Chapter Nineteen
Elizabeth stopped in the corridor outside her bedroom door. She wiped the tears from her face and drew in a slow breath before exhaling sharply. Her mind was awhirl. Mr. Darcy was Mr. Penny; she might be relieved if she could overcome the shock and mortification. The sting of Charlotte’s possible betrayal still nettled. Had her dearest friend known all along, and attempted to guide Elizabeth toward the truth by pretending to grow suspicious? And was she a fool for not seeing it herself?
But no, Elizabeth thought better of Charlotte, even if she was resolved to think herself a great fool. Should she, too, not have figured it out? Would it have changed anything? Elizabeth gave a heavy exhale. She could not allow herself to behave in such a way, and so she summoned the courage to wipe at her face and return to Mr. Darcy with the thousand questions that raced through her mind.
She stepped away from the wall that had braced her, creeping out of the corridor when she heard his sharp reproof. “Elizabeth accepted payment to participate in this deception, as Anne made a fool of me? I must repeat the same question as she, Lady Parker – just how long have you known that Miss de Bourgh was involved in this scheme?”
Mr. Darcy’s words cut her to the core, and Elizabeth retreated to her bedroom, barely closing the door behind her before she resumed her tears. She was lost to her sobs, beyond any coherent thoughts, until there was a gentle knocking. “Enter,” she managed to whimper as she wept.
Charlotte and Georgiana stepped timidly into the room, their faces etched with pity as they sat beside her on the bed. “Mr. Darcy has gone,” Charlotte said softly.
Elizabeth ran her fingers over the bundle of letters she had not yet been able to part with. “Does he despise me?”
“No, dearest,” her old friend said. “I explained it all as best I could.”
“But what explanation can there be for this, for what I have done to him? He is right, I deceived him most cruelly!” Elizabeth turned a beseeching gaze on Georgiana. “I did not know any of the particulars. I told myself that perhaps the lady who requested the letters had a perfectly acceptable reason for not wishing to write herself, that perhaps the gentleman did not deserve her devotion. And then, as I came to know him through those letters, as we shared our deepest private feelings and wishes for the future, I knew he was a worthy gentleman and I did not wish to give him up. I loved him. I love him still. And the worst of it is that I am glad that the two men I have loved are one and the same.”
Charlotte embraced Elizabeth. “I am glad, too, Lizzy. Now Miss de Bourgh has no hold over him.”
Elizabeth shuddered as the tears continued to stream down her face. “She may have no claim on his affections, after contriving the scheme that wounded him, but his aunt still has a hold over him.”
Charlotte looked questioningly at Elizabeth and then at Georgiana, who said it all with her silent, grim countenance, nodding sadly.
“I have only made matters worse,” Elizabeth groaned. “He has no choice but to marry her – but he might have at least believed himself to be loved. I have taken that from him.”
Georgiana scoffed, her voice dripping with disdain. “You have spared him from a delusion that might not have been stripped away in time for him to be saved from a loveless marriage! He will find a way, Lizzy. Even before we came here today, when he believed Anne to have written those letters, his attachment to you was greater than his lingering affection for her . The woman we have come to know in Sanditon this fortnight is even worthier of my brother’s love than the woman he fell for in letters alone.”
Elizabeth sniffled and smiled as she wiped at her tears. “But what is to be done? It seems an impossible dilemma. I cannot ask him to risk angering Lady Catherine.”
Charlotte raised her brows but prudently decided not to ask the question in her eyes. “He has gone to speak to Miss de Bourgh, and I cannot think there will remain any chance of a felicitous union; he has directed all his ire toward her .”
Georgiana bit her lip for a moment before speaking. “I am not sure if he would wish me to tell you, but I cannot do otherwise, when I might spare you this pain, Lizzy. He means to find a way to best our aunt, to trump her blackmail with some of his own.”
“That sounds like the colonel,” Elizabeth mused, laughing through her tears.
Again Charlotte looked between Elizabeth and Georgiana with an expression of bewilderment before averting her eyes and idly stroking Elizabeth’s shoulders.
Georgiana grinned and took Elizabeth’s hand in her own. “See? You know us all so well – it is like we are family already.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I stand by what I said to you at the assembly….”
“Likewise,” Georgiana quipped. “Richard wrote to his mother, the dowager countess, who has despised Lady Catherine since before any of us were born. And if she cannot help, I have no qualms with calling the old harpy’s bluff. Let her do her worst – you and William will be happy, and I will live with you forever.”
There were footsteps in the corridor, and for a moment Elizabeth both hoped and feared Mr. Darcy had returned. Instead, Marianne, Jane, Emma, and Mrs. Bevan appeared in the doorway, hesitating before they rushed toward her.
“The colonel told us to come to you,” Jane said. “He has taken our husbands to go sea-bathing, and Mr. Darcy stormed away looking terribly fierce.”
Marianne hovered near Elizabeth, wringing her hands. “Have you quarreled?”
Emma lingered in the corridor with Mrs. Bevan, looking helpless but determined. “If you are really in love with him, Miss Bennet, you must let us help. We have all seen how he looks at you, and Miss de Bourgh cannot hold a candle to your charms!”
As Elizabeth shrank back, overwhelmed and ashamed, Charlotte stood up briskly. “We are too crowded in here, I think. I am going to ring for tea in the parlor and then dismiss all of the servants, and we shall all eat tasty little cakes and talk about it until Lizzy’s spirits are recovered.”
And that is just what the seven ladies who had grown so fond of one another did. It was impossible for Elizabeth not to feel cheered in the sunlit parlor, sipping tea made just the way she liked, with a beloved sister on each side of her and four devoted friends perched nearby, determined to coax a smile from her tear-streaked face.
Elizabeth numbly nibbled at a lemon tart, recalling that she and Mr. Darcy both favored them, and she nodded her permission for Charlotte to fill her friends in on the pertinent details of her crisis.
“Nearly two years ago, I answered an advert in the papers to cheer Lizzy after the loss of her mother. She was commissioned to write love letters on behalf of a lady, and though many details were omitted by an intermediary, she came to know the gentleman well enough to form an attachment – her own words of affection fostered his devotion to the lady he believed he corresponded with, his intended.”
“And it was Mr. Darcy and Miss de Bourgh?” Mrs. Bevan’s eyes shone with mirth as she smiled wryly at them.
“We have only just discovered this,” Charlotte said with a quelling look as Emma let out a cry of shock and delight. She turned to Georgiana for conformation as she added, “The problem we now face is that it seems Lady Catherine de Bourgh has the power to command Mr. Darcy to her will, for reasons nobody beyond the family need know, I expect.”
Georgiana nodded. “My brother despises deceit and disguise – William only agreed to feign his courtship with Lizzy because Richard and I forced his hand. We knew they would be perfect for one another – and we were unaware of the coercion that still presents an obstacle. This may yet be overcome, but only by further intrigue.”
Jane threw her arms around Elizabeth. “Oh, Lizzy! Your poor thing! But perhaps Charles might be of some assistance to Mr. Darcy? He is devoted to his friend, and of course he loves you like his own sister.”
Emma nodded her agreement. “My husband, too, is an old friend of Mr. Darcy’s. We are at your disposal.”
“That is very kind, but I hardly know what is to be done,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. Her happiness seemed entirely in the hands of a cruel old woman who had been unpleasant to her from their first interaction at the hotel, and had glared at her with resentful eyes since Mr. Darcy had come to Sanditon.
“I think Richard is the only one who can help us now,” Georgiana said, the beginning of an idea flashing in her eyes. “I think he must go to Rosings – it is not fifty miles – he ought to see what he can find about Lady Catherine that may bend her to Williams’ will, rather than the reverse.”
Elizabeth looked up at her friend with hopeful curiosity. “What do you mean? I thought – the dowager countess….”
“She may help us, but my brother does not wish to consider her aid a certainty until she arrives, which may be a few days. But there must be something that can be discovered. Anybody who travels with ten thousand pounds in bank notes must have a secret or two.”
Everyone gaped at Georgiana, awaiting her explanation. She shrugged. “Sir Sidney did not run off with Miss Denham for nothing.”
Amidst the collective murmurs of comprehension, Marianne turned to address Mrs. Bevan. “You have a talent for imagining all manner of intrigue – what is our Lizzy to do?”
Mrs. Bevan laughed gently. “Miss Darcy and the colonel seem to have the matter well in hand. Take heart, Miss Bennet – I believe your beau loves you well enough to move Heaven and Earth to be with you.”
Elizabeth offered the authoress a weak smile. How mad, that the novelist she had long admired was now sitting in her parlor, commiserating with her romantic woes! But Elizabeth had little faith that her own unusual romance would end as happily as the novels she treasured. “Just before he left – before the truth of the letters was made known to us – Mr. Darcy seemed as though he meant to… oh, I hardly know. I have lost all sense of what has been real and what was only pretend; I cannot trust my own judgement at such a time.”
“Then trust ours ,” Marianne cried, looking round at all her companions for agreement.
Elizabeth waved away their murmurs of affirmation. “I cannot expect him to forgive what I have done, to go up against his formidable aunt for the sake of a woman who deceived him for so long. It is all a horrid mess,” Elizabeth said, whimpering though her tears had dried. “How could he ever trust me? How could it ever be simple and easy between us?”
A strange sound burbled in Mrs. Bevan’s throat, and Jane let out a low hum of disagreement. “Oh Lizzy, love is not simple. It is not easy.”
“It was for you,” Elizabeth said to her sister. “Mr. Bingley loved you the moment he saw you.”
“He thought me pretty, as I thought him handsome,” Jane said, her rebuke soft but earnest. “But he was nearly persuaded of my indifference by his sisters, whose exacting standards caused him to have serious reservations about the propriety of some of our relations, and after our marriage they made settling into my new life rather difficult before Charles sent them away.”
Elizabeth frowned. Of course, she knew this – Jane had confided in her about these difficulties, yet still they paled in comparison to what Elizabeth envisioned as a vast gulf between herself and Mr. Darcy, dark and raging and uncertain.
“It was not so simple for my husband and I, either,” Emma said. “We each feared the other would choose someone else – though we had merely let our fancy run away with us.”
“And think of Elinor,” Marianne added. “I cannot reassure you with my own history, but Elinor found her happiness, and Edward was once promised to that nasty little fortune hunter, Lucy Steele. Elinor loved him in silence while knowing him pledged to a grasping phony who no longer gratified the inclination of his youth. My poor sister suffered a vast deal, but it all came right in the end.”
Mrs. Bevan fidgeted with the small notebook she always kept with her, but resisted the urge to reach for her pencil. She gestured to the display of her own books not far from where they were all seated. “If the love stories in my novels were simple and easy, they would be only a few pages, my dear – and very dull. You are a complex creature, and a particularly interesting one – as is Mr. Darcy. I daresay you shall face many challenges together. And once you are married… well, sometimes it is rather diverting to resolve a quarrel.”
The other married women all blushed and tittered, while Georgiana leaned forward to do her own part in reassuring Elizabeth. “She is right – my brother is just as complicated, at times. But our Fitzwilliam blood makes us tenacious, and I am sure he will fight for you. My cousin Anne is nearly of age, and I daresay once she has her inheritance, she will not wish any man laying claim to it, especially after Sir Sidney’s duplicity. So you see, the longest you would have to wait is less than three months – and I doubt it will take William three hours to forgive you for the letters. He will be glad it was you.”
Georgiana smiled brightly at Elizabeth, her confidence unshakeable. She reached into her pocket and handed Elizabeth the valentine. Elizabeth gasped. He must have found it when she showed him the Bevan books – he must have recognized it. “I forgot to give you this,” Georgiana said. “He kissed it, so that must be a good sign.”
“We ought to have begun with that,” Charlotte admonished, laughing ruefully. Elizabeth scarcely registered her friends’ words as she brought the valentine to her own lips and then laid it atop the bundle of letters she had carried with her into the parlor.
After another half hour of letting the kindness of her friends chase away the despair she had felt, Elizabeth peered out of a window and discovered Mr. Darcy striding toward the hotel from the direction of Sandpiper Cottage. She sucked in a sharp breath, hoping he was returning to her, but would not allow herself to observe his approach.
For several minutes she tormented herself, considering that Mr. Darcy might still be too cross to speak to her, or he may have reconciled with Miss de Bourgh, or perhaps he was walking to the stable to have his carriage made ready to bear him away forever, and she would never see him again. Elizabeth was still lost in this anxious reverie, quite oblivious to the chatter of her friends, when Mr. Darcy appeared in the doorway, flowers in hand. He stared at the coterie of ladies with bewilderment.
The conversion ebbed into heavy silence. Elizabeth latched onto Jane’s hand, and had reached for Georgiana, as well, when the girl sprang to her feet and declared, “I am going to go find Richard and tell him the idea that I had.”
“I will join you,” Marianne said, linking her arm through Georgiana’s as they hastened from the room.
“The rest of us ought to go and find our husbands,” Charlotte said. Jane, Emma, and Mrs. Bevan all stood and murmured their farewells before taking their leave.
And then, Elizabeth had to look up at last, for she was finally alone with Mr. Darcy. She stood abruptly, clutching her bundle of letters, her lips parted – and no words came out. Mr. Darcy crossed the room, stopping a few paces away from her, in front of the shelf where she had shown him her books that morning. He lifted the wilting flowers from the vases she had put them in, laid them across the shelf, and placed the new ones in the vase, the corners of his lips crinkling upward as he arranged the blooms.
Then he looked up, and his feelings were written plainly on his face, for he gazed at her as he had in the gazebo and at the assembly, and a dozen other times that Elizabeth had lost a small piece of her heart to him. Still holding fast to her letters, she closed the distance between them in an instant, and then she was in his arms.
Mr. Darcy said nothing, but kissed her so forcefully that she knew without a doubt he had wanted to do so many times – she had thought of little else in his company in recent days – and that neither of them felt the need for words to communicate their sentiments.
When finally they parted to take a breath, Elizabeth began to laugh. “Mrs. Bevan did warn me that reconciling after a lovers’ quarrel could be… pleasant.”
He raised his brows. “Have we quarreled?”
Elizabeth swatted at him. “Odious man! I know you were very cross, and I was mortified. Do end my suffering and say that you have forgiven me.”
“I have vented my spleen with Anne, and have come to learn her reasons for all her transgressions against me. And then I walked along the beach and pondered the whole situation, unable to make sense of it all. I found that I was merely relieved, more relieved than I have ever been.”
Mr. Darcy gestured for her to sit on the sofa beside him, and as she did so his arm encircled her shoulders in a way that felt natural and wonderful. It was so utterly thrilling that in her elation, Elizabeth shifted herself so that her legs rested over his lap. Her fingers caressed his cheek and then found their way into his hair, relishing the feel of the soft, dark curls. The intensity of his gaze sent a shiver through her body, and she kissed him again.
He returned her ardor for a moment before drawing back with a longing look, and Elizabeth became aware of the possibility that they may become entirely carried away. She did wish to hear him, to know all that had transpired and all that he was feeling, and yet the indulgence of her attraction to him threatened to consume her.
She let out a shaky breath and nodded. “Tell me everything.”
“Lady Parker told me why she answered the advert on your behalf. My first instinct was fury at the humiliation of it, of being duped by my cousin. But I understand your reasons, and I have even begun to accept Anne’s reasons.”
“She was forced into the engagement by her mother, who was blackmailing you,” Elizabeth said sadly. Mr. Darcy was a dear man indeed if he could forgive his cousin for prolonging his false hope for nearly two years.
“ Is blackmailing me,” Mr. Darcy sighed. “I have much to tell you of what Anne has endured, which has inspired my sympathy and regret. But the threat of my aunt still hangs over us, though Richard has given me hope that something may be done.”
“The dowager countess,” Elizabeth prompted him, tracing his jawline with curious fingers.
He let out a hum of contentment and nodded. “I supposed Georgiana would not be able to resist telling you. My poor sister would throw away her reputation if it came to that, but I am determined to find some other way, and with Anne in agreement to break free of the arrangement, I am determined that I shall.”
“Georgiana said that she will suggest the colonel travel to Rosings and see if he can gain access to your aunt’s study to get her information,” Elizabeth said.
“That is a fine idea.” He let out a low moan as her fingers ran over his lips. “Good God, Elizabeth! Say you will marry me.”
Before she could answer, he had pulled her fully into his lap and kissed her with even greater passion this time. She gave over to the heat of the moment, and when he again drew away with ragged breath, Elizabeth rested her forehead against his. She rubbed their noses together and giggled. “ That is a fine idea. Of course I will marry you. We have been engaged for a year and a half, after all.”
He pulled his head back just enough to gaze at her with wonder as his hands gently stroked her back. “It is incredible. It was really you who composed the words I fell in love with, just as I have fallen in love with you here and now, since coming to Sanditon. I cannot believe I did not realize, for you bear such a marked similarity to the woman I corresponded with; only my own pigheadedness convinced me it was Anne.”
Elizabeth reached for the bundle of letters. “I cannot tell you how I cherished every letter – I kept them all and wept with insurmountable grief when Miss Penny instructed me to terminate the correspondence.”
Mr. Darcy reached into his coat pocket and produced a nearly identical packet. “I understand that Miss Lovelace acted as intermediary and copied out the letters, leaving out any details of mine that indicated who I was, and any words of yours that would make it apparent that Anne was not the writer.”
“I wonder….” Elizabeth sighed, thinking forlornly of what might have been omitted.
She and her beloved arranged themselves cozily on the sofa, and for the better part of an hour they sat together and read the letters, filling in whatever details they could recall that had not been included. There was an overpowering sense of rightness in it as Elizabeth came to know Mr. Darcy more fully, and told him of herself in a way that her letters had never fully expressed.
Mr. Darcy spoke with Sir Edward that afternoon, and with Elizabeth’s assistance the entire ordeal was explained, sparingly only the details of Georgiana’s great secret. Elizabeth’s uncle gave his consent for their betrothal, acknowledging that Elizabeth was of age, and her father was not likely to refuse anything of a man such as Mr. Darcy.
It was agreed upon that the engagement would remain secret until Mr. Darcy was free of his aunt’s hold on him, and Sir Edward declared that he would ready the finest room at the hotel dowager countess – he ought to impress her, if they were to become relations.