19. The Toll of Trust #3
“Then renew his attention with coin,” Blythewood said, picking up his hat.
“He is your brother. If he comes to me, I would advise him not to deal with the Apethorpes. Once they have Thomas, they can set his claims aside, and he would gain nothing. However, with you, with family, he would always hold that informal document over your head. As uncomfortable as it is, you, Mr. Darcy, are the guarantor that your dear brother will side with you. Do send him my way, if you can.”
“Thank you, Blythewood. You have given me much to consider.”
Blythewood bowed and promised to return should Edward Apethorpe appear.
He departed quietly, and Darcy wandered to the grand library to contemplate the boxes of manuscripts he had secreted in a locked cabinet with his father’s cherished first editions.
He had not stood there more than a quarter of an hour when the door opened, and a flutter of female voices sent a chill along his spine.
He recognized Elizabeth’s laugh first—that warm, unguarded sound that unfurled a complicated sensation to his loins—and then Prue Duntze’s lighter tones, and Georgiana’s enthusiastic chatter threading between them.
A gentleman should make his presence known, and social convention required that he greet guests rather than lurk behind bookshelves like a Gothic villain.
But he was not in the mood for pleasantries, and perhaps they would find a novel and depart without discovering him.
So he withdrew further behind a shelf burgeoning with classics.
“This collection must be the grandest one in all of England.” Prue sighed, her gaze traveling across the shelves. “I had heard Pemberley’s library was impressive, but I confess the reality exceeds the rumor. Why, there must be at least thirty thousand volumes.”
“My father was a great collector,” Georgiana said. “And Fitzwilliam has continued the tradition. He says that a library is the soul of a house.”
“A romantic sentiment for a man of business.”
“My brother is more romantic than he permits people to observe.” Georgiana cast a meaningful glance at Elizabeth, who had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “Recent evidence suggests he has hidden depths.”
“Georgiana.” Elizabeth’s tone held warning, but her smile undercut it. “Your brother’s depths are his own concern.”
“His depths are the concern of everyone who observes him mooning about the house like a lovesick—”
“Tell me about the collection, Miss Darcy,” Elizabeth interrupted, clearly seeking safer ground. “Are there particular treasures I should seek?”
Prue drifted to the far wall during this exchange, her attention captured by a section of older volumes housed in crates. She wiped her white gloves across the boxes, as if looking for one that had been recently placed.
“Are these manuscripts, perhaps?” Prue asked, her tone casual. “I had heard that Lady Amelia Apethorpe left papers at Pemberley. I heard that unpublished works might exist.”
Elizabeth went still, her eyes narrowing. “Lady Amelia visited Pemberley?”
“She was a friend of the family,” Georgiana said. “But only when George was away. There was nothing improper.”
Darcy could almost hear Elizabeth thinking, if one calls bringing an illegitimate son into the world nothing improper.
“I see.” Elizabeth’s tone flattened. “And were you acquainted with her?”
“She was quite a bit older, wasn’t she?” Prue seemed to be running interference for his sister. “And you were at those interminable finishing schools.”
“Yes, and they were exceedingly tiresome, teaching embroidery as if threading a needle were the sum total of a young woman’s existence,” Georgiana sniffed. “Fitzwilliam insisted I should thrive with girls my own age, but I found them exceedingly silly and mean-spirited.”
“Quite unlike the vagaries of elder brothers, I suppose,” Prue suggested. “It is a pity you have not met Lady Amelia. My mother was calling on… I am unsure who exactly she called on because there was no Mrs. Darcy, only that she spied Lady Amelia at Pemberley. I do wonder…”
“Perhaps you were mistaken,” Elizabeth suggested. “Mr. Darcy’s relations carry themselves grandly. There is a Lady Catherine and her daughter, Anne, whom she might have met.”
“No, I was sure she was a daughter of an Earl, but Georgiana, dear, where would your brother have stored the manuscripts?”
Georgiana said she did not know, her cheeks flushing. “I could write to George. He told me he was quite a favorite with Lady Amelia, and perhaps she told him her secrets.”
“That, I don’t wonder at all,” Prue said, smirking and casting Elizabeth a meaningful glance that caused Elizabeth’s shoulders to stiffen.
“Perhaps you can inquire with the servants at her residence in Cheapside,” Elizabeth suggested. “Or her London friends. As I recall, she held gatherings there. Literary salons. Perhaps she lent her unfinished work to one of her friends.”
“I have never been to one of her salons,” Prue said. “My father is a rector, you know. But Miss Entwhistle says they were legendary. All the progressive thinkers attended—women who discussed education and independence rather than embroidery patterns.”
“Were there specific essays of hers you wished to study?” Elizabeth’s gaze moved to the locked cabinet he had secured shortly after Amelia’s death, as if she had wondered about their contents.
No other cabinet possessed a lock, and in hindsight, he could have better hidden her works amongst the agricultural tracts.
“Yes, improving essays,” Prue said, darting a guilty look at her surroundings. “Ones designed for young ladies on propriety, being a wife and mother, and her domestic philosophy. Nothing of great literary significance.”
“Then, I suppose it is nothing of interest then,” Elizabeth said, feigning a yawn. “My sister Mary favors Fordyce’s Sermons. I would believe your father possesses the appropriate pastoral guidance you seem to require?”
The silence that followed was uncomfortable enough that Georgiana rushed to fill it with chatter about tea and gardens and whether Harley required a walk. Prue allowed Georgiana to sweep her toward the door, though her eyes lingered on the locked cabinet with an avarice she could not quite conceal.
Elizabeth lingered, then, and with the unerring instinct of a homing pigeon, circled the locked cabinet, slipped between two towering shelves, and came to a halt directly before Darcy’s hiding place.
“You were listening,” she said, when the others had gone.
“I was.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough.”
She studied him, those dark eyes seeing far more than he wished to reveal. “Prue was lying about Lady Amelia’s papers. I could hear it in her voice.”
“Yes.”
“Why would she lie?”
“Miss Duntze has literary ambitions,” he said, resisting the urge to loosen his cravat. “Unpublished manuscripts by a celebrated authoress would be… useful to such ambitions.”
Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. “You do not deny that she wrote novels? Why tell me her papers were merely correspondence and essays?”
“I prefer to keep her personal effects private.”
“Even from your wife?”
Her question sliced between his ribs. She was giving him an opening—a chance to tell her, to explain, to unburden himself of the secrets that were slowly crushing him. Instead, he hardened his resolve. Now was not the time.
“Lady Amelia’s papers are not up for discussion.” He crossed his arms tightly. “I would not have the likes of Prue Duntze comb through them for the scandal sheets.”
“But you do not trust me, do you?”
“I trust your discretion, Elizabeth, but this is not the time for it. If things should change, then, yes, I promise you I would reveal what is required.”
Elizabeth held his gaze, challenging, and he saw the questions there—the suspicions, the hurt, the frustration at being kept outside walls she had thought were falling.
“I will hold you to that promise, Mr. Darcy.” She turned toward the door, then paused. “And I hope, when the moment arrives, that you will trust me as I have trusted you.”