24. The Concealed Conclusion #2
She had composed gentle speeches that morning—words of understanding for his grief, acceptance of his devotion to Lady Amelia’s memory, assurances that she would not judge him for loving a woman who had chosen another.
Yet those sentiments rang hollow now. The cracks in her theory had widened, and she was no longer certain what, precisely, she was prepared to forgive.
“You examined the registry,” he stated finally, his voice flat and devoid of any inflection.
“Yes.”
“And what did you conclude?”
Elizabeth hesitated. An hour ago, she would have told him everything. Would have offered her theory about bribing Wickham, her understanding of his noble sacrifice, and her willingness to accept that he had loved another woman before her.
But doubt had taken root, and Elizabeth Bennet was not in the habit of offering conclusions in which she no longer believed.
She fixed her gaze upon his back. “A parish registry is a poor supplier of answers to questions that, if I am to understand them, must be answered by the one who knows the truth.”
Darcy turned, his face pale and eyes stricken. “I cannot—”
“Forgive me, I should not have ventured.” She did not release his gaze, even though those eyes spoke to her heart.
“I can only conclude the business involves the Apethorpes, who have been questioning the registry signatures. Mrs. Duntze hinted as much, so I need to know. What did the Viscount want? I assume he did not ride all the way from London to discuss the vagaries of the weather.”
“No.” Darcy’s hand went to his cravat, loosening it further. She had never seen him display this level of nervousness. “He came to discuss Thomas.”
“And?”
“We reached an understanding.” He turned to the window again, averting his gaze. His shoulders were rigid beneath his coat, his reflection in the glass pale and drawn. “The Apethorpes will support my claim to Thomas. They only wish to assure him a future place in society.”
“Are they asking for your name to replace Wickham’s, the surname I found in the registry?
” She scrutinized his reflection. “I find it rather strange, Fitzwilliam, that you never told me Thomas’s full name.
I arrived believing he was Thomas Darcy, that George was a Darcy, not a Wickham, as Prue informed me, and the registry entry confirmed it. Thomas William Wickham, was it not?”
Darcy’s lips pressed together, his features wincing. He said nothing, so she made the leap for him.
“I find it curious that they would compel you to make Thomas your heir over your own natural-born sons, not that I have had the pleasure of such a prospect. A strange distinction, shall we say?” She took a step close enough to feel the heat through his coat, to touch him should she choose, her voice dropping.
“Almost as peculiar as the note you sent me this morning—that you had not yet earned…”
His reflection flinched, stricken as she hit her mark, and her heart sank at the implications.
“Or the locked cabinet in this very room.” She gestured at the imposing piece. “The one you guard as though it contained state secrets.”
“Elizabeth, please—” he began, turning slightly toward her, but she pressed on, her voice gaining strength despite her efforts to keep it level and controlled.
“You promised me honesty. You said you loved me, that you would earn the right to claim me. Yet you keep secrets, send notes by servants when you might have come through the connecting door. And when I attempt to understand the family I have married into, you ride to Kympton as if pursued by the hounds of hell.”
She was close enough to taste his fear, and so, closing her eyes, she leaned her face against his back, felt his hands clench at his sides, sensed his erratic heartbeat, and heard the desperate working of his throat as he searched for words that would not come.
“What are you so afraid I will discover?”
“Nothing.”
Oh, he was stubborn, and he would wait her out, hope she would relent, but he did not know her well enough.
She tapped his back. He did not turn, did not even flinch, simply stood at the window, staring at the grounds he had inherited, the legacy he was protecting, burdened with secrets he could not bring himself to share.
Very well. If he would not volunteer, she would excavate. She pushed away, watching his reflection in the window.
“You loved her. Lady Amelia. She held a special place in your affections. Did you truly believe another woman would not see this? And so, you hid it from me and spun up an improbable love story—that you would court me and secure my affections, when all the while you were grieving her.”
“That is not—”
Elizabeth held out her hand. “You did not want me to discover this obsession, because you were ashamed. The lady chose your brother—favoring charm over steadiness, recklessness over honor. And so you pledged yourself as a friend, though you have little patience for her literary salons and opinions on Wollstonecraft. She was vibrant, outspoken, revolutionary in her convictions, and utterly indifferent to the censure of a society she considered beneath her notice—and yet, that indifference drew you in ways you cannot even explain.”
“Elizabeth, you are mistaken…” Darcy began.
“No, let me finish, because you ask me what I concluded after examining the registry, and I shall tell you every last bit. I can see you standing there, brooding in high dudgeon as your brother signed for the son you wished to be yours. But she chose him, and you stood aside, watching her cavort with your brother, dismissing your attentions as though they were of no consequence, and when she met her Maker, you stepped in to protect her son, the only innocent party in all of this. You have been grieving her since before I arrived at Pemberley, and you married me because Thomas needed a mother and I was desperate enough to accept a marriage of convenience.”
Darcy turned. His eyes—those eyes, dark and liquid and holding more pain than she had ever seen in them—met hers.
“That is not true. Not all of it.”
“I had accepted it.” She spoke over him, her voice rising, her eyes swelling with fury, not tears. “I knew what this marriage was based on. I was not your ideal choice; I was convenient rather than desired. I had made my peace with it.”
“Elizabeth—” the voice was raw, strangled, but she forged on.
“And then you read me sonnets by firelight.” The words came faster now, sharper, yet crumbling.
“You fed me sweets with your fingers, and you told me you loved me. You kissed me like you meant it, that you needed me to know that whatever else—whatever else—you loved me. And then you could not cross the threshold of my bedchamber.”
His face had gone white, and she saw the rapid pulse at his throat, the sheen of perspiration at his temples, and the way his hands trembled with the effort of remaining still.
“I thought I understood.” She laughed, though there was no humor in it. “I pitied you, Fitzwilliam. I was prepared to comfort you for being—what is the phrase?—admired but not chosen. Devoted but unrewarded.”
“You do not understand—”
“Then explain it to me.” She tipped up on her toes, chin lifted.
“Explain the reason you keep her manuscripts locked away and why you would rather lose me than risk whatever arrangements you made with your brother to protect her memory. Explain why you rode to Kympton looking like a man facing execution.”
Darcy’s breath came shallow. His eyes searched her face, desperate, anguished, holding something that looked like surrender.
“I cannot—”
“You can.” She held his gaze. “You simply do not wish to.”
The silence stretched between them. Elizabeth could hear her own heartbeat, loud in the stillness. Could see the war playing out behind his eyes—the desire to speak, the terror of speaking, the knowledge that whatever he said next would change everything.
“Tell me I am wrong.” Her voice dropped to barely a whisper.
“Tell me that when you said you loved me, you meant it. That I was chosen because you could not stop thinking of me, because you saw something in me that no other woman possessed. Tell me that I am not the victim of my own conceit, vain enough to believe your declarations.”
“You are not vain.” His voice cracked. “Elizabeth, I do love you. I have loved you since Hertfordshire, since before Amelia died, since before any of this—”
“Then why?” The word tore out of her. “Why the secrets? The locked cabinet? Why could you declare your love but not consummate our marriage?”
Darcy closed his eyes, and when he opened them, something had shattered within him—the last barrier, without defense. Broken.
“Because Thomas is my son.”
The gasp she heard was too stricken to come from her throat. Her hand flew to her heart, as the ground swayed beneath her feet, as every conclusion she had drawn—every theory, every comfort, every carefully constructed understanding—collapsed into rubble.
“Your son.” Her voice came from very far away. “Not Wickham’s.”
“Mine.” He could not look at her. “Amelia and I—we were together. She had accepted my proposal, then reneged the very next morning. Thomas is the result.”
The room reeled beneath her feet; the familiar library, with its leather-bound volumes and mahogany furnishings, became suddenly foreign, as if she had wandered into a stranger’s house and discovered the stranger was herself—a woman who had believed she understood her marriage, her husband, her place, and now found every certainty built on sand.
“You lied to me.” The words emerged flat, almost calm, although her heart splintered inside her, along with the assumptions that had held her steady through the bewildering weeks of this marriage, through the locked doors and cryptic notes and declarations of love that never quite translated into action.
“I omitted—”