Istoodatthewindow of the Lion’s Head Inn, staring sightlessly out at the bustling street. Behind me, George paced with the restless energy of a caged tiger.
“Confound it, what can be keeping her so long up there? She disappears for seven years without a word of explanation, then treats us as strangers she cannot wait to escape!”
I flinched at his wounded tone, the echo of my own bewilderment and disquiet. When I stumbled upon Elizabeth in the cobbler’s shop, I had not allowed myself to believe it could truly be her. Yet here she was, materialized as if from the past itself. Still, her averted eyes and hurried excuses to return upstairs to tend her injured “sister”—Sister?—maintained an impassable gulf between us. Was she still resentful over being sent away all those years ago? Surely, she did not blame George or myself? We had been mere boys—powerless over Father’s implacable authority.
Well… I was a young man of twenty, but still, my father’s will was not to be gainsaid. I cornered him in his study and thundered how he had wronged us all—as much as I dared—and even threatened to hire a private investigator on my own coin to search for her. All he had ever told me was that Elizabeth had found her rightful family, and it would be best for her if we let her carry on with the life she was meant to live.
I turned to offer my brother some word of comfort, but George had abandoned his restless prowl at last to fling himself into a chair. He now sat slouched, elbows braced on knees, his hair disheveled from raking hands. I had not seen him so agitated in years. My stomach twisted anew, seeing the feverish light rekindled in his gaze. This meeting had awakened more than simple curiosity in my brother regarding the playmate of his youth.
Before I could frame a suitable reply, feminine footsteps tripping lightly down the stairs heralded Elizabeth’s return. George sprang up so hastily that his chair tottered backward. I caught it just before the legs gave way completely. When I lifted my eyes once more, Elizabeth had gone stock still three feet away. Her startled gaze flashed from George to me like a trapped doe calculating avenues of escape.
George appeared oblivious to her discomfiture. He started forward, hands extended beseechingly, his voice reproachful. “Lizzy, is something amiss? Do we really mean so little to you now?”
Elizabeth backed up a step, slim fingers worrying the edge of her worn pelisse. “No, I... That is... Forgive me, I am not quite myself.” She attempted a tremulous smile that only amplified the confusion in her dark eyes. “I ought to return to my sister.”
She made to dart past, but George moved quicker, intercepting her with a gentle hand hovering just shy of grasping her arm. “Sister? What sister? Lizzy, please. Must you keep fleeing us? After so long parted, have we nothing to ask one another?”
Her throat convulsed on a difficult swallow. The longing and uncertainty so naked on George’s face seemed almost an imposition. Yet how could she fail to read the depth of warmth and affection he had evidently carried all these years? I shifted my weight, unsure whether to intervene on either’s behalf—brothers and estranged friends make poor mediators.
Before the strained moment could drag further, a stout matron bustled from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a stained apron. She bobbed a brisk curtsey toward Elizabeth. “Just come to say we’ve almost got your sister put tidy again, Miss. Won’t take but half a mo’ more if you were of a mind to settle yourself a spell?” Her shrewd eyes took in our little tableau with deepening creases at the corners.
Some of the tension ebbed from Elizabeth’s posture. She summoned a wan but grateful smile for the woman. “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Barnes. I suppose...” Her resigned gaze drifted back to George and me. “Might we speak freely here without notice?”
”“George wheeled instantly, seizing the olive branch with undisguised eagerness. He ushered her to a corner table well distanced from the few other midday patrons“ “Yes, yes! Please, Lizzy, join us.” His concerned frown belied the cheerful tone. “You are so altered and quiet—has life been very hard since you left Derbyshire?”
The furrow above her brows smoothed away, and a sad sweetness touched her lips. “No, indeed! I could not ask for better than the family I have.” I sensed volumes unspoken behind those careful words. But George nodded, appeased.
An awkward beat of silence fell. My mind churned with a thousand fruitless openers. Why had she been exiled? How did she come here? Why did she seem so ill at ease in our company when once we had been as close as siblings?
Fortunately, George rarely found himself at a loss for words. That was why they had always got on so well, after all. He leaned nearer with a mischievous smile, chasing the sobriety from his face. “Well, what a merry trick of fortune this is, Lizzy Smith! I still can hardly credit that it is truly you here before us—you must think me some dull-witted farmer gaping at an exotic bird flown into his barn.”
“I am called Elizabeth Bennet now.”
George’s head ticked sideways. “Bennet? So… you’re married, then?”
She shook her head and glanced tightly at me before her eyes found George again… and there was adoration in that look, just as there had been all those years ago. “The Bennets took me in, and Uncle… That is, Mr. Gardiner, who became my guardian… he thought it would sound better if… being a sort of foundling, you see… if I had a name people knew, like a distant cousin. Not… Smith.” She swallowed, and her look flickered to me.
Wise advice. Was not Smith nearly the ubiquitous name for someone of illicit origins? At least now she had a real name, even if it was borrowed.
“So, itwasMr. Gardiner who carried you away,” I mused softly.
“Not quite in the sense you seem to convey. He has seen to my care, and he is as good a man as ever drew breath. But I did not come to live with him and his wife. His sister is Mrs. Bennet, you see, and she had four daughters already… well, they became sisters to me, just as you both were…” Her mouth stopped moving, and her eyes fixed on George again, but my heart gave a thud when I realized that was not filial affection lighting her gaze.
George laughed and grasped her hand across the table. “Well, Lizzy Smith, Lizzy Bennet, however you are called, I say it is jolly good to see you again. Come, catch us up on lost years! What of your family now, and life in...” He broke off, brows knitting. “Dash it, where the devil have you been hiding all this time?”
A peal of delighted laughter escaped her. At that moment, the gulf of years and separation seemed to melt away. I watched a blaze of lively spirit flare up in her eyes, casting me seven years back in time, just as if the years had never parted us. “Oh! Forgive me. The Bennets have a small estate in Hertfordshire.”
My heart kicked a little when I put the names together.Hertfordshire… Gardiner… Bennet. Why, Bingley was considering becoming her neighbor!
“Hertfordshire!” George threw up his hands dramatically. “Well, that is something at least. Small mercy you did not sail off to the Americas without a backward glance!” He clasped her hand, giving it an impulsive squeeze. “I cannot tell you what it does to me to see you again, Lizzy.”
Pink blossomed in her cheeks, but she did not pull away. Only the briefest shadow in her downcast lashes betrayed deeper reactions at war within. I shifted in my seat, my pulse quickening. And despite my joy at learning Elizabeth was safe and had a good life, I feared the gleam in George’s eye just now. Even worse because it was mirrored in hers.
This reunion was unwise. George had only just won the favor of Lady Lucilla and her father against all odds. And whatever my reservations might be, Lady Lucilla was good for him. I had seen more maturity in him since he first spoke her name than I had in his entire life. And that was to say nothing about my own ambitions regarding a connection with Lord Belmont.
To have Elizabeth return now, awakening old affections and associations in my brother, could only court disaster.
Elizabeth
