Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The day after the discovery of George Wickham in Darcy’s home was spent in careful silence.
Elizabeth had the pleasure of dismissing Mrs Younge, having learnt of her complicity in Georgiana’s actions.
She and Darcy had determined that to publicly disgrace the woman would bring unwelcome consequences to their family and thus could only admonish her and send her away without a written character.
After that, Elizabeth had little to do but think. Thoughts of Henry and Crewe and what was to come turned and twisted in her mind.
Dinner was sober and perfunctory with neither Elizabeth nor Darcy interested in their meal. Georgiana merely pushed her food around her plate until she was dismissed to return to her bedchamber. They went to the drawing room, and Elizabeth decided she must make Darcy speak.
“Fitzwilliam?” Apparently lost in thought, her voice startled him. He offered a forced smile.
“Could he live?”
Darcy sighed and rubbed his hand across his mouth. “George Wickham does not know the meaning of the word honesty. He would say anything to save himself from the scaffold.”
“True.”
“Colonel Fitzwilliam says the investigation will not be opened again. No one sees cause for it, not on the testimony of a murderer.”
Elizabeth felt an odd contrariety of emotions: guilt, relief, anger, and indignation. “Is it not worth asking a few questions?”
Darcy looked at her, his expression inscrutable.
Heedlessly, she forged on. “Someone would have had to assist in the burial at Warrington, the grounds keepers—Oh! What of the person who made the coffin? Surely, someone must have made a coffin.”
Her words and thoughts gained momentum. “The road is not populated, but it is well travelled. A man who had been shot could not have simply run off. Someone must have helped him or at least seen him. Do you not think so? Some enquiries could be made to determine—”
Darcy stood hastily. “Excuse me; I must attend to business in my study.” Without further word, he quit the room, the door closing loudly behind him. Elizabeth sat in shock, staring at the closed door for several moments until she rose and went after him.
She entered the study to find him leaning on the mantel, staring into the fireplace. As soon as he heard her, he raised his head, and Elizabeth was shocked by the anger she saw on his countenance.
“You are my wife.” His voice began in a low tone. “My wife! Do you understand that? Mine! Henry died, and I cannot…I shall not…” He stopped, his jaw clenching and unclenching furiously.
“You never did forget your love for him, did you? I am second best, and it likely relieves you to know—”
“That is not fair,” Elizabeth cried out. “I love you—you know I do.”
“You do not love me!” he spat. “There is a mere suggestion that Henry might live, and you wish to run to him!”
“You are being foolish and jealous! This has nothing to do with my feelings for you!”
“Then what?” he demanded. “What would make you wish for him to live? You still love him!”
“I love you too!”
“Argh!” He made a noise of intense frustration, kicking at a log in the fire with the toe of his boot.
Elizabeth felt her heart pounding even as it was breaking. Her eyes begged for the relief of tears. She went to her husband, understanding that his unkind words were borne of his fear of losing her. She laid her hand gently against his back. “Fitzwilliam, I—”
With a violent wrench, he jerked away from her, turning to stride out of the room. He paused at the door, his eyes seeking her and burning a hole into her heart. “You said you loved me, and I believed you. I despise myself for both my weakness and my stupidity.”
He stormed from the room, leaving her once again. This time, she did not follow him.
“Idiot,” Darcy chastised himself. “Stupid, jealous brute. She is as frightened as you are, and you behave like a fool.” He tripped over the front stoop of his house, his vision in the pitch black of the night not aided in the least by the gin he had consumed.
The vision of her face when he had left haunted him. She looked so sad and bereft, and he could scarcely imagine what had moved him to behave as he had. He would not blame her for wishing him gone. No doubt, Henry never would have lost his temper in such a way.
It had never been easy for Darcy—the business of Elizabeth’s dead husband.
By sheer virtue of being dead, he was a sainted spectre.
His every thought, word, and deed had taken on a benevolent, rosy hue.
Darcy had told himself repeatedly that it was ridiculous to be jealous of a man whose brother had betrayed him and whose wife and son were lost to him.
Yet, it would not do. Darcy knew he shared Elizabeth with Henry, and it could never sit well with him, no matter how well he performed to the contrary.
“I share her with Henry,” he slurred, going down the hall to his bedchamber, “but I do not fool myself into thinking Henry would do likewise.”
He opened his door to see Elizabeth in his bed, several damp handkerchiefs crumpled around her. A dagger of painful remorse rent his heart as he settled next to her. Sleepily, she opened her eyes.
Darcy gathered her into his arms, relieved that she came willingly. His voice hoarse and low, he said, “Forgive me, I beg you.”
He felt the movement of her nod against his chest. “I know I share your love, and that I always have, but to know that when faced with a choice—”
“You misunderstand me.” She sat up. “I love you deeply, and it is not a contest. My love for you has nothing to do with what I once shared with Henry. It is a separate entity, residing in a wholly different sphere.
“I explained it once to my sister: although I loved Henry, it was a different sort of love—a heady, infatuated, giddy sort of love. It would have been more in time, but we were not granted that time.
“With you, it was different from the beginning. We had argued and angered one another, and we had spoken of sad and difficult things. Our love is proven and sure: a fine stout sort of love. Some might consider that time of heady infatuation to be the best part of love. For myself, I take comfort in having gained the latter.”
Darcy considered her words. It was true: their love was tried and tested. He squeezed her gently. “I cannot deny that there is nothing that could turn me from you.”
“When you left me tonight,” she said, turning in his arms to look at him, “I knew you would return, and I understood your mind even if I did not like it.”
“I am sorry I left you.” He paused a moment, his throat feeling tight. “The thought of losing you devastates me, but that should not have been my first concern. I should have considered your feelings above my own.”
She caressed his face. “I do not want him. He is gone—I know that. What I want, what I need, is to know what happened.
“I have known for a long time that he was gone. You cannot love someone without knowing when that love leaves this earth. If, perchance, he survived beyond that day in Crewe, surely he would not have stayed away so long. He would have found us or found a way to get word to us.”
“Unless he was ill or hiding from his brother’s companions.”
“He still could have sent word to us,” she replied, her voice just slightly too determined. She was afraid too, he knew that, but he chose to put the idea aside for a moment, choosing instead to be solaced by her reassurances.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Being with you is a happiness unlike anything I have ever known.”
“For me also,” Elizabeth said, and he knew she meant it with her whole heart.
“But I must know,” she continued. “I cannot have a cloud hanging over our life together. I do not want to wonder or fear that it will all collapse somewhere down the road. I do not long for him, nor do I pine for the life I knew with him. I just need to know.”
“I understand.” Darcy held onto her tightly. “But do know that I cannot relinquish you.”
“It will never come to that.”