Then he reached for the pen, dipped it in ink, and signed with a flourish that spoke of defiance even in surrender.
“There.” He set the pen down, breaking the spine of the quill. “The registry is corrected. Thomas is officially your son. Congratulations, brother. You have won.”
“This was never about winning.”
“No?” Wickham rose from his chair, his composure cracking at last. “Then what was it about? Justice? Family honor? The satisfaction of seeing me humiliated?”
“It was about Thomas.” Darcy met his eyes steadily. “It was always about Thomas. Everything else is… incidental.”
His expression changed, just for a moment, bordering on shame, perhaps, or the ghost of the boy he had once been, before bitterness and envy had hollowed him out. Then it was gone, replaced by the familiar mask of charm.
“Well.” He straightened his coat and smoothed his cravat. “I suppose I should begin preparing for my journey. Three weeks, you said? Colonel Powell will be delighted to have company, I am sure.”
“I am sure he will,” Elizabeth said as he marched toward the door. “And George?”
Wickham looked back, pausing.
“You will make us all so proud,” Elizabeth said, her sweetness not hiding the barb.
Wickham glared at her, his jaw tightening, and walked away with no dignity intact.
The door closed behind him, and Blythewood gathered the papers, mentioning the trip to Kympton to correct the registry and file the paternity records. He departed, leaving Darcy alone with his wife—at last.
“That was…” Darcy searched for the word. “Magnificent.”
A small smile curved her lips. “I had an excellent teacher.”
“You had nothing of the sort. That was entirely your own doing.” He reached out, hesitating only slightly, and took her hand. “He never stood a chance against such wit.”
“He saw only what he expected to see,” Elizabeth remarked, her fingers tightening around his. “A woman he had once deceived, and a wife he might use as leverage against her husband.”
“And in this, he was entirely mistaken,” Darcy declared, lifting her hand to his lips where he pressed a tender kiss to her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers. He felt the subtle intake of her breath, and the slight tremor that ran through her at his touch. “Elizabeth?”
“Yes?” she whispered in response.
“My door is always open to you,” he promised, his voice thick with emotion. “You need never knock.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CROSSING THE THRESHOLD
Evening slipped quietlyover the lake, turning its surface to a looking-glass Elizabeth had little wish to consult. The victory should have tasted sweeter, yet a hollow remained in its place. Wickham had indeed signed the documents, and he had regaled Georgiana with stories of future voyages to distant lands, improbable adventures and borrowed glory. But as twilight deepened into night, Elizabeth once again found herself retiring to her bedchamber alone, her ears straining to catch the tread of Darcy’s boot in the adjoining room.
The door would remain unlocked, he had assured her with those eyes—eyes so deep she had lost the thread of her own heart. Had he been inviting her to bridge the distance between them? But had she not extended that invitation first? And he had…
Elizabeth cut off her thoughts, unwilling to linger on the memory. His honor had restrained him then, and he could not make such an advance again. She herself had requested both distance and time, and so she summoned Clarice to assist with her nightly preparations. Her maid arrived with her customary impassive expression, helping her out of the silk evening gown in silence, unfastening each button with careful precision.
Once, Clarice’s stoicism had unsettled Elizabeth—a far cry from Hill’s cheerful meddling and the ceaseless chatter of Longbourn. Now, Clarice’s measured pauses before each inquiry—Shall I brush your hair now, madam?—felt almost like a kindness. There was comfort in knowing that, whatever the night might reveal, it would pass unremarked and unjudged by the only other witness.
“The blue ribbon for your braid, madam?” Clarice held up the silk, and Elizabeth’s throat tightened at the implied assumption—the braid, the ribbon, the night like any other night in a marriage that had been, until now, a thing of careful distances and locked doors and longing that neither had dared to name.
“Leave my hair pinned. I shall see to it myself.” Her voice was steadier than her pulse, which fluttered with all the agitation of a bird longing for open sky. “That will be all, Clarice.”
Their eyes met in the mirror, and Elizabeth watched comprehension dawn on Clarice’s composed features—the silent understanding that passed between women who knew what it meant when a mistress dismissed her maid early with her hair still up and her cheeks already flushing with anticipation.
“Very good, madam.” Clarice set down the brush, gathered the discarded evening gown over her arm, and departed with the kind of discretion that spoke of long practice in knowing when to be invisible.
The door clicked shut, and Elizabeth turned to face her reflection in the glass, suddenly aware of the silence pressing around her like water, of the rapid rise and fall of her own breathing, of the warmth that had been building in her chest all evening and now spread through her limbs like honey warmed over a flame. Her cheeks were flushed—not artfully, not delicately, but thoroughly, the deep rose of a woman whose body had understood what her mind had only recently acknowledged. Her eyes seemed brighter than usual, darker, the pupils dilatedin the candlelight until only a thin ring of brown remained around their depths. Her lips were slightly parted, and she watched herself wet them with her tongue, a nervous gesture she could not seem to control.
