“What do you mean she would be recognized as her mother’s child? What matters that, unless…” I swallowed hard. “Surely you cannot mean she was actually Father’s by-blow? For he swore emphatically otherwise on his very deathbed!”
“Of course not!” he disclaimed, clearly startled. “No, by her significant bequeathments, it is plain that Elizabeth descends from a wealthy lineage. Yet what names or faces belong to that past I was never enlightened.” He offered helpless palms upward. “I have obeyed my directive to the very letter through the years, though not without remorse.”
A muffled sound twisted me back sharply toward Elizabeth, just withdrawing a damp handkerchief from her face. Tenderness overcame outrage’s paralysis at last. Confound this miserable estrangement! Must not compassion cry louder? I moved swiftly, hand outstretched, offering a useless square of linen, though my heart’s depths yearned instead to enfold her wholly in my arms, where she belonged.
But Mr. Gardiner’s swift frown checked my impulse comfort before I could do anything so rash. And Elizabeth evaded my small stingy bid, pain carving deeper lines beside her trembling mouth. “No, indeed! You need not attend me, Sir. I am quite myself again, I assure you.”
Shame burned through me as Elizabeth rejected even a handkerchief’s comfort. I had no right to presume anything while she clearly saw me as someone who had cast her off yet again. But her obvious distress tortured my conscience.
I paced in agitation, painfully aware of her blistering eyes tracking my futile circuits. Facing her wary uncle, I rasped a hoarse truth learned from years of gnawing silence. “After Elizabeth was taken, George and I were anguished beyond comprehension. My brother soon found diversion elsewhere, but long after his loss dulled, I still lay awake at night for years, grappling with the injustice of it all. I harassed my father those first wretched weeks, demanding some shred of explanation.”
I risked a brief sideways glance, desperate for any softening. “Time faded the wounds, however fiercely buried beneath stern obligations.” My eyes crawled back to Elizabeth’s, my purgatory or paradise sentence hanging on her next words alone. I stood flayed open, awaiting release or a final crushing blow.
Elizabeth fingered her handkerchief, those glorious eyes cast low as she swallowed. “These past few weeks, I thought I had recovered everything I ever lost and then some. What do you think it was? To learn that Ihadbeen missed and not forgotten! I felt treasured again by my dear friends, especially sweet, careless George.” I winced inwardly, hearing her confess renewed longings there. Oblivious, she pressed on earnestly.
“Ridiculous, I know, but with him, I felt as if we had picked up where we left off, as if not a day had passed. And I knew that I still cared for him as much as I ever did.” Her brave tone faltered mournfully. “For a glorious moment, I even felt such affection returned… until reality crashed swift and merciless later.”
Desperate to shield her from escalating distress, I blurted thoughtless interruption. “Forgive my interference, but—”
She cut me off sharply, eyes blazing with outrage. “Whydidyou interfere, Fitzwilliam? Why not just inform me plainly before the damage was irreparable? Why did you have to make me fall in love with you, instead?”
She… she loved me? Despite everything? I froze under her glare. No humble gesture could salve these wounds. I broke eye contact, my throat choked on my own festering regrets. But she demanded an accounting I was bound to render despite the gouging cost.
I sucked in a ragged breath, then forced myself to meet her scorching recrimination. “You speak justly, scorning such deception. If unwise souls presumed to grasp at heaven, then indeed, a harsh payment comes due.”
“You made a fool of me,” she whispered as her throat trembled.
“If I have, then I am doubly so. I love you, Elizabeth, as I will no other, beyond life itself, God help me.”
Thirty-One
Iwavered,angerandanguish rioting wildly as Fitzwilliam’s shocking words echoed through chaotic thoughts. He loved me? Truly, beyond any casual boyhood fancy or calculated ambition? My mind recoiled from such a sudden reversal.
But he would not dare! Not after knowing his father’s will. Fitzwilliam Darcy was ever the one to follow the rules, bend to the demands of duty. How could he let himself love me?
Yet, what other explanation could there be for such naked remorse writ plainly across his weary features? No velvet artifice masked the hoarse cry wrenched from somewhere deep in his soul. Still, I wavered. So often had I been shaken and misled astray by vows made with deep feeling and little fortitude.
Eyes narrowed, I searched tense lines betraying Fitzwilliam Darcy’s struggle, as if dissecting a stranger suddenly laid vulnerable within familiar skin. The grave boy I knew long past never bandied words lightly or pledged hollow devotion. Guarded and reserved, he still was, but there was something there I had never witnessed in our youth. Something I had begun to glimpse only this summer.
I felt Uncle Gardiner’s gaze heavy on me. He was not best pleased by any of this, but bless him, he was not interrupting. I could have asked for no more forbidding champion if I had wished to send Fitzwilliam Darcy packing off to Pemberley with his tail between his legs. Curse me, however, for that was the last thing I wanted.
Finally, I stirred, offering a small, sad smile. “Well, sir! It seems an apt time indeed for full confessions since disguises are all around. Come then, let us test this startling notion together that icy Fitzwilliam somehow toppled helpless before my feeble charms. My, what would your father say?”
He shook his head faintly. “Do not mock me, Elizabeth. You know too well I am not your equal in that regard.”
I stepped closer, my head tilted deliberately to press my advantage. “What magic could transform a noble guardian to an abject slave? No! I do not believe that you, of all people, could truly claim to be conquered by a silly girl who never aimed her arrows in your direction.”
Fitzwilliam shuddered visibly as I stepped closer, a hunger lighting his eyes that I had only seen there the day he rescued me at the folly, and again in the kitchen. “You most certainly did, madam. And your aim is as unerring as ever. Eliz…” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “Miss Elizabeth, please forgive me. I care nothing for eligibility or the mischances of others. I do not know whose mistake or misfortune decreed that you must leave my sphere. All I know is that I cannot lose you again.” His throat bobbed, and I daresay, there was a swift sheen over his eyes as his voice broke. “Not again,” he whispered.
Oh, I should hold firm! I crossed my arms and choked down a little cry of my own. Dash it all, but if my uncle had not been there, I would have flung myself into Fitzwilliam’s arms and devil take the rest!
For so much of my life, I had been told that the Darcy brothers were not for me. Even before I understood what such love was as a tender girl, long before Fitzwilliam kindled my heart, I remember Father’s gentle reminders that one day, I would be seeking a life and a future abroad. But I was out of arguments. So, I looked to Uncle Gardiner with all the beseeching I could pour into a single glance.
“Right, then,” Uncle said, at last stirring from his watchful position across the room. “I think that is enough. Come, Lizzy.”
“Wait!” Fitzwilliam cried, stepping toward me. “Please, at least permit me to investigate… to speak…”
“I think you and George have both said enough,” I whispered.
