“Of course. She is your wife, clear as day, and Darcy is stepping back as a gentleman. I thought I would have to cuff him in the mouth once or twice, but really, can you blame the man? He is not a fellow to fall lightly for a woman if he does fall, but neither is he a cad or a fool.”
Richard put a hand on his forehead. “I should have seen it.”
“As you said, you were recovering from a fever. How were you to see anything? I would have told you sooner, but I thought that was Darcy’s place.”
He wandered away from his brother, dazed. “Are you certain Elizabeth understands—she could be Mistress of Pemberley if she stays.”
“But she cannot stay because she isyourwife. I confess, I doubted her constancy when put to the test, but she means to act like a proper lady, and no mistake.”
His breath staggered two or three times, and he wandered blindly about the room he had known so well, seeing none of its rich articles or memorable curios—only stumbling for the only thing that ever seemed to draw him these days. Light and freedom, open spaces, and fresh air. The window, with its warm glow, promising liberty from his bonds.
“Richard, are you well? Are you sure you are hale enough to travel?”
“Yes.” He squeezed his eye once more and rubbed it with his thumb. “Just a headache, you know. I get them often these days.”
“I should hope it goes away soon. It would be a miserable passage, sailing while still diminished by your fever.”
Richard grunted and opened his eye… and blinked several times. Reginald’s study window looked out over the western face of the house, with a full view down a gentle slope of the old earl’s pride and joy: the stables. And standing in the drive before them were two horses, held by a groom, while a tall, broad fellow helped a woman to dismount.
A thousand feelings slammed his chest from the inside. Envy, foremost among them—bitter jealousy that Darcy, who already possessed so much, would dare even look at a poor soldier’s woman. The second was dismay, in how her gloved hand rested on his for a second longer than was proper, how her veiled head looked dotingly up to him when he said something to her.
Other feelings roiled within his stomach, impossible to catalogue. His fists clenched, and blood hammered inside his ears. Whatdidhe feel, confronted with the truth of his own inconsequence?
“Excuse me for a moment, won’t you, Richard?” Reginald, apparently oblivious to the scene down at the stables, went to his study door at the sound of a knock.
Richard stole that moment to compose himself. It was not as if they were out there making love in the driveway.Be reasonable, man, he scolded himself.
They must have been attached to one another, if they had meant to marry. He knew them both, or he thought he used to, too well to believe otherwise. It was not unthinkable that they might wish to bid each other farewell, but an unchaperoned outing on horseback was hardly the way most couples achieved that. What else had they done on that ride? What had happened in the last months?
“Richard—” Reginald’s voice was sharp as he came back from the door. “You should see this.”
Richard was seeing enough already, and a great deal of it was a tyrannical red in shade. He snorted and turned away from the window.
“What is it?”
“This just came.” Reginald held out a letter. “It is written in the same hand as the last note, the one that told me you were in Liverpool. Someone is watching you, Richard.”
“What?” He took it and read, and his veins chilled. “The army knows I’m alive,” he breathed. “And they know I’m in Derbyshire. Reginald, have someone call for my travel case. And send for Elizabeth! We need to leave at once.”
Chapter 48
So,thiswashowit was when dreams died.
Darcy did not linger at the door or in the drive when the carriage bearing his Elizabeth rattled away. Georgiana remained with the rest of the family, all consoling one another with baseless hopes that the fugitives would find not only safety but comfort. His loss opened a chasm too deep for words and empty platitudes to fill. Numb, in a delirious haze, and demolished in spirit, he wandered to his rooms, where he could press his brow against the glass and see the fading speck of the carriage as it departed over the western slope.
Half an hour. That was how long it had taken from the moment he helped her down off Sage’s back until the moment Richard carried her away from him forever.
She never even said a proper farewell. A hug for Georgiana, a tearful kiss for the countess and the dowager, and a pale-cheeked nod for him—that was all he had to remember her by. That, and the ring he still clenched in his fist—the one she had returned to him out on a grassy slope that very morning.
Richard, however… something had simmered in Richard’s gaze and in his grip in those last moments. Had they a bit more time, Darcy doubted not that they would have exchanged heated words and perhaps even blows. Indeed, it was a mercy they had no opportunity, for they had both remained civil.
Reginald must have told Richard everything, and now his cousin hated him. Their last moment together could not even be one of peace! Darcy felt the loss of that old brotherhood more keenly than he had when his cousin had sailed off to war.
She would be on a ship bound for nowhere by now, or perhaps the next day. Richard had been exceedingly vague about his destination in those last moments—intentionally so, in case anyone should ask. No one would be forced to lie for him. All Darcy knew, which was hardly worth knowing, was that they were now bound for any port except for Liverpool. Scotland, perhaps, and then… Heaven only knew. All that mattered was she was as far out of his reach as the stars twinkling down from that heartless sky.
Afternoon faded to twilight, then full dark descended upon Matlock estate. He had seen no one since midday, save for the footman who had brought him a bottle of the earl’s finest—a little something Richard had picked up for his father in France during the year ‘92. It was not that he desired to drink himself into blissful incoherence. It was just a way to pass the hours until he could breathe again… until he, too, could leave, and go someplace not haunted by her memory.
“Come,” he called when someone was finally audacious enough to knock on his door. Light poured in from the hall, then Reginald’s figure blocked it out.
