19. The Toll of Trust
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE TOLL OF TRUST
Darcy could no more remain detached and neutral than a compass needle could ignore true north, as he stood at the window of his study, watching Elizabeth cross the south lawn with Harley at her heels.
The puppy had not yet mastered the art of walking without tripping over his own ears, and Elizabeth kept pausing to untangle him from himself.
Thomas toddled beside her, one hand fisted in her skirt, the other clutching Captain with the fierce protectiveness of a child who had learned that treasured things could vanish without warning.
Darcy had not dared to imagine such a scene when he had first conceived this arrangement.
A wife who laughed. A son who trusted. A dog with more dignity in his expression than sense in his feet.
The domestic contentment of it struck him beneath the breastbone, in that tender place he had spent years fortifying against exactly this sense of vulnerability.
Elizabeth glanced toward the house, perhaps sensing his observation, and lifted her hand in a small wave.
Darcy raised his own in response, feeling absurdly like a schoolboy caught mooning over a pretty girl.
She smiled—that quick, bright smile that transformed her face and undid the knot in his chest every time he witnessed it—and turned back to rescue Harley from his latest entanglement.
I love her.
Yet love, as Darcy had discovered, was a most treacherous business.
To desire a woman in body and soul was to place one’s happiness in her keeping, and he had done so with a recklessness that astonished even himself.
Particularly as he had not, in all his vaunted honesty, entrusted her with the whole truth about Thomas.
After, he told himself. After the marriage is truly sealed. After she has bound herself to me completely. Then I will tell her everything, and she will understand, and it will be too late for her to leave.
The reasoning was not honorable; he knew this with perfect clarity.
Yet he had been honorable once before, had offered Amelia marriage, legitimacy, and the protection of his name, only to have her laugh at his honor and choose her freedom instead.
The thought of giving the same honesty to Elizabeth and witnessing the transformation of her affection into disgust was more than he could bear to contemplate.
Coward, he accused himself, and turned from the window just as Jamison approached with a discreet cough and a letter poised upon a silver salver.
The seal was crimson wax, stamped with a crest he recognized immediately. Apethorpe.
So, Lady Amelia’s family had finally decided on a course of action.
They had not attended her funeral. Her brother, who kept a passing acquaintance with her, had not offered condolences.
And her parents, the Earl and Countess, had never acknowledged Thomas’s existence.
They had made no inquiries about their grandson’s welfare, had washed their hands of their disgraced daughter so thoroughly that even her death did not warrant their attention.
Darcy had been grateful for their silence. He had taken it as permission to proceed with his plans—to claim Thomas, to find a mother for the boy, and to build the family that Amelia’s choices had made impossible.
So, what could they want now?
He broke the seal. The letter was from the Viscount Drake, Amelia’s only brother, Edward.
Mr. Darcy,
I write on behalf of my family regarding certain matters that have come to our attention concerning my late sister’s effects and the present situation of her child.
It has come to our attention that you have assumed guardianship of the boy without a formal legal arrangement.
While we understand that circumstances following my sister’s unfortunate accident required swift action, we must now address the irregularities of this arrangement.
The child is, after all, the grandson of an Earl, and his future cannot be left to informal understandings, however well-intentioned.
Additionally, we have been informed that my sister left papers at Pemberley—correspondence, manuscripts, and other materials that properly belong to her family. We request their immediate return.
Finally, and most significantly, we have been in correspondence with Mr. George Wickham regarding his intentions toward the child. He has proven most amenable to discussion, and we anticipate reaching an understanding shortly.
I propose we meet to discuss these matters in person. I shall be in Derbyshire shortly and will call upon you at Pemberley to resolve this situation to our mutual satisfaction.
Your servant,
Edward Apethorpe
Impossible! Darcy stared at the paragraph concerning Wickham. An express from India took at least four months, closer to six. George had barely had time to reach the Cape of Good Hope, let alone establish correspondence with English solicitors and prove himself “amenable to discussion.”
Unless, of course, George had never gone anywhere at all.
The possibility settled into Darcy’s chest, laced with ice.
Darcy had paid for the commission—had pressed the banknotes into George’s hand with the particular satisfaction of a man finally rid of an infestation.
He had stood on the dock at Portsmouth and watched the ship’s sails shrink against the horizon.
He had received a letter with the markings of the ship, talking about a Colonel who promised George a post like a rajah, with elephants and a house full of servants, and had assured him that officers lived like kings in the Orient.
But George had always been clever about appearances.
Charming, his father had called him. Quick-witted, adaptable, and possessed of a natural ease that Fitzwilliam would do well to study.
His father had never understood that George’s ease was that of a man unburdened by conscience—that his adaptability was merely the skill of a chameleon who changed colors to suit his prey.
A man might board a ship and disembark again before it cleared the harbor.
He might ask a shipmate to send letters filled with invented elephants and imaginary adventures, and return to England while everyone believed him safely distant.
George had taken the money and vanished, but not so far as Darcy had believed.
Now the Apethorpes had discovered him, or he had discovered them. The distinction was academic; the outcome, regrettably, identical.
George was always amenable when money was involved. He would sell his own mother for the price of a good horse, and likely did when agreeing to call Lady Anne, Mamma. He had certainly never shown the slightest interest in Thomas beyond the profitable venture of signing the christening register.
“A fine jest, is it not?” George had said that day, flourishing the pen as visions of endless Darcy gold glimmered behind his eyelids. “George Wickham, father of the Darcy heir that might have been. I shall dine out on this story for years.”
Darcy had wanted to kill him then. Had come closer than he cared to admit to wrapping his hands around his half-brother’s throat and squeezing until the smirk disappeared permanently from that handsome, hateful face.
But he had controlled himself because Amelia had made it impossible for him to claim their son.
“It would destroy you,” she had said, her hand pressed to the swell of her belly, her eyes bright with that fierce independence he had once found so captivating.
“A child born out of wedlock to the master of Pemberley? Your reputation would never recover. Let George claim the child, as he cares nothing for reputation and has none to lose.”
“But I wish to marry you,” he had said. “I have proposed honorably, and I can still marry you, even now,” he repeated, for perhaps the twentieth time. “I could give the child my name legitimately.”
“And I become your property? No, thank you.” She had laughed—actually laughed—as though his proposal were an entertainment rather than an offering of everything he had.
“I will not trade my freedom for your protection, Fitzwilliam. I will not become Mrs. Darcy of Pemberley, bound by your name and your expectations and your infernal propriety. Let me have my scandal and keep my independence. Let George sign and disappear to wherever he disappears to, and let you and me remember what we had without the cage of marriage to corrupt it.”
She had been magnificent in her refusal—magnificent, maddening, and, in every particular, heartbreakingly mistaken.
Now she was dead, and George held the legal claim to their son, and Darcy had built his entire defense on the assumption that George would stay bought by the very least, half-brotherly interest. What he hadn’t counted on was a higher bidder.
Darcy did not know how long he stood there, the letter crumpling in his fist, before a knock at the door recalled him to the present.
“Enter.”
Elizabeth appeared in the doorway, cheeks bright from her walk and trailing the scent of grass and spring. Harley, it seemed, had remained with Thomas, though her skirts bore the unmistakable signature of the puppy’s muddy devotion.
“I hope I am not interrupting,” she said. “Only Thomas wished me to inform you that Harley has learned to sit on command. He demonstrated this skill precisely once before forgetting it entirely, and Thomas considers this a significant triumph.”
Darcy found his features arranging themselves into something resembling a smile, though it sat oddly upon the turmoil beneath. “A triumph indeed. We may yet make a sporting dog of him.”
“I suspect he is destined for a lap, whatever our ambitions.” Elizabeth’s gaze sharpened, noting details Darcy had not realized he betrayed. “Is something amiss? You look rather pale.”
“Estate business.” The falsehood slipped out with disconcerting ease. “Nothing to trouble you.”