Chapter 3 1748-1762
Lady Amelia Fitzwilliam was crying—again.
She had chosen the small withdrawing room at the far end of the west corridor, the one with the narrow window and the cracked pane that rattled faintly when the wind pressed against it.
No one ever came here. Her father disliked the room because it was drafty, and her brother found it dull. That alone made it safe.
Amy knelt beside the chair, her forehead pressed to the cushion, her fingers twisting together in her lap.
Ave Maria, gratia plena…
The words came silently, shaped only by her lips.
She crossed herself quickly and carefully, the gesture small enough to be mistaken for nothing at all, though she knew better than to grow careless.
She was not stupid, no matter how often her father sighed at her questions, no matter how Barry smirked and repeated his judgments with boyish cruelty.
She had seen what happened to those who were careless with their faith.
Her mother had taught her that much.
She drew a breath, steadying herself, and was about to rise when a soft sound came from behind her.
A shift of weight. A breath.
Amy gasped and turned sharply.
A man stood just inside the doorway.
He was young—no older than five-and-twenty, she thought—and wore the sober livery of the Fitzwilliam household. A footman. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair tied neatly back and eyes far too amused for someone who ought to have been invisible.
Her heart leaped violently.
He chuckled.
Not loudly. Not mockingly. But enough.
Her shock hardened instantly into pride.
“How dare you laugh,” she said coldly, rising to her feet. “Who are you?”
The man straightened his back, but his face remained unperturbed. “Frank Wickham, my lady.”
The name did not belong in her father’s house. She felt that instinctively. It carried warmth. Ease. Something unregulated.
“And what,” she asked, lifting her chin, “were you doing skulking about where you do not belong?”
His mouth quirked. “Doing my duty, my lady. I thought I heard distress.”
“You thought wrong.”
“Perhaps,” he said mildly. “But it did not sound like nothing.”
Her fingers curled at her side. “You will forget what you saw.”
He met her gaze steadily. “Very well, m’lady.”
She studied him, searching for insolence, for mockery, for fear. She found none of it—only a quiet confidence that unsettled her more than scorn would have. No servant had ever looked at her like that. Not with pity. Not with reverence. Just… honesty.
He tilted his head. “Your secret is safe with me, Lady Amelia,” he added.
The words struck deep—much deeper than words from a servant should have.
She turned abruptly and swept past him, her skirts whispering sharply across the floor.
But from that moment on, Frank Wickham was suddenly everywhere.
He was the footman who escorted her to the milliner.
Walked a measured distance behind her in the gardens.
Held doors, fetched parcels, waited patiently when she lingered too long over books or flowers.
He did all of it correctly—no impropriety, no over-familiarity—and yet there was nothing wooden about him, unlike all of the other servants in the earl’s household.
He smiled. He listened intently when spoken to. He noticed things.
Once, when thunder cracked suddenly overhead and Amy startled despite herself, he murmured quietly, “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei…”
She turned sharply, her breath caught and her pulse raced.
“You said—what did you say?”
He gave her the smallest smile. “Only a comfort.”
After that, their conversations lengthened. Never where others could hear, of course. Never long enough to invite suspicion.
But with Frank, Amy felt something she had not felt since her mother’s passing.
Safe.
He did not lecture. He did not condescend. He never told her she was too sensitive, too emotional, too dramatic. He listened when she spoke of her mother. Of the hollow left behind. Of her brother’s increasing resemblance to their father. Of her fears for her future.
Neither did he laugh at her or dismiss her. When she asked questions about the world outside her father’s estate, he answered without amusement.
Then there was the fact that he remembered things she said. Once, on the anniversary of her mother’s birth, he brought her a tray—unasked—with her favorite tea. When she blinked up at him in astonishment, he merely nodded to her.
In a world that constantly told her to be silent, Frank Wickham heard her.
And when she whispered one evening, barely audible, “You are like me, are you not?”
He did not answer aloud, but silently crossed himself.
Her breath left her in a rush. He believes as I do, she thought in astonishment, and somehow she did not feel quite so alone anymore.
And perhaps that was why, when the cold news came about the duke—the dreadful arrangement, the countess-to-be widowed three times already—Amy did not weep.
“It is settled,” the fifth earl of Matlock had said casually one evening at dinner. “You will marry him in a month.”
She protested. She pleaded. She even attempted to bargain.
Her father’s face remained unmoved.
Barry, home on holiday and flushed with new authority, laughed and echoed their father’s words with cruel delight.
“Do not be foolish, Amelia,” he said. “You should be grateful someone of the duke’s stature is interested in a girl like you.”
She left the room numb. But instead of going to her room and weeping, she sought out the one person who had never made her feel small.
And found him already waiting.
“There is no safety for me,” Amy told Frank. “None.”
He listened as she railed against her father, against the injustice of a world that had left her all alone to be bartered away.
At last, he said quietly, “It is a pity you are not already married.”
Her head snapped up. “What?”
“If you were,” he continued evenly, “no one could force you into another match.”
The thought struck her like lightning.
“You do not mean—”
“I do,” he said. His voice lowered. “I could take care of you, Amy. No one would force you to do anything you do not wish.”
Amy. The name she had not heard spoken since her mother’s passing burned within her chest.
Before she could speak, before fear could catch up to her courage, he bent and kissed her—briefly, reverently—and then stepped back, crossing himself.
The gesture seemed to almost be a sign from her mother. With Frank, she thought wildly, there would be love. And faith.
“Yes,” she said, her voice shaking. “Yes.”
They left before dawn.
They married over an anvil in Scotland.
And for the first time in her life, Lady Amelia Fitzwilliam chose her own fate.
∞∞∞
August 1753 — Longbourn
The air in the Longbourn drawing room hung heavy, thick with the August heat and heavier still with tension. Theo stood before his father’s chair, shoulders squared, chin lifted with quiet determination.
“Please, Father,” he said, his voice steady but urgent. “Let Natty come to Cambridge with me. There’s the living at Meryton—he could study theology. He would have a place, a purpose. He would not be idle.”
Timothy Bennet looked up from the letter he had been pretending to read, then cast a glance across the room to where Maria sat with her embroidery, her needle halted mid-stitch. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his temples.
“It is not so simple,” he said. “Sending one son is no small expense. Sending two—”
“We could room together,” Theo interrupted. “It would halve costs. And maybe we could let the dower house. I am certain that someone would be more than happy to lease it for a year.”
Maria’s hand trembled, the needle slipping. Her lips parted, and she looked to her husband, then back to Theo. “No,” she whispered. “I do not want both of you so far from me. Not at once. Not after—” Her voice broke off, and she clutched her handkerchief.
Theo’s heart sank at the expression on his mother’s face. The deaths of both of her parents the year prior in a tragic carriage accident had caused Maria to be overly anxious about travel and distance of any kind.
Nathaniel, who had been lounging in the corner with a restless air, gave a bitter laugh. “Of course,” he said, “I must stay home. I am the spare, after all. Always kept on hand in case something happens to the heir. How noble of me.”
Maria’s eyes brimmed with tears.
“Perhaps,” he added darkly, “I shall go join the militia, or the regulars. That would defeat the purpose, would it not? If I die in some skirmish on the continent, no need to keep me polished up and waiting. Maybe you will all get lucky and no longer need to provide for me.”
Maria buried her face in her handkerchief, weeping openly now.
“Enough!” Timothy thundered, rising from his chair. “That is not the kind of talk allowed under this roof. You are distressing your mother.”
A slight expression of remorse flickered across Nathaniel’s face, but then it quickly returned to petulant. He huffed as he rose from his seat and stalking over to the window, staring out at the home farm in the darkening twilight.
“I will not go to Cambridge unless Natty comes with me,” Theo said quietly.
Nathaniel’s head snapped up. “What?”
Theo turned to face him. “If you stay, I stay. I will not go without you.”
Something sharp and feral sparked in Nathaniel’s eyes. “Stop trying to drag me behind you like a pet dog, Theo.”
The felt as if he had been struck. “That is not what I’m doing—” he protested.
“Oh, is it not?” Nathaniel’s voice rose. “Who says I want to take holy orders and live in Meryton for the rest of my life? Who says I want to be a boring little clergyman under my brother’s thumb—living in your village, beholden to your charity, at your beck and call like some glorified servant?”
“I never said—”
“I am not your burden,” Nathaniel snarled, stepping forward. “But you make me one every time you act like I cannot breathe unless you breathe first.”