Page 48 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“You might say I am.” Elizabeth grinned and handed her a bundle of documents. “Make yourself useful, then. We are looking for anything connected to Alice Bennet. Letters, keepsakes, a diary if we are very fortunate.”

“When would they have been alive?” Charlotte asked.

“Anywhere from the 1690s to the 1770s. I have already gone to the family plot and found Alice’s marker. She was born July 18, 1696, and died December 16, 1775,” Elizabeth said. “Although any love story would likely be around the 1710s.”

“A hundred years ago.” Charlotte’s hands made quick work of the journals, setting aside anything outside of the date range. “You still haven’t explained to me this interest in George Darcy. All I know is that Mr. Collins was closer to your father in the tree than Mr. Darcy.”

“Mr. Collins was connected through standard blood descent, but Mr. Darcy’s line was grafted in by an agreement. He was the spare in case my father’s grandfather died before producing an heir.”

“Much like my husband who died before the wedding night.”

“Yes.” Elizabeth put her hand on Charlotte. “And I am so sorry. I know you were glad of the marriage and having your own household.”

Elizabeth paused, granting Charlotte the dignity of a moment to collect herself.

“I will not pretend to mourn him more than I knew him,” Charlotte finally said. “But your sister, Jane, is now the heir. And do you know what she said to me? She came to see me after your mother had left. She told me that I would always have a place at Longbourn—that I was family now, that my marriage to Mr. Collins made me a Bennet in her eyes, and that she would not see me cast out or forgotten.”

Elizabeth felt tears prick at her eyes. “Jane said that?”

“She did. And I wept, Lizzy, which I have not done since Mr. Collins’s funeral, because I did not believe I had tears left.” Charlotte’s voice was steady, but fragile beneath. “I married for security. You know that. I make no apology for it. But I never expected to be seen as anything other than the woman who was practical enough to accept what you refused.”

“Charlotte.” Elizabeth hugged her. “I was wondering what would have happened to you had Darcy inherited the entail.”

“He would have likely been as kind,” Charlotte said, drawing back to fix her with her perceptive and sensible eyes. “Your Mr. Darcy—and do not tell me he is not yours, because I have eyes—did the opposite of what I did. I married to gain security. He gave it away. He surrendered an inheritance that would have made him master of this estate, and he asked for nothing in return.” She paused. “Do you not see the irony? I am mourning a man I married for his prospects, and you are mourning a man who gave up his prospects for you.”

“I am not mourning him, as he is not dead.”

“No. But he is gone, and you did not tell me if you miss him.”

“Charlotte, Alice might have missed this George Darcy, and I am up here searching through her letters. She spent several summers with him. I have barely been acquainted with Mr. Darcy.”

“It is not the length of time, Lizzy, and you know it, but the fury and fire between you.” Charlotte lifted her candlestick, placing the flame between them. “Some people are like still water; others are like striking flint. Be honest, Lizzy. I was there at the first assembly in Meryton when the flint struck hard.”

“He insulted me.” Elizabeth felt herself stiffen and the candlelight guttered. “He called me⁠—”

Charlotte put her hand up. “We’ve heard it at least a hundred times, Lizzy. If he hadn’t mattered, if you hadn’t considered him, looked at him and imagined yourself with him, or found him desirable, it would have been like water off a duck’s back.”

“I—” Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it again. “Charlotte!”

“So, tell me, Lizzy, did you truly hate him, or you appeared to dislike him, turned your mother against him, and then watched the entire neighborhood take up for you while you found every excuse to observe him for his faults so you could add them to a list as high as the Dover cliffs for fear that he would scale your defenses and sweep you off your feet?”

“You should have stayed in the library with my father. You could have entertained him with your wild tale.”

“I suppose I could have, but we are up in an attic chasing a doomed love story of people who existed a century ago.” She picked up a packet of letters. “Here, the correct time frame, I believe.”

Elizabeth grabbed the packet as if it contained gold, but Charlotte shook her head. “Set it aside to look at later. We have still many trunks to go through, and you have many answers you have not given me.”

“I no longer dislike him,” Elizabeth admitted as she sorted through a packet of receipts in her great-great-grandmother’s commonplace book and put it in the right side pile, as they belonged to Alice’s mother. “I do not know what to feel. Everything I believed about him—every judgment, every conclusion—has been overturned. He gave us the entail. He confessed that he advised the Bingleys to leave, and he told me of his own accord, without being discovered. He stood in our parlor with flour in his hair and said he wished to marry me, and then he asked for nothing. Not even an answer.”

“So, what Lydia says is true,” Charlotte gasped, and Elizabeth groaned, because Lydia was the most skillful eavesdropper of the family, fitting her lanky body into the smallest of all spaces.

“What did Lydia overhear?” Elizabeth’s voice was guarded.

“His not-a-proposal, that he wishes to marry you but would not tell you why.”

“Did she repeat this to my mother?” Elizabeth wiped a bead of cold perspiration from her forehead.

“She did, but your mother refused to believe any man who just gave away an entire estate would not demand an answer. What I want to know is why you did not give him one.”