Chapter Twelve
Elizabeth
“You need not endure us in silence.”
Elizabeth’s voice cut through the quiet as the bedchamber door closed behind them. She had waited until they were alone, until the servants had withdrawn and the family members had dispersed to their own quarters.
She’d spent the entire walk upstairs rehearsing what she might say, how she might address the mortification she felt.
Now she stood near the dressing table, hands clasped together to keep them from trembling.
Fitzwilliam paused in the act of removing his coat. “I beg your pardon?”
“My mother. My sisters. Their behaviour tonight. I am not blind to what occurred. You sat frozen as my mother proclaimed our business to the entire table and Kitty undermined our marriage with every jest. You were mortified.”
“We are loud and crude by your standards.” She continued, moving back and forth, unable to remain still as the conversation unfolded.
Her body demanded motion, some outlet for the anxiety and shame that had been building since the moment Mrs Bennet opened her mouth at dinner.
“We speak when we ought to remain silent and laugh when the situation demands restraint. I am aware of our shortcomings. You need not pretend otherwise for the sake of sparing my feelings.”
Fitzwilliam coloured. In the candlelight, the tinge stained his skin above his cravat. He stared at her almost blankly, and she pressed on before he could respond needing to voice everything while courage remained.
“Your family was perfectly cordial. They were kind. All of them, barring Lady Catherine, whose disapproval was at least expressed rather than hidden beneath false courtesy. And what did they receive in return? Every word from our side of the table confirming their worst assumptions about the family into which you have allied yourself.”
“In actuality, I was more upset at myself for bringing you into a situation where you would face any extra scrutiny.”
She stared at him, her prepared arguments dissolving in the face of his unexpected respect. He was not furious at her family, as she had assumed. “You were not repelled by them?”
Fitzwilliam paused momentarily. When he spoke again, his voice was steady. “Your mother is effusive. Her enthusiasm exceeds what my family considers appropriate for mixed company. Your younger sisters lack the reserve that formal occasions demand. But repelled? No. That is not what I felt.”
“Then what did you feel?”
He moved towards a chair sinking into it with the heaviness of exhaustion that suggested the evening had cost him as much as it had cost her.
“Helplessness. The grinding awareness that every moment I said nothing, you suffered, and I could offer no remedy without making matters worse. Every intervention I considered, be it with your mother, sister or Lady Catherine, would have increased rather than decreased your mortification.”
Elizabeth’s legs felt suddenly unsteady as her mind worked to reconcile this new understanding with her earlier certainty. “I felt that you were ashamed of us. And of me, by extension.”
“Never of you.” The conviction in his voice left no room for doubt. “You have nothing for which to be ashamed.”
“Thank you for saying that,” she said, pleased by the compliment.
“My family’s manners may differ from what you’ve known, but beneath it all lies true worth.
My mother’s enthusiasm extends from maternal devotion rather than mercenary calculation.
My sisters’ lack of polish reflects insufficient guidance rather than a fundamental deficiency.
They are also kind. Deeply kind in ways that matter more than polished manners. ”
“That indeed appears to be the case.”
“I am not asking you to embrace their manner of being. But I need you to understand they are more than their surface flaws. They embarrass me sometimes, certainly. Yet I would not trade them for all the polished aristocrats in England.”
“I understand, Elizabeth. I apologise for allowing you to believe I judged them, and by extension you, with contempt rather than concern.”
Fitzwilliam had offered explanation rather than dismissal. That was more than she had anticipated when she launched her accusations.
“I appreciate your candour. And I apologise for assuming the worst of your thoughts. I should have asked.”
“You had cause for your assumptions, and I gave you little reason to believe otherwise. We have barely spoken since our wedding. Small wonder you interpreted my silence through the lens of suspicion at first.”
“It appears there’s room for improvement on both our parts,” she replied, smiling. “I am certain we’ll learn to navigate that better as time passes.”
She wetted her lips but said nothing.
“Regarding our sleeping arrangements…” he began to say.
Her spine straightened, wariness entering her expression.
“I want you to understand there are no expectations,” he continued. “No pressure for intimacy until you are ready. If you are ever ready.”
The promise relieved an anxiety that had been brewing within since Lady Matlock had announced their shared chambers. She had not realised how much she needed that assurance until he offered it. The tension bled from her shoulders. “Thank you. I appreciate that assurance.”
“It is not mere assurance. It is a promise.”
Their gazes held for a moment before she looked away, aware that she was blushing. “I should prepare for bed. If you would excuse me?”
He departed then, granting her privacy whilst she changed. Elizabeth moved behind the ornate folding screen that stood in the corner and transformed from Mrs Darcy who had endured dinner to Elizabeth who must now sleep beside her husband.
Her fingers fumbled with buttons and ties as she removed her dinner gown, the elaborate construction that had taken her maid considerable time to arrange now becoming an obstacle to simple undressing.
She took her time braiding her hair as her mind raced through everything that had transpired since they arrived at Matlock.
Her husband’s relatives were good people, for all their status and dedicated adherence to social forms. She wanted them to think well of her and to prove herself worthy of the position into which circumstances had thrust her.
Instead, she had sat paralysed as her own family comprehensively demonstrated every reason why she was unsuited to their sphere. However, they would have to accept her in entirety for who she was. And accept her family as well. There was no other way around it.
Her conversation with Fitzwilliam tonight further suggested that their marriage might not be the comprehensive disaster she had feared during the course of the return trip to England.
There was certainly more to look forward to.
Fitzwilliam returned a couple of minutes before Elizabeth emerged from behind the screen in her nightgown, her hair braided and hanging over one shoulder.
The dying fire cast wavering shadows across unfamiliar furniture, making everything feel dreamlike, unreal, as if she had stepped into someone else’s life rather than her own.
And there, on the far side of the enormous bed, was Fitzwilliam.
He had already settled beneath the covers, his back to her, his breathing already steadied into what sounded like sleep.
He had spared them both the awkwardness of climbing into bed simultaneously, lying rigid while pretending sleep, of the terrible awareness of another person occupying what had always been private space.
She crossed to her side of the bed, her bare feet silent on the thick carpet. The mattress dipped as she slipped beneath the covers, the fine linens cool against her skin.
The bed was large enough that considerable distance separated them. She could hear his breathing but could not feel his presence through the expanse of mattress and blankets between them. They might have been in separate rooms for all the contact permitted by this arrangement.
Yet she remained acutely conscious of him. The sound of his breathing, steady and even. The slight warmth that seemed to radiate from his side despite the gap.
She should feel afraid and even vulnerable. Trapped in proximity to someone who possessed legal rights over her person and property, who could demand anything and expect society’s support in claiming it.
Yet fear eluded her.
Instead, she felt a curious sense of rightness, as though this arrangement, absurd as it was, somehow fit in intricate ways.
He had promised her protection from expectations, had given his word that proximity would not equal demands, and she believed him.
More than that, this arrangement felt strangely familiar, almost as if she had lain beside him for years rather than minutes. His presence in this bed seemed natural, expected, fundamentally correct in some way her rational mind could not explain but her instincts accepted without question.
Which made no sense whatsoever.
She barely knew him. By all logic, this enforced intimacy should feel wrong, frightening or at minimum deeply uncomfortable.
However, her body was relaxing into the mattress. Sleep crept over her in waves and took her.
Her last coherent awareness was of comfort and safety and the inexplicable conviction that sharing this bed with Darcy was exactly where she was meant to be.