Chapter 2 #2
“Tell me about it, Fitzwilliam,” she insisted.
“I am not sure it’s wise for Georgiana to stay in the house,” he said as he readied for bed.
“You were going to stick your own sister in some distant building? I can almost understand your wanting to do that to me, a stranger you couldn’t trust, but she’s your sister. And you entrusted her with everything you valued.”
Darcy took off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. “I trust in her talents and her honour. But this is a perilous situation for us. If she changes one thing as a result of what she experiences here, we could lose everything. If she doesn’t want to return, our lives fall apart.”
Elizabeth huffed and put his shirt in the laundry basket. Men were the same no matter when they were born. “She already said she’s going back in September.”
Her husband’s shoulders lowered, but not enough for her liking. They moved around one another in silence, getting ready for bed like they did every night, but for a man who was just reunited with his long-lost relative, he was extraordinarily tense.
“What could she possibly do after she returns that could impact us?” she asked.
Darcy counted on his fingers. “She doesn’t marry, she marries someone else, she decides against having children.
Or she sees something here that makes her question her choices for Pemberley.
Records were not kept and forged through the centuries to get me here.
If she changes something, it means things are not the same when I tried to come back.
All of that could mean that when I returned in 2013, there was nothing here for me. No documents, no identity, no—”
“No Pemberley?” Her voice was a ragged whisper. How important had recovering part of what he left behind been to him? Would he have stayed in this time if he found her but not Pemberley?
He looked hurt, and she hated she had made him think she doubted him. What was wrong with her to say that to him?
“I never wanted Pemberley,” he said roughly.
“I wanted to find you and live a full life here. And one can’t move in this modern world of yours without identifying documents and numbers.
What if Pemberley was still in ruins when I came back, with no identity waiting for me? How would I have found you?”
“Frank and Gwen would have helped you. He’s your best friend.” Elizabeth stopped his movements around the room and forced him to look into her eyes. “If he had called me and said you returned, I would have been on the first plane.”
Their friends had become family, and they were even more valuable because she and Darcy were without relatives of their own.
He by nature of when he chose to live, and she because her mother and sister never bothered.
“They would have helped,” he agreed, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“But how could we have lived together without a single document proving who I am?”
She gave him a sorrowful look. “Undocumented people live like that every day.”
He opened his hands and sighed. “Maybe I wanted better for you than to live with that anxiety. I never wanted to be a man you could not legally marry.”
Some of those outdated values came along with Darcy through the stone circle. They were ingrained in who he was. Climbing into bed, she said, “I just wanted you.”
“And I wanted to take care of you—yes, I know you do not need it.” He joined her and said, “What if she changes something and I never found you in 2013?” A tremor went through his voice.
“What if Sandra doesn’t exist because Georgiana makes a different choice based on what she sees here?
” He fell back onto his pillow. “Why is she here, Elizabeth?”
“Maybe she just wanted to see her brother. Don’t push her to talk until she’s ready.”
He exhaled, and it felt like a sigh of agreement. “We can welcome Georgiana, but she learns nothing about her future or her descendants.”
“Is that why you hid the portrait?” The painting was of Georgiana, her husband Philip Willers, Pemberley’s loyal steward, and their ten-year-old son. It was painted around 1840. “Has Georgiana married Mr Willers yet?”
Darcy shook his head. “She wore no wedding band, but they marry in 1826, and the year is half over,” he added with a hint of worry in his voice.
“Then maybe he’ll miss her so desperately after her three-month vacation that he throws himself at her feet when she returns and professes his love.”
Darcy gave her a sceptical look. “I think you are misremembering his character.”
Elizabeth held back a sigh at not being able to coax a smile from him. She remembered Mr Willers as being a friendly widower about Darcy’s age with a calm manner and an attention to detail. “You never know what lengths someone will go to for the person they love.”
This drew a half-smile and an affectionate look, but they faded. “Georgiana can’t know what happens if she marries Mr Willers.”
“That she loves her husband, Pemberley thrives, and they have a son and a grandson they adore? Yeah, how awful.”
Darcy had been lying on his back, but he turned to look at her.
“She marries him, and her son dies young, putting Mr Willers in an early grave from his grief, and she raises her grandson, whose daughter helps perpetuate the arrangement to keep Pemberley intact for us. If Georgiana learns her only son dies in the Crimean War, she might never approve of his commission. She might not even marry Mr Willers if she knows what will happen.”
“You think she would refuse his proposal if she learns about their future? Maybe she’d rather have that life with him, however long it is, than not. Or,” she said as a surge of excitement darted through her, “maybe she’s here for us to set her on the path to accept him.”
“I wouldn’t want to know my future, and I won’t interfere in the past; I have already meddled too much. Elizabeth, we have to be in agreement,” he said earnestly. “Do we tell her about her future or not?”
Whatever decision they made, be it about Sandra, or Pemberley, how they spent their money or their time, they made it together.
She saw how vehemently Darcy believed that no good could come from telling his sister what would happen, especially about her potential husband.
It would do no harm to keep Georgiana from knowing her future, and that would comfort Darcy.
“No, we won’t tell her,” she agreed. “But I still question what could she really change.”
“You changed things by preserving one life, and so did I.”
“I couldn’t bear the thought of you dying when I could bring you here and save you!”
The Pemberley she had first known when she arrived in England had been a derelict shell, with only its exterior walls carried to their full height, and the roof and intervening floors gone and open to the elements.
Darcy was supposed to have died of diphtheria, his sister dying young soon thereafter, and her widower gambled Pemberley away.
Because Elizabeth had saved Darcy’s life in the twenty-first century, and because he had gone back to save his sister from marrying Wickham, Pemberley was set on a path to remain whole and in the family for the next two hundred years.
All of their actions had changed things, for the house itself, for their family, and for the community who depended on it.
“I’m not questioning your judgment or the choices I made that led us here,” he said tiredly.
“But we both know actions taken in the past impact the future. Georgiana’s being here could cause us more harm than good.
” To her disappointment, Darcy turned from her and settled into his pillow.
“And I am astonished you do not see the potential danger to all of us.”
Elizabeth stared at Darcy’s back for a long while. She had thought the night would end differently, with her husband’s weight securely on top of her and his breath against her neck while she wrapped her legs around his hips.
While they occasionally disagreed, were stubborn or “too little yielding,” as Darcy called it, it was unlike either of them to withdraw from the other.
Did he really think Georgiana might not marry the man who helped her keep Pemberley’s legacy alive or take some other action in the past that could harm them in the present?
Would Elizabeth have married Darcy if she knew their only child would die in their twenties, and that Darcy would die soon after?
Her heart told her that both she and Darcy would have chosen each other no matter what, that the timeless and enduring bond they shared would weather any conflict or doubt or pain.
But who was to say what Georgiana felt for the man they had all assumed would become her beloved husband?