Page 154 of Faceless

“I know what I said. I have been reminded of it more than once.”

“By whom?”

“By him. He was in excellent spirits about it whenever I let him be.”

Jane laughed once. It came out broken. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and laughed again, and then could not seem to stop, the laugh shattering her with the shake of someone who had been holding too much for too long and had just been given permission to let any of it go. “Oh, Lizzy! I can hardly credit it!”

“Stop laughing. None of this is funny.”

“I am not laughing. Or I am, but not as you imagine. And you said you did not even know it was him? How in the world did he keep that from you?”

Elizabeth sighed. “I am afraid the blindness does not reflect well on me. He had contrived what manner of concealment was available to him, but he spent rather more time in my company than such means could reasonably contain. Still, I did not put it together. The man never entered my mind for months, but once he did… why, it was impossible for me to set the notion aside. I am shocked at myself for how long it took me.”

“How long?”

“From October. I was nearly certain by November. I had it confirmed — you will laugh, because we laughed about it when we noted it — on the anniversary of the Netherfield Ball.”

Jane drew her hand down from her mouth slowly, looked at Elizabeth, and shook her head once, and her face went serious again.

“Why did you not write to me?”

“I could not. Truly. I could not even risk a hint of it on paper. He was not safe. I was not safe. I am sorry, Jane.”

“Do not be sorry to me.” Jane’s voice had thickened. “I am not — I am not angry. I am only — I am trying to make sense of this. Of you… secretly married to a man you claimed to dislike and finding yourself… Lizzy, do you care for him?”

The tears sprang into her eyes — unwonted, entirely unpreventable. “Oh, Jane! I love him so very dearly, my ribs ache when I try to breathe. I am listening at every moment for his voice, searching when I wake for his touch… I cannot think what I shall do if I lose him!”

“Lizzy…” Jane’s cheeks flushed, and she pressed her hand against her chest, briefly, and let it fall again. “You… you speak rather intimately of him.”

“With good cause. He is the best man I ever knew, Jane.”

Jane put her hand to Elizabeth’s cheek with a broken laugh. “Only you,” she said softly. “Only you could have contrived to become the wife to a ‘dead’ man and mistress of the finest estate in Derbyshire while under the impression that you had married a Scottish recluse.”

Elizabeth sniffed. “It seems I have a particular talent for the improbable.”

“Mama is going to be insupportable. She has been insupportable already, on the subject of your Scottish baron, and that was without knowing—”

“I know. Jane, you know I love Mama, but my husband’s situation… my situation as well… matters are too delicate for general gossip. She is to be told nothing for as long as we can manage it. Not even that I am in London. Please, please understand.”

“Of course. As far as Mama can know, I was in town on business with Uncle today. Oh, I shall have to explain that handsome colonel to her, though.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “Colonel Fitzwilliam can speak for himself, I think.”

“Good.” Jane was quiet again. Then, she asked carefully, “Elizabeth. Are you well in yourself? Not the situation — you.”

Elizabeth studied her sister, the face she had known her entire life, and understood what Jane was asking. Not whether she was frightened — she was frightened, they both knew that. Not whether she was keeping herself in hand — that was visible. Something narrower and harder to answer than either of those.

“I am not certain,” she said, which was the most honest answer available to her.

Jane frowned, and her eyes swept Elizabeth’s face… then fell to the hand that had fallen protectively over her stomach. Her brows arched.

“How long since your courses?”

Elizabeth had not wanted to air this so openly. First, the earl, then Pemberton, and now it was to be general knowledge? But this was Jane asking directly, and the question had already been answered by the bucket on the packet, and the continuing morning nausea and the altered way her stays had begun to sit at the end of the day.

“Since the middle of November.”

Jane drank in a slow breath, and she nodded. “Does he know?”