Page 128 of Homeless

“Why did you wear a cheap one?”

“Because it was what I had, and because I had grown fond of it. One can grow fond of cheap things, you know, if they have kept one company long enough.”

“Where is it now?”

Elizabeth bit her lip and curled her fingers into her palm. “It… it is put away for safekeeping.”

Marianne squinted as she tilted her head, for it had apparently fallen to her to serve tea to the doll, and she carried it on as any proper hostess would. “But why, if it was cheap? You could just wear it. You keep the nice things safe, that is what Mama says.”

“It is the dear things you protect, sweet one. Whether they cost much or very little. That trinket is… very dear.”

Marianne considered this, found it acceptable, and returned to the graver business of the tea-party.

Elizabeth sat a moment with her marked hand in her lap, and then she rose, and went to the window seat at the end of the nursery where the light was good. She drew the folded note out from where she had tucked it, and read his tender, dangerous, forbidden words one more time — My heart.

Then, she went back down to put on the face for noon.

Matlock House welcomed him with an uproar that he had known it would, and that he had, in his heart, half dreaded and half needed.

His aunt wept. His uncle wrung his hand and said, “By God, by God, we had given you up,” three times over. His cousin Reginald, the viscount, offered him a cigar, which he declined, and his latest letter from Richard in Gibraltar, which he read with eyes newly enlightened to the meanings behind tactful, reassuring phrases written there.

“Stop with that dull stuff, Reginald,” the countess had protested at length. “Let the man drink his tea. He looks frightfully underfed. Darcy, really, now that you are home, you must do something about your appearance.”

He smiled, thanked his aunt for her concern, and drank his tea. Georgiana had said little since he walked in, but she sat close on the sofa, her eyes swallowing him and sifting him, and full of questions he could not yet answer.

After half an hour, and after he had satisfied most of his uncle’s questions about the state of his financial affairs and his aunt’s questions about the beauty of Spain, he asked to be granted a private interview with his sister. She held back until the last smiling face left the room, until the door closed, and then she was in his arms.

“You are truly here. Truly! I was beginning to fear all sorts of things.”

“I am truly here, Georgiana. Let me look at you.” He held her off. “My dearest girl, you have been frightened. I am sorrier for that than for anything. I could not send word — there was no word to be sent, from where I was — but I thought of you every day, and of how you would be bearing it. I am sorry.”

“You are forgiven the instant you say it.” She smiled up at him. “You need not even say it. You are home.”

“I am, and I want you to come to stay at Darcy house with me, as soon as can be arranged. There is… I have something to tell you.”

“Oh?”

He drew her to the window embrasure at the far end of the room, where the noise of the hall faded and where there was no reasonable fear that Georgiana’s shock and delight might be overheard. He took both her hands.

“Dearest, I was married in Spain.”

“But…” Her brow creased, and she tilted her head. “Lady Honoria? I thought she was here in London. Your letter said —”

“No. Georgiana, do you recall a few years ago, when I went with Bingley to Hertfordshire? I was only there for about a month, so you may not.”

“A little. You wrote to me a great deal while you were there. Oh, dear… you have not married Miss Bingley, have you?”

He laughed. “I do not suppose you remember me mentioning a Miss Elizabeth Bennet among my acquaintances in the neighbourhood?”

Her eyes narrowed, then widened. “The one you said had fine eyes and an enchanting laugh?”

“Ah.” He chuckled to himself. “Yes, I suppose I must have written that. She is Elizabeth Darcy now, and I am looking forward to introducing you.”

She gasped and bounced. “Oh! Fitzwilliam, I… well, where is she? I will see her when I come home, will I not?”

“No.” He patted her hand and shook his head. “It is rather complicated just now.”

He told her the rest — that he loved Elizabeth past anything he had words for, and that she was in London this very day, at her aunt's house in Cheapside, and that no one — not their aunt or uncle, not her maid, no one — must know of it yet, for reasons he would explain when he could. They were reasons that touched Elizabeth's family and their whole future, and that he was trusting her with a thing he had trusted no one else in this house.