort of all your relations.

I beg you, Elizabeth, to remember all that has passed between us, and the love that I know we have both felt. Have mercy, my darling, and consent to marry me. I can obtain a special licence and come to Kent – I would depart the very moment I receive your answer, and hasten to you with the first shred of hope I have felt in many months.

Your desperate devoted,

Fitzwilliam Darcy

Elizabeth wept as she read the letter, knowing that if she had received it in Kent, she would have accepted him without hesitation, and committed herself to giving the succour he and his family had needed. She could not fully repent the circumstances that had given her two beautiful children, but she was plagued with regret nonetheless.

“I wish Lady Catherine was still to see her efforts failed, bribing that servant to steal your letters – horrid woman!” She fell into his embrace and began to sob. “It breaks my heart that you were suffering far more than I, that we both believed ourselves forsaken when we might have been spared that sorrow.”

Captain Darcy stroked her hair as he held her, until her tears had ceased. Then he cupped her face in his hands, and as he leaned in, Elizabeth thrust herself toward him and met his lips with irrepressible passion; she was too overcome with emotion to express herself with mere words.

He pulled her onto his lap, holding her tight as she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him as if the strength of her ardour might assuage the pain he had written of and set the past right at last. Elizabeth felt a rush of elation, knowing that he was hers, that he had always been hers, had always loved her as she loved him. He had never stopped wanting her, and she could no longer deny that even in her happiest moments during their separation, she never stopped mourning the loss of her first love.

Their kiss deepened as he gently parted her lips with his tongue and began to roll it over hers, and she let out a little moan and then broke away from him, knowing she would soon lose the will to stop herself. Her breathing was ragged as she rested her forehead against his, their arms still around one another.

“I love you more than I ever have, more than the day I wrote that letter, more than the day you arrived at Cameron Court, more than yesterday, even,” he said.

“I love you, too, Will. It breaks my heart that I could not accept your proposal when you wrote to me, that I knew nothing of it as I thought I should die of heartbreak.” Elizabeth slowly slid out of his lap but sat close enough that their bodies still touched, and she clasped his hands in hers. “But all that is over now, and we can begin again.”

His eyes lit and he sat up straighter. “Elizabeth, are you accepting my proposal?”

“I am telling you that I am nearly ready to do so,” Elizabeth said. “The ball is but a week away, and on the day that I shall go down to half-mourning. If you had asked me at the Netherfield ball, it would have been quite perfect.”

“I nearly did, but I did not wish to overshadow Charles’s announcement.”

“I suspect the colonel and Lydia may have similar tidings to share at the ball; but if my guess is correct, I must also conjecture that they would both be delighted to see that joy doubled.”

“I cannot disagree,” he replied, bringing her hand to his lips. She could see in his eyes that he understood her.

Elizabeth smiled, fairly trembling from what they had just acknowledged, that a week hence they would finally become betrothed. With shaking hands, she reached for the letter, refolded it, and began to put it into the pouch with the others.

But the letters within were thick, and the handkerchief sewn like an envelope would not cooperate with her. She removed the letters within, and attempted to compress them with the most recent addition, but her shaking hands fumbled the letters as Lydia strode into the room, humming gaily.

“Oh,” Lydia cried, and six folded letters went flying across the carpet. Elizabeth stared at them with some confusion, thinking that there ought to be but five.

“I always come in here at this hour – forgive me,” Lydia said, though without any apparent intention of giving them privacy. She crossed the room and began to help Elizabeth and Captain Darcy retrieve the toppled letters.

“Are you passing notes between yourselves, even while staying under the same roof? How secretive of you, but I daresay it is very romantic!”

She picked up one that had an unbroken seal and turned it over – it was addressed to Jane. “I know that writing – that is Caroline’s hand,” Lydia murmured. “Lizzy! This is the letter Caroline asked me to post for her when we were in Brighton – but that was nearly two years ago.”

Elizabeth clutched the empty handkerchief in her hand, feeling a terrible sense of dread twist through her core. “I forgot about it – I put it in my pouch with some other letters. It was the day – the very hour we heard news of Papa. I must never have thought of it again after that.”

“I suppose it is not too late to deliver it,” Lydia mused.

Captain Darcy had gone rigid. “I do not think that is wise. The author of that letter had caused the recipient enough distress. We ought to burn it,” he said, gesturing toward the fire in the hearth.

Elizabeth only shook her head. She had a fleeting impression of her feelings the day before – she had suspected something about the mother of Charles’s child, for Captain Darcy had deflected her even as she had considered his falling out with Charles. It very likely took place… about nine months before Marcus would have been born. Caroline, Charles, and Captain Darcy had all been at Pemberley at that time, if Elizabeth remembered events correctly, Was it possible Caroline knew something? If she had, she would certainly have been willing to torment Jane with the information.

And then there had been something Jane had written of, some little spat about her letters. Charles had opened one, and another went amiss, causing her mother to take umbrage on Jane’s behalf. If Caroline had known something, might Charles have been attempting to prevent Jane from discovering it?

Which meant that it was highly likely the contents of that letter would contain something that would pain her sister. And it seemed just as likely that Captain Darcy knew it, if he wished to destroy it. Elizabeth did not know what to say. Would it be for the best to spare her sister that pain, even if Jane longed to know the whole truth?

“But these are essentially Caroline’s last words to Jane,” Lydia said, furrowing her brow. “I had no love for the harpy, but for Jane’s sake it would seem wrong to discard it unopened.”

Captain Darcy frowned and made to reach for the letter, but Elizabeth caught his wrist and moved it away. “I agree, we ought to know what she wished to say to Jane. Perhaps… perhaps it is an apology.” She did not believe that for one moment, but she wished to combat the fear that it contained something truly awful. She had to know, if only because she was positive that Captain Darcy was keeping something from her.

This was all the convincing that Lydia needed to break the seal and slowly unfold the parchment. She swept her gaze over the paper, her eyes darting from side to side as she read, and then she stood and began to pace. Elizabeth and Captain Darcy also rose from kneeling on the rug, and waited as Lydia let out a shaky breath then a gasp, and finally a groan. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I was wrong, I was very wrong to read this. I wish I did not know….”

She looked up in horror, and her gaze landed on Captain Darcy. “Is it true? Did you really turn them out of Pemberley for… making a child together?”

Elizabeth turned and looked at him, crying, “It really happened at Pemberley, when they were only just married?” And with agony roiling in her stomach, she recalled the advice she had overheard Caroline give Jane at the Netherfield ball. Caroline had urged Jane to abstain so that she might avoid a pregnancy that would prevent her from climbing the social ladder. Had Caroline perhaps intended to prime her brother for taking a mistress, and urged him to do so when he and Jane cancelled their wedding trip to condole with her after Marcus’s death?

“Who was it? Some little tart chambermaid?” Elizabeth snarled as she glared at Captain Darcy.

“It was Caroline,” he said.

He reached for her hands, but Elizabeth took a staggering step backwards. “No.” She felt as though she might cast up her accounts.

Lydia had begun to cry, but she nodded her head emphatically. “It is true. Caroline writes that she had threatened to expose her brother if he did not send her more money, and as she was not satisfied with what he had given her, she intended to make good on her threat. She had lost everything she schemed to attain, and cared nothing for ruining their marriage. She delighted in it. Horrible she-devil!”

Lydia covered her face with one hand as she wept, her other hand beginning to crumple the letter as she tightened her fingers around it. She leaned back against the wall as she let out a sob and said, “I hate that we are faced with this awful decision. Ought we tell Jane the truth, or keep it just between us?”

She had begun to sink down the wall with a keening groan when Colonel Fitzwilliam sauntered into the library, stopped abruptly, and then cried, “Lydia! What the blazes? Darcy, Lizzy? What the deuce is going on?”

The colonel rushed to Lydia and helped her stand up properly. “What is the matter? Are your mother and sisters well?”

Lydia did not give any answer, but extended the letter toward him. He straightened it out and then glanced over the rumpled parchment with a look of pained resignation. “Oh. I see.”

“You knew,” Elizabeth said softly; it was not a question. She turned to look at Captain Darcy, whose face was stony and stricken. “And you told no one?”

The colonel began to speak, but Captain Darcy held up a hand to stop him before clearing his throat. He stepped toward the mantelpiece and rested a hand atop it as he stared into the fire. “Yes, I told nobody else; it was a horrible thing, and the shock of it was great.”

“Tell me,” Elizabeth said. She could sense that he almost wished to, and she had to know.

“That night, Richard and I drank with Charles, and we spoke of Marcus. We were all reminiscent and in a state of high emotion so soon after the funeral, and it felt natural to speak of pleasanter times with my brother. Charles shed a few tears, and I suspect it mortified him,” Captain Darcy began to explain, holding still as he watched the crackling logs in the hearth.

“Charles was well into his cups – in truth, I have never seen him so intoxicated. He parted from us, and he sought out his step-sister, apparently wishing to condole with her – he expected her to be grieving and weeping as he was. And there is one thing the widow did lament, which was that she had not given Marcus an heir. She saw the state of him, and knew it was a chance to save herself by bearing a child she could pass off as my brother’s in order to retain her position at Pemberley. She took advantage of him; Richard and I discovered them in… in the state of doing just that.”

As Captain Darcy had spoken, the colonel had taken Lydia in his arms to comfort her. He drew away from Lydia just a little as he said, “The next morning, Will demanded they leave Pemberley at once, and he wrote a statement for the harridan to sign, waiving any claim to Pemberley and declaring that her child had not been sired by Marcus Darcy. Charles begged us not to tell his bride what he had been tricked into doing, and Will and I agreed that we had no wish to ever speak of such an insidious, disgusting event ever again.”

Elizabeth felt her nostrils flare as she glowered at the two gentlemen. “Neither of you supposed that Jane ought to know the truth? That not knowing has been torture for her?”

Captain Darcy looked equally enraged. “Do you not recall the sentiments I conveyed to you just a quarter hour ago? Do you not comprehend the throes of despair that consumed me with my father not six months gone and my brother, my twin brother, just buried beside him? I am sorry that I did not consider your sister’s pain when I could scarcely bear my own.” He ran his hands through his hair as he moved toward Elizabeth, extending his hand and silently beseeching her.

“I told Charles that he ought not keep this from his wife, that he ought to confess, to tell her how he had been prevailed upon by a wicked creature, that his kind and gentle wife would forgive him. I knew what she had done, and how her own involvement with Caroline had tormented her. I believed she would show him compassion. When we resumed our correspondence this winter, I again urged him to be honest with her. I do not know what more I could have done.”

Tears poured down Elizabeth’s cheeks as she considered what a disastrous dilemma they were in. She had never imagined the truth would be so shocking, so utterly devastating. “I understand that it was not your place to tell her, but my heart breaks for her, and how she has taken in the child of a woman who would ruin her life.”

The colonel stood with one arm still around Lydia as he said, “I know Charles still suffers, too. He had gone to great lengths to make amends with his wife, when he was just as much a victim of that awful woman’s wicked schemes as your sister. He is an idiot, but he was preyed up by a malevolent monster in a moment of weakness.”

Elizabeth nodded sadly, feeling the sad truth of his words. “Caroline need not haunt them forever. Let her hideous ghost finally be out to rest. I believe that Jane should know the truth, so that they might finally banish that evil woman forever. They have both suffered because of her, and caused each other pain because of her. Jane might finally make peace with it all.”

Lydia and the colonel nodded. Captain Darcy took another step closer to Elizabeth. “If you are all in agreement, then so am I. I do see the merit in giving them the chance to put everything that has come between them out in the open and having done with it once and for all. Caroline would be laughing at them if she knew how they suffered still at her hand.”

“Laughing up at them,” Lydia spat. “From the depths of hell!”

The colonel grinned at her. “As we are putting things so delicately… how do we proceed? I suppose it must be her sisters who tell Mrs. Bingley.”

“Tell me what?”

Four heads suddenly snapped up in alarm as the Bingleys walked into the library. Charles looked at the two sombre gentlemen, and then at the tear-streaked faces of his sisters-in-law, and his eyes flared with trepidation.

For a moment, nobody answered Jane’s query. Then Lydia snatched the letter from the colonel’s hand, strode purposefully across the library, and slapped Charles across the face so forcefully that he staggered into the doorway. She thrust the letter at Jane, saying, “I am so sorry,” before storming out of the room with Colonel Fitzwilliam in immediate pursuit.

Jane gaped for a moment in silent dismay before looking down at the letter. Elizabeth rushed to her sister’s side and lowered Jane’s arm before she could read too much of it. “Let us go to your room and speak about this. Trust me,” she whispered. Giving Captain Darcy a mournful glance over her shoulder, she left him to his friend and led Jane from the room.

Further down the corridor, the Gardiners called out to Lydia and the colonel. “We have just spotted the Collinses’ carriage coming up the lane!”

Jane and Elizabeth exchanged a look of alarm, but Colonel Fitzwilliam stepped forward to meet the Gardiners. “Miss Lydia and I will join you in greeting them – I believe Mrs. Bingley is unwell at the moment, and Charles and Will have urgent matters to attend to. But surely Miss Lydia knows the house well enough to give them a tour, and none could be as excited as she to see Mrs. Collins. I confess I am quite eager to meet with my former parson again, he is a capital fellow, and now a proud Papa! They have brought the children, I presume?”

Lydia was still clutching her hand, which she appeared to have injured in her violent outburst, but she did her best to match the colonel’s charm and conceal the disaster unfolding. “Oh, yes!”

Mrs. Gardiner looked sceptically at her three evidently distressed nieces; Lydia dabbed at her face and the colonel offered her a handkerchief. “Very well – I trust you will let me know if I am needed, Jane?”

Elizabeth answered in the affirmative, and then left her aunt and uncle to the reassurance of Lydia and Colonel Fitzwilliam, as she ushered Jane in the opposite direction down the corridor to her bedchamber, dizzy from the shock and dread that gripped her.