He was tall. Handsome. Perfectly bored.
He smiled as she approached—just enough for the crowd, not quite enough for her.
She curtsied. He bowed. The vows were said. The documents signed. The witnesses beamed.
And it was done.
The wedding breakfast that followed was a lavish affair. There were twenty-six courses and too many guests. Faith sat beside her new husband, her gloves damp with nerves, her stomach too tight to eat. She looked sideways at him as he conversed easily with the lady to his right—a widow with bright eyes and a neckline far too low for the hour.
He had not spoken to her since the ceremony.
Not more than a passing, “Are you comfortable?”
She had smiled and said yes. He had not noticed when she shook her head a minute later.
By the time the toasts were over, her heart ached—not with passion, but with the sudden, aching emptiness of hope being quietly extinguished.
Later that night, in the grand bedchamber of the Fitzwilliam London house, he came to her with all the warmth of a stranger passing in a hallway.
He did not hurt her.
He did not touch her cruelly.
He simply did not care.
Not for her nerves. Not for her shyness. Not for her tears, which she wiped away quickly before they could be seen. Heperformed the duty expected of him. Then he rose, buttoned his shirt, and went to the other chamber.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Faith lay in silence, her hands trembling at her sides, the candle sputtering low beside the bed.
The crucifix was hidden in her dressing case.
She could not reach it now.
But she prayed.
And somewhere deep in her soul, a vow began to take shape—not of obedience, not of silence, but of endurance.
If she was to be property… she would be the kind that left an inheritance.
∞∞∞
March 1735 — Meryton
The scent of dried lavender and beeswax filled the tiny mercer’s shop, but Maria Bennet hardly noticed. She shifted from one foot to the other, frowning at the boltsof muslin before her. Nothing would do. Not for the christening gown. Not for the future heir of Longbourn. Not when she was as large as a harvest moon and felt twice as tired.
“Mrs. Bennet,” said Jacob Lucas from behind the counter, “if you’re searching for something light and soft, I’ve just had a delivery of fine linen from Leeds.”
Maria tried to smile, but the movement pulled at her stretched skin. “Thank you, Mr. Lucas, but I think I have what I need.”
Truthfully, she wanted only to return home. Her back ached. Her ankles were swollen. Her bodice barely fastened. And though she was but eight months by her reckoning, her belly had grown to such a size that the midwife insisted she must have miscounted.
Maria knew better. Her courses had always been regular, and she had marked them carefully—first as a young woman watching for them with dread, then as a wife longing for them to vanish. No, she was not early.
But she was too big.
Too tired.
