Within moments, the room had emptied.
Silence returned.
Elizabeth stood very still, her hands trembling. She pressed them together.
Darcy’s voice came again, quieter now. “Elizabeth… if you would rather not—”
She shook her head before he had even finished speaking.
“No,” she said, more quietly than before, but with far more control. “No, I will not leave.”
Her pulse was still racing, her thoughts still reeling from the sight of that man—Frederick Bennet—standing where he had no right to be, alive when he had been mourned by a brother and a lover, real when he had been nothing more than a story.
But beneath the confusion, beneath the shock, something steadier was taking hold.
Resolve.
She lifted her eyes to Darcy’s, and though there was still emotion there, still the echo of everything she was struggling to process, her voice did not falter.
“I have spent my entire life not knowing the truth,” she said. “And when at last I was given some portion of it, I was told it was finished—that there was nothing more to discover.”
Her fingers tightened slightly against one another.
“And now he walks into this room as though the past eight months—no, the past twenty years—have been nothing at all.”
Darcy said nothing, but his presence beside her—solid, unwavering—gave her the strength she needed.
“I have questions,” she continued, more firmly now. “Too many to ignore. And I will not be sent away again without answers.”
She drew in one more breath.
“Andsomeone,” she added, with quiet, unmistakable resolve, “is going to give them to me.”
Chapter 40
The door to the small parlor was open, and Elizabeth stopped in the doorway, taking in the scene before her. Darcy stood just behind her, his height allowing him to easily see over her head.
Lady Catherine lay upon the chaise, beginning to stir. One hand was clasped—firmly—between both of Frederick Bennet’s, who knelt beside her, his brow furrowed as he rubbed warmth back into her fingers with a familiarity that transcended the years.
Mr. Bennet sat in his usual chair near the fire. Elizabeth had never seen his face so grave. Not merely thoughtful, not dryly amused—but dark. Brooding. There was something else there, too—something she could not immediately name. Fear, perhaps. And anger.
In the far corner sat the young man who had arrived with Frederick, quietly observing the scene.
A small groan echoed in the room, and Elizabeth’s eyes darted back to Lady Catherine, who was attempting to rise.
Frederick dropped her hand and leaned forward at once, gently putting pressure on her shoulder. “Cathy—do not attempt to rise just yet. You must give yourself a moment—”
She snorted and shoved his hands away with surprising force. “Do not be ridiculous. I am not some wilting daffodil.”
Elizabeth had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
Frederick, however, did not restrain himself.
“That’s my girl,” he said, a grin breaking across his face.
Lady Catherine’s eyes flashed.
“I am notyouranything,” she snapped. “Not now. Not after you have seen fit to remain alive and yet never return.”
