Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The miners lived in a barracks within the colliery, so the owner of the mines invited Darcy to use a small sitting room in his home, Clough Hall, to meet the man who might be Lord Courtenay.
Darcy’s eyes roamed over the room, an extraordinary nervousness nigh on engulfing him. His heart pounded and his hands sweated as he paced, awaiting the man. He could not think of what might happen if it were Lord Courtenay.
From the look of Elizabeth, she felt the same. He saw her hands shake as she sat quietly, her head bowed and her fingers wound with a handkerchief that she twisted and untwisted in her lap.
The man had been told by his foreman to arrive at half past ten, but by Darcy’s timepiece, it was only twenty minutes past the hour when footsteps were heard in the hall.
Elizabeth raised her head, looking at the door just as it was opened by a servant.
A man appeared in the doorway. He was short in stature and of a slight build, with fair hair and blue eyes that settled on Elizabeth with an indefinable expression. Darcy had his eyes trained on Elizabeth’s face and saw the colour drain from her cheeks as her mouth dropped open wordlessly.
For a moment, the three of them were caught in a moment unbound by time. No one spoke. The momentousness of the occasion was too deeply felt to be marred by words.
The man’s face broke into a wide, delighted smile, and he crossed the room in a trice. With a whoop, he pulled Elizabeth to her feet and into his arms, where he spun her around in a circle before kissing her soundly on the lips. “Elizabeth! My darling wife! You found me!”
There was much to do after the startling reunion with Henry.
Plans needed to be made, the owner and the foreman of the mine were met with, and arrangements for the funds and personal effects Henry had accumulated were settled.
Elizabeth returned to the inn with the intent of sending letters to their relations, informing them of the shocking news, but she found herself unequal to the task.
She penned one short note to Lady Matlock and another to the housekeeper at Towton Hall and then sat in her chair, staring at the most hideous wall covering she had ever seen.
It soothed her, this ugly paper of jonquil and fawn. It suited her mood completely.
Henry came to her once everything was settled. Seeing him enter, she smiled, but it must not have appeared genuine, for he gave her a look of concern. He sat next to her on the settee in front of the fire.
“I cannot believe you are alive,” she told him. “It is almost too much to be comprehended. You must tell me everything that has happened to you these three years past.”
“Elizabeth,” he said kindly, “please know that I do not expect things between us to be exactly as they were.”
His gentleness brought a tear to her eye. “Henry, I am overjoyed that you are alive. I never imagined it possible. It is shocking.”
“I know.” He smiled gently and caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “We shall take our time with this. We must be reacquainted. I am happy that we are reunited, but I do know you have made a new life. You mourned me, and you fell in love with another.”
She felt her cheeks becoming wet. “It is unfair. I grieved for you, I longed for you for years. It seems I am not pleased, but I assure you, I am, truly I am.”
He embraced her, putting his lips briefly to the top of her head. “One step at a time, dearest girl. We shall find our way again.”
And she smiled at him in response but with traitorous thoughts in her mind. One step with you is a step away from Darcy. How can I withstand such pain, much less inflict it upon myself?
The days following the discovery of Henry Warren, Earl of Courtenay, among the miners in Kidsgrove were nothing short of agony.
Darcy wondered that neither he nor Elizabeth had given any thought to how awkward and discomfiting travel arrangements could be when a woman is thought to be married to two men.
It was the first step of separation: returning to the inn to find that his man had already altered the accommodations by putting him in a room best suited for an unmarried man travelling alone while the rooms he had occupied with his wife were given over to Lord and Lady Courtenay.
The first night was the worst. Darcy lay in his bed torturing himself by wondering whether Courtenay was even then exercising his rights as a husband with Elizabeth.
He cursed himself for having been so foolish as to end his own relations with her.
He should have lain with her every hour of every day, and any consequence be damned.
The past days had taught him that he could not bear to sleep without her, and this night only heightened the effect.
He missed the sound of her breathing and the feel of her feet, always cold, burrowing beneath his legs.
He longed to wake to the caress of a strand of her hair across his face, her scent in his nose.
Darcy supposed he must be in some sort of shocked state for he was entirely unable to cry or rage or do anything at all but move sluggishly about his routine, succumbing to his valet’s hands to complete his morning ablutions.
He stared into the mirror after he had been shaved, seeing nothing but the hollows of his pale face and the dark emptiness in his eyes.
How stupid that he had never imagined what must follow if Henry was found alive.
Was there nothing more to do, no ceremony, no rite or ritual involved in the loss of a beloved wife to another?
Elizabeth was transferred to Henry as any piece of property might be.
She was correct in calling herself Netherfield Park, for it was just that easy: one minute, Darcy’s; and the next, sole property of Lord Courtenay.
A breakfast spread had been made in a private sitting room of the inn, and Darcy went to it, not knowing whether he could bear seeing Courtenay and Elizabeth together.
In his mind’s eye, she would be laughing and happy, filled with delight after a night of loving reunion, though the more rational being in him knew it could not be this way for her.
For her, as for him, there was devastation.
No matter the misery associated with seeing her on the arm of another man, he could not deny it.
He considered returning home by post or hiring a private chaise—but he could not.
He was not yet ready to surrender; he needed the pain of this defeat.
She belonged to another man, not to him, and there was nothing for it but heartrending acceptance.
Lord Courtenay sat at his breakfast, still wearing his labourer’s raiment. Darcy took a seat at the table across from him.
“Sir, I cannot think your apparel is to your liking. May I loan you some clothing until we have returned to London?”
Courtenay’s smile appeared forced as he shrugged. “It does not bother me, and the clothing of a labourer is far more easy than a gentleman’s apparel. It will do until we are home.”
Darcy nodded.
For a few moments, the only sound was that of forks hitting plates and cups clattering on saucers.
Darcy broke the silence. “May I say something?”
“Yes, of course.”
Darcy dismissed the footman who attended them, bidding him to close the door. Darcy put his fork down and leant back in his seat, inhaling deeply. Speaking quietly, he said, “If you divorce her, I shall marry her in a trice. She will not suffer in shame.”
“You would marry a woman so disgraced?” Courtenay raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“My name is important to me, as is my heritage, but neither of them can have any claim on my heart as she does. She is the most important thing in the world to me, and I would have her at any cost.”
A sad expression crossed his lordship’s face. “You love her. This was not, for you, about her fortune.”
“I love her with all my heart and soul and with every fibre of my being. Her fortune is nothing to me; take every farthing of it back. I loved her when I knew her as nothing more than Miss Elizabeth Bennet, a girl of little consequence from an entailed country estate. I am not in need of money; it is my heart that I truly want.”
Courtenay was silent, absently playing with his fork.
His eyes were trained on the cloth covering the table, and his mouth was turned down.
“You love her, so you will understand me when I say this to you.
Three years—three long years—I have been without her.
I despaired of seeing her again. I longed for her, and I dreamt of her.
There were nights when the hope that I might one day see her again was all that kept me from ending my life.
“I have never felt such pity and remorse for a man as I do you. I have lived this heartbreak and would wish it on no one. As you do, I too love her. I have waited to be with her for three exceedingly long, horrible years.” He gave Darcy a compassionate, pitying look. “I am so very sorry.”
Darcy released a breath of anguish, closing his eyes for a moment as he gained his composure. With a hard, painful swallow, he said roughly, “Please be certain to make her happy. I beseech you to adore her. You have reclaimed your treasure—cherish it every day.”
“I shall,” Courtenay agreed softly. “You have my word.”