“Of course. By the by, your new solicitor isverydiscreet. Once the pamphlet hit London’s drawing rooms, the Earl tried to brazen it out, but Lady Catherine could not help herself. She insisted on defending him, but her second letter referred to a clause that no one else had ever seen, and her third claimed she had been misquoted by herself. After that, from what I understand, it was merely a matter of gentle prodding.”
Darcy leaned forward, brows drawn. “And the trust?”
“Dissolved. Quietly. Legally. Without scandal—just as you would have wished, had your grandmother told you about it. And for the record, I did not know these details until just today. The funds were restored to their proper form two years ago. Georgiana’s trusteeship reverted, and she will have her full dowry the moment the ink dries on her marriage lines.”
He shook his head slowly. “I asked the solicitor three times and got nothing but polite nonsense.”
“He promised your grandmother no embarrassment. I promised her I would not publish anything else—technically. But Ididsay I would never reveal the author, and I have not.” She lifted her chin. “Besides, it wasnota pamphlet. It was a treatise.”
“You swore off publishing,” he reminded her.
She smiled. “I did. But legal satire is practically a public service.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “You did all that.”
“I did not mean to start a war, but once the match was struck, I may have encouraged a bonfire.”
Darcy bent, resting his forehead briefly against hers. “And this is why I never attempt to match wits with you.”
“You would lose,” she said cheerfully. “And then write a pamphlet about unfair tactics.”
“Only if you helped me edit it.” He laughed, then pressed a tender kiss to her lips. “You, my love, forged a path to victory with syllabub and sleight of hand.”
“And stationery,” she added. “Never underestimate a woman with access to both.”
He grinned, bending to kiss her cheek. “Remind me never to oppose you when you have access to ink.”
“I will write your downfall in perfect copperplate,” she teased.
A knock interrupted her triumph. Georgiana peeked in, cheeks pink and curls slightly askew from the wind. “There you are, Fitzwilliam. I just wanted to say thank you.”
Darcy stepped back from Elizabeth to smile at his sister. “For what? Approving the match?”
Georgiana crossed the room and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Yes. For that. And for not challenging Mr. Linley to pistols at dawn when he botched the Latin on the marriage offer.”
“Tempting, but no,” Darcy said. “I was too distracted by the blotchy ink.”
Georgiana turned to Elizabeth, her voice gentler now. “And you, Elizabeth. I just came from tea with the dowager and… she told me everything. About the trust. About the pamphlets. About how quietly and cleverly you made it all come right.”
Elizabeth blinked. “I truly did not do all that much. It was truly the dowager who took my words and ran with them.”
“You kept my fortune from becoming the earl’s hedge against a horse-racing son and Lady Catherine’s endless thirst for what little of Pemberley she could get,” Georgiana said flatly. “That feels like quite a lot from where I am standing.”
Darcy narrowed his eyes. “Wait. Did our uncle really propose another debt-fund idea?”
“Grandmother called it ‘entrepreneurial stewardship.’” Georgiana made quotation marks in the air. “Which turned out to mean funneling my entire dowry into a gentleman’s club in Bath.”
Darcy groaned. “I knew he liked the cigars there too much.”
Georgiana grinned. “And I would have almost nothing left of what my father designed for me—except your little pamphlet convinced a few powerful people to start asking the right questions. And then Lady Catherine tried to answer those questions. And it apparently ended with a very public argument with the earl in the lobby of the Royal Society.”
Elizabeth shook her head, half in disbelief, half in pride. “I really do bring out the best in people.”
They all laughed.
Georgiana crossed to the desk and picked up the journal. “Is this the one with the list of all your crimes?”
Elizabeth snatched it back with mock scandal. “That is for posterity, not siblings-in-law.”
