In his room, he removed his gloves slowly and laid them upon the table.
Then he stood there, staring at nothing.
He had been a fool.
For days, he had called his restraint duty. He had told himself that he must remember Pemberley, Georgiana, the tenants, the estate his father had nearly ruined, and the future children who must not inherit another generation of repairs, debts, and diminished hopes. All true. Every part of it true.
But truth badly used could become cowardice.
He had assumed his choice lay between Elizabeth and duty, as though happiness were a luxury purchased at the expense of all who depended upon him. Yet was that certain? Was it even just?
Pemberley was not what it had once been, but neither was he destitute. The house was reopening room by room. The farms were slowly recovering. The debts were being paid, the land improved, the tenants more secure than they had been five years ago. A large dowry would ease everything, yes. Thirty thousand pounds would replace the income Georgiana’s trust should have provided, would quicken repairs, would make his plans safer and swifter.
But need and desire were not the same.
He had wanted that dowry because it would give him certainty. Because he was tired of choosing which roof leaked least, which tenant could endure another quarter, which room could remain closed, which comfort could be denied without becoming cruelty. He had wanted to spare Georgiana the guilt of generosity. She had stood before him, young and earnest and pale with determination, begging him to use the interest meant for her pin money.
“Let me do this,” she had said. “It is my legacy as well. I am a Darcy just as much as you are.”
He had hated himself for agreeing, even while knowing she was right.
And so he had accepted the plan. London next season. Balls. Drawing rooms. Heiresses. The best-dowered woman he could tolerate, for Pemberley’s sake.
What a cold, cowardly word tolerate seemed now.
Would Pemberley truly be better served by a woman who brought money but no heart for the place? Some elegant creature who preferred London, who would endure Derbyshire as exile, who would look upon tenant wives as encroachments and children as noise? Would Georgiana flourish beneath the guidance of a mistress who measured consequence by invitations and gowns? Would his tenants be better cared for because their mistress had thirty thousand pounds and no desire to know whether the south cottages smoked in winter?
Or Anne, poor Anne, if Lady Catherine somehow prevailed. Anne, who could barely endure a morning’s exertion, who had no wish for him and no strength for Pemberley’s demands.
Then he thought of Elizabeth.
Elizabeth walking muddy fields because a tenant’s roof mattered. Elizabeth teasing children who had lost parents and making them feel less alone. Elizabeth in the library, arguing with books and treating knowledge as something alive. Elizabeth at Netherfield, warning Bingley that tenants’ wives knew the truth of wells, smoke, and rain above beds. Elizabeth who had cared for Jane without complaint, who noticed everything, who laughed warmly, loved fiercely, and would never sit idle while someone under her protection suffered.
What would Pemberley gain from such a mistress?
Everything.
The answer came before he could restrain it.
Georgiana would love her. Perhaps not at once; Georgiana was shy, wounded in ways few understood, and slow to trust. But Elizabeth would not overwhelm her. She would coax laughter from her, defend her, challenge her gently, and show her that a woman might be strong without being hard. The tenants would trust her because she would earn it. The house would wake beneath her. Children—
Darcy’s breath caught.
Children.
For the first time in his life, the thought did not come as an obligation to lineage or duty. It came with an image so sudden and tender it nearly undid him: Elizabeth in the nursery at Pemberley, dark eyes softened, a child in her arms, another tugging at her skirt, laughter bright upon her face. She had spoken often of her young cousins, not with duty alone, but affection. She spent time with them when she need not. She knew their fears, their tempers, their griefs. She would be a good mother.
She would be a magnificent one.
He wanted to see it firsthand.
The admission struck through him, fierce and clear.
He wanted a future with her. Not merely a conversation, not merely another stolen look across a dining table, not merely the warmth of being understood. He wanted mornings, evenings, disputes over books, walks through the park, her hand upon his arm, her voice in his home, her presence at his side when duty was hard and joy had to be chosen on purpose.
He wanted Elizabeth.
More than money.
