“It is still here in the States—I thought we could keep searching for something offshore, but this supplies the immediate need. We… we would both be wanted,” he added cautiously. “I had not thought to ask you to work, but—”
“No! I would prefer it. I do not like staring at four walls all day.”
“You will be looking at a great many more than that. There is a hotel in Newport, Rhode Island called Shoreline Resort. Someone directed me to the owner, who is in town on business, and he is looking for a caretaker; a couple, ideally. I think he took me for a former butler, or perhaps a pirate, and thought I would suit perfectly.”
“It is the accent,” she reminded him with a smile.
“Yes, well, the eye patch may have also added an aura of intrigue. He says his patrons are mostly wealthy American tourists who will pay well for the feeling of top class. Whatever the case may be, it gets us clean, honest work, and better lodgings than… here.” His eye rounded the room with faint distaste. “Do you object to going tomorrow?”
“Can we leave today?”
Pemberley
Darcycouldnotrecalla time when he had fired off more telegrams and express letters in the space of a month, yet he had sent all these in one day. Knowing that George Wickham was still very much interested in his affairs and in possession of a disturbing amount of information caused him to set an extra watch around all his properties. Even Georgiana made minimal protest when he posted a footman outside whichever room she happened to occupy.
He requested, and paid extraordinarily well, to have a private detective set after Wickham’s trail—two, in fact, as the detective had a partner. More letters followed in the coming days, to anyone Darcy felt he could trust with connections to the Army, especially Houghton.
Clearly, Wickham knewsomeone. The only question was when and how he would make his demands this time. With Georgiana well secured and Richard slipping the snare, Wickham had lost his best chances of extorting more money from Darcy… unless he had only meant it tolookthreatening. The odd timing of the different tips about Richard’s whereabouts still sat uneasily with him.
There was one mercy in all the distress and uncertainty regarding Wickham: Darcy had fewer hours of the day to miss Elizabeth. He could not sit all afternoon in the stable gazing at that horse she had favoured. He could not brood over his uncontested chessboard or billiards table, and he could not sequester himself in a dark room with nothing but his own thoughts and memories to sift.
The feelings still came, though. When he would turn to look at a certain window, an image would flash to mind of some occasion when she had sat in front of it, or he had watched her through it. The arrangement of the silverware at mealtimes recalled her charming confusion as to which utensil performed which task. The particular cast of light when one of the maids opened the door to the servant’s corridor brought him back in an instant to the day they had scurried, bumping and gigging in the narrow passage in their soiled clothes. His morning shave—each day, it felt that he was choosing again to be the man she had made of him, rather than the one he had been before.
These, and a thousand other seconds when something would tickle his mind, or sometimes burst upon it with all the force and terror of a thunderstorm, all assured him of one thing. His was a faithful heart that would forever cling fast to the one it had chosen, and neither death nor life would change that fact.
The worst moments were those dark reflections in his room, when dusk had settled, all had fallen quiet, and he was entirely alone with the chilling and sickening understanding of how his Elizabeth must now be spending her nights. It mattered little how much he loved his cousin, or how much he admired the good man and noble soldier he was. It was even precious little comfort when he consoled himself with the idea that Richard would never harm her… not on purpose, anyway. All that weighed and pressed into his being was that she washis—as surely as the moon belongs with the sun—and another man now claimed those privileges she had reserved for him alone. Lover’s sighs in his ear, touches that only she would know and understand… and now he could grasp why so many men turned to the sedation of the bottle when life’s disappointments seemed too bitter even for sleep.
And so, he conceived a plan that might bring relief, or at least a reprieve. A time away from Pemberley, away from Wickham and his schemes, and away from all memory. “Georgiana,” he asked her one morning over breakfast, “what would you say if I escorted you to Boston?”
She looked blankly up from her plate, still chewing her strawberry until she gulped it down in surprise. “I thought you already meant to escort me. I cannot fancy you allowing me to sail alone, and then never setting eyes on the school for yourself. I suppose you mean to hire a dozen guards to prowl about the campus—”
“Allow me to rephrase. When I said ‘escort,’ I meant to stay… for a time. To see that you are doing well, naturally.”
She took a long swallow from her teacup. “You cannot board in a house for young ladies, William.”
“Of course not, but I think I can afford my own rooms in the city. Or we could simply take a house, and stay there together if you do not object. Besides, I have been to the States only once, and I had to cut my visit short when Father fell ill. I should like to see a bit of the country for myself.”
Her lips puckered. “You are not thinking of going to Wyoming, are you? I doubt they have more Elizabeths there.”
Darcy’s eyes widened. “Oh, bollocks!” he hissed under his breath.
“Well, you needn’t swear at me, for it is hardly my fault if—”
He raised a hand. “No, forgive me, but you just brought to mind that I never replied to Mr Gardiner’s last letter about the Bennets. I sent the money for their passage, but I never told him what has happened since then. Heavens! He must be carrying on as if nothing at all has changed! And Bingley will not return for another…”
He cast a quick glance to the ceiling, counting the dates since Bingley’s wedding. “Botheration! Gardiner will be putting the Bennet family on a ship bound for London any day. Excuse me, Georgiana. I need to send him a message at once.”
Newport, Rhode Island
Newportwasavastimprovement over New York, but to Elizabeth’s mind, that was still saying little.
It was not that the environ was in any way objectionable. Indeed, the hotel was as fine as anything she had seen in London—save for Mr Darcy’s house—and all her material wants were answered in abundance. The work was not arduous. In fact, she rather enjoyed her duties of supervising the female staff and ensuring that the guests were all pleased with their accommodations.
But the odd impression she felt from the immaculate and enterprising hotel was that it was a pale impersonation of a real home—that the guests paid vast sums of money for something that looked and felt genuine, but could never be so.
She did find solace in her early morning walks by the shore. Before dawn, even before Richard roused in the next room, she would slip out alone and watch the sun rising over the bay—and could not help but wonder what it had seen on its course, as it passed over a little green haven in rural England.
The first day she came back after her walk, Richard had looked peculiarly at her, asked after her activities, and mumbled something about her safety. He did not offer to join her, but neither did he seem to object. After that, he never said a word about it, much to her relief. It was the only part of her routine that she could claim for her own, and perhaps the only thing binding her mind to her body in this surreal time.
