Epilogue
“Gaol,” said Darcy in disbelief.
“Gaol,” his cousin Fitzwilliam confirmed. “Fleet Street.”
“And Lydia Bennet?”
Fitzwilliam snorted as he poured himself a glass of Darcy’s best port. “Newcastle.”
“Newcastle,” Darcy repeated stupidly.
“Newcastle.” Raising his glass to his lips, Fitzwilliam swallowed a mouthful of port and settled himself on a tufted leather chair before the fire. “And she is a Miss Bennet no longer. She is Mrs Benedict. She married Herbert Benedict in the autumn of 1812.”
“Well,” Darcy muttered, rubbing his forehead with his hand, “at least she is respectable.”
“If you say so,” said his cousin, rolling his eyes.
Darcy blinked at him. “What do you mean, ‘if you say so’? She is married, is she not?”
“To a smuggler, Darcy! Your sister-in-law is the wife of a smuggler. A very successful one, as far as I can tell. He has likely supplied every town from Guildford to Gateshead with French brandy, tea, tobacco, wine, and silk for years.”
“Bloody hell. How the devil did that happen?”
Fitzwilliam shook his head. “According to Mrs Benedict, she lived with Wickham in an absolute hell-hole in London for a fortnight, until she realised that the blackguard was as likely to marry her as pigs were to fly. In the meantime, he left her alone every night while he spent what scant amount of pin money she had in her purse on ale and gaming hells, and possibly a courtesan.”
Darcy muttered an expletive.
“One night his luck changed, and the bastard won four thousand pounds. Not only did Mrs Benedict steal the lot of it, but she knocked him witless with a spindle from a broken chair, tied him to the bed with his own braces, and hired a hack chaise to take her back to Brighton!” Fitzwilliam grinned. “The rest is history.”
“Hardly. If Mrs Benedict was headed for Brighton, how in the world did she end up in Newcastle?”
“Apparently, the hack driver was a handsome buck who wore the finest coat she had ever seen. She told him all about her misadventure—sans the bit about having a fortune in her valise—and ended by informing him that she hoped to find a husband in Brighton. He asked her if she had ever been to Newcastle. She had not, so off to Newcastle she went, happy as a clam without a care in the world.” His cousin smirked at him.
“Care to hazard a guess as to who the driver was?”
Darcy ran his hand over his face as he sank onto the nearest chair. “Good God. It is a miracle she did not end up dead ten times over.”
“She is a spitfire, that one. I would wager she could hold her own in Gentleman Jackson’s.”
“What in the world am I to tell Elizabeth?”
His cousin stared at him as though he were daft. “Everything I just told you, of course.”
“I cannot tell my wife that her youngest sister is married to a smuggler!”
Fitzwilliam shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? She will likely find out someday.”
“How?” Darcy demanded.
“Well,” said Fitzwilliam, swirling the port in his glass, “Mrs Benedict asked about her family. She had no idea about her father’s death, or her mother’s condition.
Both caused her distress, but her distress was of a remarkably short duration.
By the bye, she wrote a letter to her mother and to each of her sisters upon her marriage.
All were returned to her, resealed with black wax bearing a coat of arms she did not recognise.
” Frowning, he shook his head. “She believed her family had cast her off, but Collins had inherited Longbourn by then. I would wager he intercepted Mrs Benedict’s letters, read them, and sent them straight back to Newcastle.
” Setting his glass aside, he reached into his coat pocket, produced a packet of letters, and handed them to Darcy.
“She bound them with a bow,” Darcy muttered incredulously, feeling a headache coming on as he glared at what appeared to be half a dozen letters or so, secured with a wide, elaborate length of satin ribbon the colour of claret.
He was torn between tearing them open to see what Mrs Benedict had to say for herself and quitting Derbyshire post-haste so that he could beat Collins to a bloody pulp.
“It is Parisian,” Fitzwilliam informed him, “and there is more where that came from. Lots more. She is exceedingly happy in Newcastle.”
Darcy made a noise of disgust. “For Elizabeth’s sake, I am glad that Mrs Benedict is hale and whole, not to mention married, but none of this,” he said irritably, indicating the ribbon-bound packet of letters in his hand, “changes the fact that she put her family through hell. They lost their home. They lost their father. Mrs Bennet is irreparably altered. Everything they knew and loved changed for the worse the day their sister eloped with that reprehensible libertine. They feared Mrs Benedict had died. Did the woman say nothing to you of her concern for her sisters? Has she expressed any remorse for what her actions have cost them?”
“I hate to say this, but I doubt Mrs Benedict has thought overmuch about anyone but herself for the past two years. Regarding her sisters, she had much to say about how much ‘fun’ it would be to ‘see them all again’.” Fitzwilliam scrutinised his port, his lips little more than a thin, hard line.
“She seemed absolutely flummoxed that your wife would ever think to marry you, never mind actually go ahead and do it.”
“So, she is not penitent, then,” said Darcy, his expression dark as he tossed the infernal letters onto the table beside his chair.
“But very much alive,” said his cousin.
“Yet the life she leads is by no means respectable.”
“Not by a long shot,” Fitzwilliam agreed, and proceeded to drain his glass.
…had you not gone and married Mr Darcy, of all people, I would have had you come and stay with me, for there is no better place in the world to get a husband than Newcastle.
My dear Herbert is the handsomest man alive, richer than Prinny, and ever so clever.
What is more, he thinks that I am clever, too.
And so I am, exceptionally so, for I have managed to marry long before any of you have, even Jane!
Elizabeth rolled her eyes heavenward at this pronouncement.
By the bye, I cannot believe Jane married a shopkeeper, even if he does sell the finest lace in London—what a lark!
Whatever the quality of his wares, I am certain my husband can supply him with better, for he has endless connexions abroad.
I have never been to Paris, but Herbert has gone there ever so many times.
He is forever spoiling me with all sorts of lovely, expensive things, which will no doubt make Kitty wild with envy once she sees how many gowns I have, and how very well I look in all of them…
“God in Heaven,” Elizabeth muttered, scanning the remainder of her letter with an increasingly grim countenance. “She is absolutely unrepentant. Stupid, selfish, empty-headed…!”
When Darcy had sat her down to explain what had become of her youngest sister, they had been sitting on the snug, tufted-velvet sofa in Elizabeth’s bedchamber.
As the saga unfolded, however, she had leapt to her feet and proceeded to pace from one side of the room to the other.
The letters Mrs Benedict had written to her only served to agitate her all the more.
Presently, Elizabeth was standing in the centre of the room, clutching her sister’s letters in one hand and a dainty little crystal glass containing a miniscule amount of sherry in the other.
The glass had been full when Darcy had begun his tale.
“I am sorry, Elizabeth,” he told her, endeavouring to keep his own agitation in check.
And indeed, he was sorry—sorry he had not told every inhabitant of Hertfordshire that Wickham was an unconscionable blackguard that could not be trusted as far as he could be thrown; sorry he had not skewered the reprobate on the end of a rapier in Ramsgate, when he had tried to abscond with Georgiana and her thirty thousand pounds.
Sorry that Elizabeth’s sister was such an appalling, insensitive and selfish individual, even after her misadventure in Brighton.
“She is alive,” she told him with a rueful intimation of a smile. “I suppose that is all that truly matters.”
“Indeed,” he replied, rubbing his brow as he wondered how in the world he would ever explain the presence of a smuggler at Pemberley should Mr and Mrs Benedict ever decide to make the journey hither.
Elizabeth expelled a humourless laugh. “I could throttle her,” she said, tossing her letters onto a veneered table and plunking herself beside Darcy on the sofa, where she promptly drained her glass of sherry.
“And my odious cousin as well. They are both beyond the pale. While we have been worried sick about Lydia—and even feared she was dead!—she has been married all this time to a man with an unscrupulous and illegal profession and enjoying the spoils from his deception! Insufferable!”
“As you said, my darling, she is alive, and that is what matters most of all. As for Mr Collins, he can go to the devil.”
Shutting her eyes, Elizabeth laid her head upon his shoulder. “At least Lydia is happy,” she said, albeit grudgingly.
“And rich, apparently,” Darcy muttered, enfolding her in his arms. “According to Fitzwilliam, she has more fine carriages and jewels than the Queen.”
“She is exceedingly happy, then,” said Elizabeth acerbically, pressing her face into his neck, which, due to the lateness of the hour, was without a cravat. “Lydia has always wanted to be in the thick of things—balls, parties, seaside holidays. Handsome, but worthless men.”
“If it is any consolation,” said Darcy, toying with a curl that escaped its pins, “Fitzwilliam has met Mr Benedict and assures me that he appears to adore your sister beyond reason.”
“But for how long?” she exclaimed, sitting up abruptly and discarding the little sherry glass upon the table that held her letters. “He is a smuggler. He could tire of her tomorrow and then where will she be?”
Darcy snorted. “They have been married for nearly three years. If he has not tired of her by now, I daresay they will do well enough together.” He reached for her then, and Elizabeth returned to him.
He proceeded to caress her back, from shoulder to hip, hoping his ministrations would soothe her, enough so that she would soon forget all about Mrs Benedict and her thoughtless, unrepentant letters.
Elizabeth’s fingers toyed with the buttons on his shirt as she remained within his embrace, her head upon his shoulder as he continued to stroke her back. For a long while, the only sound in the room was the crackling and popping of the fire. Eventually, she said,
“I have always imagined that Lydia’s life, should she even be alive, would not be an easy one.
While I am more grateful than I can say that she is well, I cannot help but feel resentful, even angry.
My life, and the lives of Jane, Mary, and Kitty, were altered beyond comprehension because of her folly.
My father died in pursuit of her. My poor mother’s mind is addled beyond repair.
And all Lydia has to say for herself is how clever she is for catching a rich husband, how happy she is in Newcastle, and how well she looks in her expensive Parisian gowns. ”
“She is self-centred, to be sure,” Darcy agreed.
“Years have passed,” Elizabeth continued, her frustration apparent in her voice, “and yet Lydia remains the same Lydia that she was at fifteen—careless, insensitive, and selfish. Wanting to be the one to lead the way in all things. Even now, she speaks of Kitty’s envy.
I can only imagine what she has put in her letters. ”
“I am certain we shall learn of it soon enough,” Darcy told her drily.
“However, while Mrs Benedict appears, for all intents and purposes, unaltered, you and I both know that appearances can be deceiving. At the moment, your sister is eager to speak of the parts of her life that bring her joy, but perhaps there are some portions of her conduct that she regrets. Your father’s death, for example, and your mother’s condition. Would she speak of those as easily?”
“I doubt she would speak so much as one word in reference to either,” Elizabeth replied sullenly, “not when she is so delighted with herself for securing a rich husband. She has been fortunate at every turn.”
“Your sister has been extremely fortunate,” said Darcy.
“She is married to a man who, although he has an…unconventional profession, adores her. He treats her well. She is happy, not to mention wealthy. I daresay your mother, were she the same, vigorous woman that she once was, would be pleased enough.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“There is nothing we can do about the past, my darling. We can only be thankful that things have turned out as well as they have, not only for your sister, but for all your sisters, and for us.”
Elizabeth exhaled heavily, her breath warm upon his chest. “I cannot imagine,” she told him softly, “that I would ever have learnt the truth of Lydia’s fate without your assistance. Thank you,” she murmured, pressing a tender kiss to his jaw. “Thank you for caring enough about me to find her.”
“You ought to thank Fitzwilliam,” said Darcy. “It was he who found Mrs Benedict, not I.”
“Hush,” she told him. “I can hardly thank your cousin in the same manner. It would be awkward for more than just myself.”
“To say the least,” Darcy murmured with a smile.
More kisses followed the first, each one unhurried.
Lingering.
Divine.
The kind of kisses that never failed to warm his blood. “Elizabeth,” he murmured, letting his head fall against the back of the sofa as he surrendered utterly to her ministrations.
“Fitzwilliam,” she whispered against his neck. “Do you think it is possible that Mr Herbert Benedict, Smuggler, adores his wife as much as you adore me?”
Enfolding her fully in his embrace, Darcy slid his hands into her hair, gently dislodging pins until her curls fell like a curtain around them. “Impossible. No man alive will ever adore his wife more than I adore you.” He kissed her then—her jaw, her neck, her mouth.
“Good,” she whispered against his lips, smiling fully as she did so, and kissed him until they both lost all sense of everything but each other.