Chapter 31
By the next morning, Elizabeth was too restless to remain with Georgiana while the gentlemen bent over the papers below.
Georgiana was better. Not well, not at peace, but better.
She had slept through most of the night, and though she woke pale and quiet, she did not tremble when Mr. Wickham’s name was mentioned.
Mrs. Hurst had come to sit with her after breakfast, bringing both her workbag and a surprisingly firm assurance that no gentleman, villain, or solicitor would be permitted to drag Miss Darcy anywhere while she had breath in her body.
Georgiana had smiled faintly at that, and Elizabeth had taken it as permission to leave her for a little while.
She found the gentlemen in Bingley’s study, where papers covered nearly every available surface.
Darcy stood at the desk with his coat off and his sleeves turned back, comparing one signature to another with a concentration so severe it might have been carved upon him.
Colonel Fitzwilliam occupied the other side of the desk, his own pile of documents before him and a scowl dark enough to alarm any innocent sheet of paper.
Mr. Philips sat near the window, reading through the language of the supposed agreement line by line, making small notes in the margin of a separate page.
Bingley stood by the hearth, looking as though he would be very useful the moment anyone discovered how.
All four men looked up when she entered.
Darcy’s expression changed at once. Fatigue still marked him, and worry had not left his eyes, but the sight of her softened something in him that made Elizabeth’s chest ache.
“Elizabeth,” he said. “Is Georgiana—”
“With Mrs. Hurst. Calm enough for the moment, and determined enough to drink half a cup of chocolate, which I consider a triumph.”
“It is.” Relief passed briefly over his face. “Thank you.”
“I have come to be troublesome.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam leaned back in his chair. “Excellent. We have had no progress at all, and trouble may be an improvement.”
Mr. Philips pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “Lizzy, there are many dry legal phrases here. You may wish you had stayed with the chocolate.”
“I have lived with my sister Mary’s lectures about Fordyce’s opinions on proper behavior for years. I am not easily discouraged by dryness.”
Darcy held out a hand without seeming to think of it. She crossed to him and placed her fingers in his. The touch lasted only a moment, but it steadied her more than she wished to admit. Then he drew one of the documents nearer and explained what they had found.
It was not much.
The London solicitor’s office had provided copies of George Darcy’s will, two codicils, several letters, and papers pertaining to Wickham’s inheritance.
There were signatures enough to compare, though no agreement resembling Wickham’s claim.
There was mention of Mr. Alton in one old letter, proving that George Darcy had, upon occasion, used the Derbyshire solicitor’s services.
That, unfortunately, helped Wickham more than it harmed him.
For ten minutes, Elizabeth listened, read, and tried not to feel as though they were searching for a single dropped pin in a field.
The gentlemen had already compared the slant of the handwriting, the shape of the G, the sweep beneath Darcy, the seal, the paper, the witnesses, and the phrasing.
Mr. Philips had noted that the wording was peculiar in places but not impossible.
Richard muttered that peculiar and impossible were close relations and ought to be treated as such.
Darcy said very little. He read, compared, and read again, each silence making Elizabeth’s heart sink lower.
She took up one of the letters from the London packet, not because she expected to discover anything the gentlemen had missed, but because doing something was better than standing there with dread pressing upon her ribs.
The letter was brief, written by George Darcy to his solicitor regarding Wickham’s Scottish estate.
Elizabeth disliked the hand at once. There was a boldness to it, a careless confidence that seemed to suit the little she knew of the man.
She glanced from that signature to another, then to the supposed marriage agreement.
George Rubert Darcy.
Her eye caught upon the middle name.
She looked back at the letter.
George Rubert Darcy.
Then the will.
George Rubert Darcy.
Then the codicil.
George Rubert Darcy.
Elizabeth frowned.
“Darcy?”
He looked over at once. “Yes?”
“Your father’s middle name. Was it Rupert? With a p?”
Darcy’s brow furrowed. “Rubert. With a b. An old family oddity, I am afraid. My grandparents fancied themselves preserving a spelling from some half-remembered ancestor. It caused endless confusion, I believe, but my father was particular about it.”
Elizabeth looked again at the marriage contract.
“Particular enough to never misspell it?”
“Always,” Darcy said. “Why?”
She turned the paper toward him and placed one finger carefully beneath the signature.
Darcy bent over the page and gave a sharp gasp.
Richard came around the desk, and Mr. Philips stood so quickly his chair scraped against the floor.
On Wickham’s marriage agreement, in a hand very like George Darcy’s, beneath all the vile words that had haunted them for two days, the signature read:
George Rupert Darcy.
Rupert.
Not Rubert.
Darcy stared at it.
Then, quite suddenly, he laughed.
It was not a polite laugh, nor even a happy one at first, but a sound torn from the depths of sleepless fear and desperate hope. He seized the will, then the letter, then the codicil, laying them side by side with the agreement.
“Rubert,” he said. “Rubert. Rubert. Every one of them.”
Richard let out a low whistle. “I will be hanged.”
“Not today,” Mr. Philips said, though his eyes shone with satisfaction. “Not if we can help it.”
Darcy looked at Elizabeth.
For one heartbeat he seemed unable to move. Then he came around the desk, took her by the waist, and lifted her clear off the floor.
“Darcy!” she cried, though she was laughing before the protest had properly formed.
“My brilliant Elizabeth,” he said, turning with her once, twice, in an entirely undignified circle. “My brilliant, magnificent betrothed.”
“Put me down before you injure your dignity.”
“My dignity has been vastly improved.”
“Darcy.”
He set her on her feet, but only barely. His arms remained around her, and his face was bright with such unguarded joy that Elizabeth forgot Mr. Philips, forgot Colonel Fitzwilliam, forgot Bingley laughing near the hearth, and looked only at him.
“You found it,” he said.
“I noticed a letter.”
“You found it.” His voice dropped, rough with feeling. “Elizabeth, you found it.”
Then he kissed her.
It was brief, but not so brief that anyone in the room could mistake it for anything other than what it was.
Elizabeth’s face burned when he released her, though she could not help smiling.
Behind them, Richard made a sound of theatrical suffering.
“Bingley,” he said, “remind me never to be trapped in a study with newly engaged people again. They become excessively sentimental over spelling.”
Bingley grinned. “I thought it very fine spelling.”
Mr. Philips coughed into his hand, though Elizabeth suspected he was hiding a smile. “As touching as this is, Lizzy may wish to breathe, and we may wish to consider how best to use this discovery.”
Darcy released her, though he kept one of her hands in his. “Yes. Of course.” He turned back to the papers, still alight with triumph. “This proves the signature false.”
“It proves a grave inconsistency,” Mr. Philips said carefully.
“A very useful one. Particularly because it concerns a name your father was known to spell in an unusual way. But we must not become careless. Wickham may claim your father signed hastily, or that a clerk wrote the name and he merely marked over it, or any number of evasions.”
“My father would never have misspelled Rubert,” Darcy said.
“Then we shall make him prove otherwise,” Richard replied. “And if he cannot, I shall enjoy watching him attempt it.”
Darcy’s hand tightened around Elizabeth’s. “We confront him tomorrow.”
“Not alone,” Mr. Philips said.
“No. With you, Richard, and Bingley present.”
“And perhaps the magistrate, Sir William Lucas, if he is willing,” Mr. Philips added. “If we can get the dastard to confess, having a man of law as witness will greatly help the matter.”
“He will be,” Elizabeth said quietly.
Darcy looked at her, his joy sobering into gratitude. “Will you remain at Netherfield?”
“I cannot tonight. I need to return to Longbourn. Jane will worry, and my mother will have imagined seven calamities and three weddings by now.”
Bingley’s expression grew hopeful at the mention of Jane, but he restrained himself nobly.
Darcy’s disappointment was clear, though he did not argue. “Of course.”
“But I can come again tomorrow,” Elizabeth said. “For the confrontation, if you will allow it.”
“Allow it?” Richard said. “Miss Elizabeth, if you are the only person in the room capable of defeating Wickham with a single misplaced letter, I vote you preside over the entire affair.”
Darcy looked as if he agreed entirely, though his concern returned. “It may be unpleasant.”
“It has already been unpleasant.”
“He may say things unfit for you to hear.”
Elizabeth lifted her brows. “Then he will only further prove himself unfit to marry Georgiana.”
Richard laughed. “Darcy, marry her quickly. I want her officially in the family before she decides we are not worth the trouble.”
Darcy’s eyes warmed as they rested upon Elizabeth. “I have every intention of doing so.”
The look between them held long enough that Mr. Philips cleared his throat again, this time with more intent.
Elizabeth stepped back, though Darcy’s fingers lingered around hers until the last possible moment.
“I shall go to Georgiana before I leave,” she said. “She should hear the good news gently.”