“Then he never went at all.” Prue set down her cup with a click. “You knew, and you did not tell Georgiana.”
“What purpose would it serve to break her heart with suspicions I cannot prove? She believes her brother is earning glory and preparing to send her a Kashmiri shawl. Let her keep that comfort until the truth becomes unavoidable.”
“You are protecting her. You are no better than Darcy!” Prue’s accusing finger wagged a mere ten inches from Elizabeth’s face.
Elizabeth bristled, heat creeping from her collar to her cheeks. She drew back, ready to defend herself, but the words faltered. She longed to protest, to claim her motives were nobler, but the mirror offered no comfort. She had spoken nothing but the truth, yet she was tending a fiction as carefully as he ever had.
“I prefer to think I am allowing her a respite.”
“True. Georgiana seemed to be in low spirits when I encountered her coming down the lane.”
“She misses her brother,” Elizabeth told another half-truth, feeling her cheeks color. “I merely believe the revelation concerning George’s letters’ inordinate speed of delivery is better addressed by Georgiana’s brother, which is to say, my husband, when he returns from London.”
Prue absorbed this, her expression more thoughtful than accusing. “I suppose men who own great estates have extensive business in London.”
“Indeed they do. There is no puzzle there.” Elizabeth offered the seed cake, signaling that this particular avenue of inquiry had reached its end.
Prue accepted a piece, but her eager shoulders wriggled again, like the hindquarters of a rat terrier with his nose in a hole. “Since you have the keys to Pemberley, perhaps you might settle a debate I have with Miss Entwhistle. She swears Lady Renwick described the old chapel inThe Monk’s Confessionwith such precision that it must be a real place—a Normanundercroft, she says, with a barrel vault blackened by centuries of candle smoke, and a single lancet window facing east. I have never seen such a chapel myself, but Miss Entwhistle is convinced it lies somewhere beneath this very house.”
Elizabeth hesitated. A tour of Pemberley’s hidden spaces felt rather like displaying borrowed finery—she had possessed the keys for barely three days, and her authority sat on her shoulders like an ill-fitting coat. But Prue’s enthusiasm was difficult to resist, and there was something to be said for exploring her new domain with a companion who would appreciate its peculiarities.
“Very well,” she said, rising. “Though I warn you, my knowledge is limited. Mrs. Reynolds showed me the strongroom and the stillroom yesterday morning, but I have not ventured into any chapel.”
“Then we shall venture together!” Prue was on her feet before Elizabeth had finished speaking. “You provide the keys, and I provide the speculation.”
“A division of labor that benefits you considerably more than it benefits me.”
“Naturally. I am a parson’s daughter. We excel at receiving benefits while contributing speculation.”
In spite of it all—the ache of Darcy’s absence, the daunting weight of the responsibility that had descended upon her, and the tangled skein of secrets that defined her marriage—Elizabeth found herself laughing. Prue was entirely ridiculous, and in this season of her life, such ridiculousness was a gift of the highest order.
They began their tour in the stillroom, where shelves lined with preserved fruits and medicinal cordials stood as a testament to generations of Pemberley housekeeping. Prue was in raptures, wandering the aisles and pointing her candle overthe neat rows, exclaiming over the sheer abundance of the provisions.
“One could withstand a siege for a twelvemonth, at the very least!” she declared, peering at a jar of damson jam.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, moved along the shelves, taking stock. If she was to rule this kingdom, she must know its measure. She intended to take her responsibilities seriously, right down to the very stones beneath her feet.
The wine cellar proved more interesting to Prue, who had clearly never seen wine stored in such quantity. The bottles stretched away in dusty rows, their labels faded with age, and Prue read dates aloud with reverent astonishment. “1732! That bottle is older than my grandmother!”
“And probably considerably more valuable, though I suspect less useful in conversation.”
“Your grandmother must have been a great deal more tiresome than mine,” Prue retorted, unbothered.
From the wine cellar, they descended further—down a narrow stone staircase Elizabeth had not known existed, through a low doorway that required both women to duck, and into a vaulted chamber that could only be the old chapel.
It was small, perhaps twenty feet by thirty, with a flagstone floor worn smooth by centuries of feet. The ceiling rose in a barrel vault of pale stone, blackened by the smoke of candles that had burned here when monks still walked these corridors. A single lancet window pierced the east wall, admitting a thin blade of afternoon light that fell across the altar like a finger pointing toward the sacred.
Prue drew in a gasp that triggered a fit of coughing, pointing a trembling finger at the window. “I knew it! That window is the exact incarnation of Lady Renwick’s description. The light, the stone, the very air of antiquity—it is all there!”
Elizabeth followed the beam of light with a practiced, skeptical eye. “It is a very fine window, Prue. Though I suspect that if one were to visit every medieval abbey, one would find a great many of them possessed of narrow windows and dark corners. I fear Lady Renwick has simply discovered that old stone buildings are, by their nature, somewhat gloomy.”
Elizabeth swept the candlestick along the walls, where traces of painted saints remained—a blue robe here, the suggestion of a halo there—all worn to mere shadows by time and the violence of the Dissolution. A stone basin was set into the wall near the altar: a piscina, she recalled from her father’s books, once used by priests to wash the communion vessels. The altar itself was carved oak, ancient and bare, save for a cloth of faded velvet that had aged from crimson to the color of dried blood or fallen autumn leaves.
“The monks,” Elizabeth murmured, trailing her fingers along the cold stone. “Before the Dissolution.”
“My father says the Darcys received these lands from Henry VIII after he seized the monasteries,” Prue said. Her voice had lost its customary animation, subdued by centuries pressing down upon them. “They built the great house on the foundations of holy ground.”
A sudden, sharp chill prickled the nape of Elizabeth’s neck, and she glanced toward the dark archway of the entrance, as if half-expecting to see a phantom of the past. She immediately straightened her shoulders, dismissing the sensation. Superstition was the refuge of the idle mind, and she had no patience for it.
