Chapter 39
Darcy clutched the collar of his greatcoat closer and rode against the wind. Rain pelted like needles against his face, his fingers long past feeling. The rain had found him three miles out and had not relented. He did not mind. One more mile, and he would be home.
Home.
He had convinced himself that Pemberley was simply a property—an inheritance he did not want, an obligation, a place of bitterness and anger.
He had believed it in Smyrna. He had believed it in Lisbon and in Lyon and in the long sun-soaked afternoons on the Mediterranean coast when the light dancing over sparkling turquoise water was so beautiful it worked as an argument against everything he had left behind.
He did not believe it now. Even in the darkness and after so many years of absence, the landscape was known to him.
He recognized every stone wall and stand of ash, every field and farm and turn of the road.
Long-buried memories surfaced with the vividness of spring flowers after a dormant winter: his mother’s voice in the rose garden, his sister’s laugh echoing off the stone of the east wing, his own boyish certainty that Pemberley was the best place in the world and always would be.
The recollections that had once fueled his anger now filled him with a sadness so quiet, it was peaceful.
He had thought himself free of this place. He was not. He never had been.
The house came into view, and the horse’s hooves found gravel.
Darcy’s chest tightened. He breathed through it, focused on the path he must take to avoid easy detection, telling himself he would have time to address his fears later, in private, when he was warm and dry and Brenner had finished exclaiming over the state of his appearance.
He dismounted at the edge of the kitchen garden, well away from the stable yard where he might be seen, and led the horse under cover of the old wall. He knew every hidden approach to this house, every servants' passage and backstairs.
His old favorite secret entrance—the east door—was unlocked.
God bless Mrs. Reynolds for remembering.
Or had she left it unlocked all these years in the hope he would one day return?
He slipped inside, through the narrow passage behind the kitchen where the noise and heat of dinner preparations covered the sound of his steps, and went up the back stairs to the family wing without encountering a soul who might raise an alarm.
His old room was exactly as he had left it—the throw his mother had made for him draped over the armchair by the window, the books on his bedside table, the writing tools on his desk arranged the way he had liked them.
A fire burned in the grate, water heating, and he walked toward it with his hands splayed out.
He heard a shuffle from the dressing room and turned to see Brenner. He was precisely as Darcy had seen him last—compact, immaculate, the expression of a man witnessing a personal affront to the natural order. “You smell like a horse.”
Darcy could not deny it. Before he could speak, Brenner crossed the room and embraced him with the force of a much larger man. It was a comforting gesture Darcy returned.
“You are thinner,” Brenner said, stepping back, reverting immediately to the businesslike assessment that was his native register. “And you want a shave. Sit down before you fall down, and I will see to the bath.”
Removing his coat, Darcy sat. “How is she faring?”
Brenner paused in his movements. “Mrs. Reynolds will tell you better than I can.”
“I am asking you.” His valet’s attention to detail meant that very little escaped his notice, and he would have gained the confidence of Pemberley’s servants by now, making him a reliable source of information.
“Miss Bennet arrived in good health and spirits.” Brenner lifted a towel from the rail. “Mrs. Reynolds was very taken with her. Though it must be said that Mrs. Reynolds is very taken with almost everyone, and it therefore counts for less than—”
“Brenner.”
“She held her own.” He set the towel down. “Lady Catherine went after her in the parlor, ignored her at dinner, and then launched another attack in the drawing room. Miss Bennet did not flinch.”
Darcy let out a long breath. Of course she had not flinched. He would have been more surprised to hear otherwise.
“What of Wickham?”
Brenner was quiet for too long.
“Tell me.”
“He has made himself very comfortable here. Consulting with Lord Matlock. Overseeing things he has no right to. Directing one of the footmen about the wine.” A pause. “He told his lordship that he has secured Miss Bennet's cooperation.”
The fire crackled in the grate. Darcy looked at it for a long moment. “He has not,” he said, with a certainty that surprised him in its steadiness.
“No. I did not suppose he had.” Brenner glanced at him. “I confess, I am eager to meet her myself. If she is as Mrs. Reynolds describes, then your Miss Bennet is something rather out of the ordinary.”
“She is,” Darcy said. “She is extraordinary.”
A knock at the door. Brenner opened it, stepped aside, and Darcy rose.
Mrs. Reynolds entered the room and quickly closed the door behind her. When she turned toward him again, she pressed her hands against her face, her eyes filled before she had said a word.
Darcy crossed the room and dropped to his knees before her. “I am sorry.” His voice trembled. Words could not convey the depth of his regret for leaving without a word, for the years of silence, for the letters he had written and not sent. “I am sorry, Mrs. Reynolds. You deserved better from me.”
She shook her head, a small fierce motion, and took his face between her hands the way she had when he was very small and she was assessing him for scrapes.
Her tears flowed freely. The effect it had on Darcy was immediate and would have embarrassed him to be witnessed by anyone other than her.
“Master Darcy,” she whispered. “You have come home.”
He rose to his feet and wrapped his arms around her fragile figure.
Though he towered over her, he felt like a small child when she rocked back and forth with her arms around him, her hands patting his back, and her cheek pressed against his chest. With the instinct of a grandmother, she knew the precise moment to release her hold.
Drawing back, she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and looked at him with the clear, assessing gaze of a woman who has spent fifty years managing a great estate and all the people residing in it.
“Now then,” she said. “You will bathe and eat and sleep, and in the morning, you will shave that terrible thing from your face, and then everything can begin.”
Darcy almost smiled. “Yes, ma'am.”
“I take it you came on horseback?” He nodded. “I will send a boy to fetch the horse and take it to the stables.”
She moved toward the door. “Miss Bennet is well.” Darcy held his breath, longing to hear more. “She has good courage, that one. And a kind heart. Your father chose wisely.” She paused at the threshold and looked back at him. “You will make her a good husband.”
“If she will have me.”
Mrs. Reynolds smiled. “You will make her a good husband. I believe it with all my heart.” She was gone before he could voice any more doubts.
He stood in the middle of his old room with the fire at his back and the rain against the glass and hoped with every fiber of his being that the housekeeper was right.
Elizabeth felt like Daniel walking into the lions' den.
She had told herself, descending the stairs, that she was not afraid.
She repeated it to herself on the landing, and she had almost believed it to be true by the time she reached the bottom step.
However, when the parlor door came into view and she saw who stood there, eager to receive her and introduce her to the family within, she had to admit how ill-prepared she was for this moment.
She was not prepared for Wickham. Had not expected to find him standing at Colonel Fitzwilliam's side when she, Charlotte, and her father entered the room.
Had certainly not considered that he would have the nerve to present himself among people who were counting on the estate passing through entirely different hands.
She could not decide if his presumption was a mark of boldness or delusion. She feared the latter.
Mr. Wrayburn greeted them first, moving through the assembled company with the somber authority of a man who had officiated at enough of these occasions to find them unremarkable. He was kind, and his composure was reassuring. Elizabeth exhaled very slightly as he moved them forward.
Colonel Fitzwilliam presented them to his parents.
Lord and Lady Matlock received them with civility if not with any warmth or hospitality.
Elizabeth curtsied politely while Lady Matlock studied Elizabeth like a woman assessing whether a piece of furniture was worth the room it occupied.
As they moved away, she heard Lady Matlock say, behind her, rather loudly and clearly, “Thank goodness Richard will not have to marry her.”
To which Lord Matlock harrumphed. “A cut beneath the cloth, by any standard.”
Their rudeness took the sting out of their remarks. Elizabeth’s humor rose, and the pack of ferocious lions she had imagined lost their teeth in her mind for all the effect their harsh words had on her.
Colonel Fitzwilliam introduced them to Lord and Lady Lisle, who received them with the critical eye of people who categorize everyone they meet, determining whether they would be useful to them or not.
Their bored reception made it clear that Elizabeth fell into the second group.
She bit the inside of her cheek and suppressed her increasing merriment.
Mr. Wickham fell into step beside her, his hand finding her elbow in the manner of a man establishing a claim. She noted it and stepped away from him toward the colonel.