Chapter 10 #3
Three days. She’d listened to the servants’ footsteps passing, their careful deafness. Heard his carriage leave that first evening, no doubt returning to her, to the woman who could give him what she couldn’t. She’d stopped pleading after the second day.
But it was the third night that haunted her most. She’d woken to find him standing over her bed in the darkness, perfectly still. Just watching. When she’d gasped, he’d smiled coldly.
“I was deciding,” he’d said quietly, “whether you are worth keeping.”
The next morning he’d been himself again, solicitous, apologetic. He’d brought her tea in bed, kissed her forehead. Said he hadn’t slept well, hadn’t meant it. But she’d seen the calculation in his eyes.
A bird called overhead, startling her back to the present. Her throat felt tight. Behind her, Pemberley rose solid against the sky. Another legacy. Another man with keys to every door.
She had long envisioned a different future, one where she would settle in France, become a qualified apothecary, surrounded by herbs and tinctures, free to explore her passions without the constraints of a husband’s expectations.
She followed the sound of rustling leaves until she saw Mrs Reynolds bent over the vegetable beds, sleeves rolled to her elbows, grumbling at a beetroot. The ordinary sight loosened something in her chest. Elizabeth managed a small laugh as she stepped into the garden.
“You should not be out here on your own yet! You are still recovering from that dreadful influenza.”
Mrs Reynolds waved her off playfully, brushing dirt from her hands.
“Nonsense! Fresh air does wonders, and these vegetables won’t tend to themselves. You should know that by now, having been cooped up at Pemberley for so long!”
Elizabeth shook her head, a smile playing on her lips as she knelt beside her. “You are incorrigible! I see you are already back to your old self, scolding me for worrying.”
“Someone has to keep you in line, my dear. What would Mr Darcy say if he knew you were fretting over an old woman instead of enjoying his hospitality?”
This brought a flicker of discomfort, her tone turning serious.
“I am not here to discuss Mr Darcy, Mrs Reynolds. I came to see how you are feeling.”
“Better, much better, thanks to you,” Mrs Reynolds said warmly.
“Though I must admit, I miss the company of the little ones. The Grenville boys and Fitzwilliam girls are a handful, but they fill the house with laughter. I saw them yesterday! They’ve taken to running about like wildlings, much to Mr Darcy’s chagrin. ”
Elizabeth smiled, remembering the children racing around the estate, their laughter echoing through the hallways.
“They are quite a lively bunch,” she said and her heart ached at the thought of how different her life could have been if only…
“perhaps the most fragile of ornaments should be hidden away before their arrival?”
“Ah, what a fine mistress of Pemberley you’d make!” Mrs Reynolds said with a teasing glint in her eye.
Elizabeth laughed, the sound lightening her heart, even if just a little. “I would rather be its housekeeper! At least then, if the master proves insufferable, I could leave without losing my reputation.”
* * *
Sunlight painted the mahogany a polite gold; Darcy sat at the head of the table, spine rigid, tea cooling at his elbow.
Brigadier Fitzwilliam lounged to his left, carving ham with the gusto of a man who believed breakfast a competitive sport.
Opposite them Viscount Grenville’s posture was perfection itself, chin high, cuffs immaculate, though two fingers tapped an impatient tattoo on his chair arm.
Fitzwilliam broke the hush with a grin built for trouble. “Darcy, you were… surprisingly animated last night. Twice around the floor with Mrs Morley? People will start to talk.”
Darcy lifted his cup a measured inch. “Let them.”
“Bold.” Fitzwilliam’s brows rose. “Civil, certainly. Though the lady in question seemed to inspire more than mere courtesy.”
Grenville’s tap-tap paused. “Richard, a gentleman’s motives are his own.” A cool glance at Darcy. “Yet motive is not all that matters.”
Darcy’s gaze sharpened. “Speak plainly, Grenville.”
“With pleasure.” Grenville placed his napkin with surgical precision. “Mrs Morley is a widow engaged in trade. However accomplished, she remains, how shall I put it, outside the circle expected for the master of Pemberley.”
Fitzwilliam’s fork hovered, wicked amusement dimming to wary interest. “And what circle is that, exactly?” he drawled.
“The one that safeguards the Darcy name,” Grenville replied, voice silk over steel. “Your fortune, Georgiana’s children, the regard of half the county, they are not trifles to hazard for… infatuation.”
A brittle silence settled. Darcy set down his cup. Soft click, hard knuckles.
“You presume much if you call it infatuation.”
Grenville inclined his head the barest degree. “Then call it what you will. Yet even deep affection does not erase birth or occupation. Respectability is not a sentiment, my dear Darcy; it is a currency. Spend it carelessly, and the whole household pays.”
Fitzwilliam cleared his throat, half-teasing, half-warning. “Some households have survived worse investments.”
Grenville ignored him. “The ton will not marvel at your romance; it will dissect it. Georgiana’s position, your future heirs, every door you open for Mrs Morley may close two others.”
“If the doors shut, they were never worth passing through. I will not measure a woman’s worth by the gossip she provokes.”
Grenville’s brows climbed. “A noble sentiment, easier uttered by men than endured by women. Will she relish being weighed and found wanting at every turn?”
Darcy’s jaw tightened. “She has faced harsher trials than whispered slights.” His fingers curled around his cup, the porcelain cool beneath his touch.
He did not need Grenville’s reminders; he had considered every slight, every whispered condemnation, every burden she might bear.
But selfishly, he could not imagine a future without her.
Fitzwilliam ventured a softer note. “Still, the whispers will come. Are you prepared to see Pemberley’s drawing-room turned into an amphitheatre?”
Darcy answered without looking away from Grenville.
“I am prepared to stand beside her while the audience howls, or walk away from any audience that will not be silent.”
“A gentleman might offer discretion,” Grenville persisted, a flush creeping up his neck. “Provide for her without the… entanglement.”
Darcy’s palm came down on the oak, soft but final. “If I cannot stand beside her before the world, I will not stand beside her at all.” His gaze fixed Grenville. “And I am astonished, sir, that the husband of my beloved sister would propose anything so dishonourable.”
The breakfast room fell still; even Fitzwilliam’s fork paused mid-air. Grenville’s colour deepened, but he managed a stiff inclination of the head. Grenville’s tapping resumed, slower now, as if beating time to a new, unwelcome tune.
“Very well. But remember: a viscount can endure a season’s snub; the master of Pemberley must outlast generations of them.”
“That,” Darcy said, “is precisely why I shall choose my companion for her character, not her pedigree. Future generations deserve that example.”
Fitzwilliam raised his cup in acknowledgment. “To future generations, then. May they inherit your spine, Cousin.”
Grenville’s lips thinned, but he lifted his own cup fractionally. “And may they inherit prudence.” Darcy allowed himself a ghost of a smile, half challenge, half promise.
Movement beyond the window caught his eye, a familiar figure in a pale dress was making her way along the eastern path. His pulse quickened. Outside, sunlight warmed the mist-drenched fields; inside, the steam above his abandoned tea finally died away.
* * *
The gatehouse door closed behind them with a soft click. Elizabeth moved to the window, watching the late afternoon light filter through the trees while Darcy remained near the doorway, his posture tense.
”You wanted to speak with me,” he said, breaking the silence first.
Elizabeth turned to face him, her expression carefully composed. “Yes. About your offer to court me.”
Hope flickered briefly across his face before he mastered it. “And?”
”I cannot accept it,” she said quietly.
Darcy’s jaw tightened. He took a step forward, then seemed to think better of it. “May I ask why?”
”Because courtship implies an outcome. Marriage.” She met his gaze directly. “And I will not marry again, Mr Darcy.”
”Not ever?” His voice was carefully controlled. “Or not me?”
”Not anyone.” Her hands clasped together, knuckles whitening.
“I told you before: I have a different path planned. Work I wish to pursue. A life I have carefully arranged.”
Darcy was silent for a moment, weighing her words. Then: “And this past week? Did it mean naught to you?”
The directness of the question brought colour to her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. “It meant a great deal. More than I anticipated.”
”Then how can you stand there and speak as if it is finished?”
”I did not say it had to be.” The words came out softer than she intended.
Darcy stared at her, confusion replacing the hurt in his eyes. “I do not understand.”
Elizabeth took a breath, steadying herself. “What we have shared has been… meaningful to me. I would not be opposed to continuing our… liaison. But I cannot in good conscience promise anything more than that.”
Understanding dawned slowly on his face, followed by disbelief. “You would have us continue as lovers, but nothing more?”
”Yes.”
He ran a hand through his hair, incredulous. “And how exactly would you imagine this arrangement working? Secret meetings here whenever you are passing by Pemberley? Stolen moments when we are in London?”
“I could lease a cottage,” Elizabeth said, her tone infuriatingly composed. “Something small and tidy. Close to London. We could arrange times discreetly. No one needs to know.”