Chapter 20
The door swung open and Malcolm, or Hamish, as she quickly reminded herself, stood upon the threshold.
His travelling coat was still dusted with frost from his ride, his grey-green eyes moving rapidly between the three occupants of the room before settling upon Bingley with an expression Elizabeth had never seen him wear before.
“This is Mr Bingley, our neighbour at Netherfield,” Elizabeth said.
“Mr Bingley? I know you by reputation, of course.” His voice held a dangerous quiet. “I was not aware we expected visitors this morning.”
Bingley rose from his chair near the pianoforte, his jaw set. “Mr MacKinnon. Or should I say Mr McLeod?”
The colour drained from Hamish's face. For a long moment he stood frozen in the doorway, and Elizabeth watched years of careful construction begin to crumble behind his eyes. Then his expression hardened into something cold and unfamiliar.
“I do not know what lies you have been spreading, sir, but I assure you I shall have satisfaction for this slander.” He took a step into the room, his hands clenching at his sides.
“It is time for you to desist, Mr McLeod,” Bingley said quietly. “I have already informed Miss Elizabeth of your deception.”
A muscle twitched in Hamish’s jaw. “You come into my home, poison my betrothed against me with fabrications and falsehoods, and expect to walk away without consequence? I have connexions in Scotland who would be most interested to learn how English gentlemen conduct themselves.”
“Your home?” Bingley did not retreat. “You possess no legal claim to this house or any other. The evidence is irrefutable.”
“Evidence can be manufactured. Witnesses can be bought.” Hamish’s gaze swept to Elizabeth, and something desperate flickered beneath the coldness.
“Elizabeth, you cannot believe this. This man appears from nowhere with accusations designed to destroy our happiness, and you accept his word over mine? He is a liar!”
A furious expression crossed Jane’s usually amicable countenance. “I will have you know that Mr Bingley is a respectable man, sir,” she said. “He is a trusted acquaintance of our family, and one of the most honest individuals I know.”
Elizabeth clutched the documents to her chest. Her voice emerged steadier than she felt. “Mr McLeod, I have observed them myself a hundred times. The real Mr MacKinnon lies buried in his grave, does he not?”
It was at that moment that the fight went out of Hamish. She watched his shoulders drop, his jaw slacken, and his hands unclench at his sides. He stood before them completely stripped of the confident bearing that had first drawn her notice all those months ago.
“How did you discover it?” The question emerged barely above a whisper.
“That hardly matters now,” Bingley replied.
“It matters to me.” Hamish moved further into the room on unsteady legs and lowered himself into a chair as though his body could no longer support his weight.
His gaze appeared fixed upon some middle distance only he could see.
“Ten years. Ten years I have carried this, and I thought... I allowed myself to believe...”
He broke off, pressing a hand across his eyes.
“The real Malcolm was my friend,” he confessed in a hushed whisper.
“We grew up together on the estate, though he was the laird's son and I merely the factor's boy. He never treated me as lesser. When the soldiers came to clear the lands, Malcolm tried to stop them.” His voice cracked.
“An old woman, Mrs MacPherson, she refused to leave her cottage. She had lived there seventy years, and she said she would die there. The soldiers meant to drag her out by force. Malcolm stepped between them.”
The clock on the mantel ticked into the silence that followed.
“They struck him down. I watched it happen. They beat him senseless and he passed from his injuries days later.” Hamish drew a shuddering breath.
“His wife Fiona was already ill. She did not survive the winter. Most of the family perished in those months, scattered and starving on the roads. And I... I survived. I survived when better men than I did not.”
“So, you assumed his identity.” Elizabeth's voice came out flat.
“I assumed his name because I could not bear my own any longer. Because Hamish McLeod was a coward who hid whilst his friend was murdered, and Malcolm MacKinnon was a hero who deserved to live.” He raised his head at last, and Elizabeth saw the tracks of tears upon his cheeks.
“I thought if I became him, if I used his name and his inheritance to help the others, the families who lost everything, perhaps it would mean something. Perhaps his death would not have been entirely in vain.”
“And Moira?” Jane asked. “She is not Malcolm's daughter?”
“Fiona was already with child when Malcolm died. The babe came early, in that terrible winter, and Fiona did not survive the birth. Neither Malcolm nor Fiona had any living relatives or even friends. My wife and I took the child and raised her as our own. She knows nothing of any of this. She believes herself the daughter of Malcolm MacKinnon, Laird of Strathaird.”
“Mrs Fraser?” Jane pressed.
Hamish hung his head. “She is my real great-aunt and the only surviving member of my family. Mrs Fraser and my late wife were the only ones privy to my real identity. Mrs Douglas recently found out about my identity after overhearing a conversation between my great-aunt and me. She vehemently disapproves, of course, and she has been trying to convince Mrs Fraser to put a stop to the wedding preparations.”
An invisible hand squeezed Elizabeth’s heart as she thought of the little girl. Whatever Hamish had done, whatever deceptions he had practised, he had loved that child and cared for her as tenderly as any true father.
“I know you cannot forgive me.” Hamish turned to Elizabeth, and the raw anguish in his face made her look away.
“I know I have forfeited any right to your regard. But I want you to understand that what I felt for you was never part of the deception. I came to Longbourn seeking security for Moira, yes. I will not pretend otherwise. But I came to care for you, Elizabeth. Genuinely and deeply. Your wit, your strength, your tenacity in the face of circumstances that would have broken lesser spirits. I admired you from the first, and that admiration grew into something I had not expected and did not deserve.”
His voice broke on the final words, and he pressed his hand to his eyes once more.
Bingley cleared his throat. “Miss Elizabeth, shall I write to the magistrate? We have excellent grounds to press charges for fraud and criminal impersonation. The penalties are severe, but given the scope of the deception...”
Before Elizabeth could reply, movement at the door caught her attention.
Through the gap where the door stood slightly ajar, she glimpsed Moira's face, pale and tear-streaked, her small hand pressed against her mouth to muffle the sobs that shook her thin shoulders.
The child's eyes met Elizabeth's for a single agonising moment before she turned and fled, her footsteps pattering away down the corridor.
Elizabeth made her decision.
“No.”
Bingley stared at her. “No?”
“I do not wish to report Mr McLeod to the magistrate. There will be no charges pressed.”
Mrs Bennet, who had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the confession, found her voice at last. “Lizzy! After everything he has done, all the lies he has told, you mean to let him simply walk away? Think of our reputation! Think of what the neighbourhood will say when they learn...”
“I am thinking of Moira.” Elizabeth cut across her mother's protestations. “She is an innocent child who has already lost her mother. I will not be responsible for taking her father from her as well, whatever name he goes by.”
“But Lizzy...”
“My decision is made, Mama.” Elizabeth turned to Hamish, who sat staring at her with an expression of disbelieving gratitude.
“You will leave Longbourn tomorrow. That should give you sufficient time to gather your belongings and make arrangements for your journey. I trust you will not abuse this mercy by lingering longer than necessary.”
“I... thank you.” The words seemed wholly inadequate to the occasion, and Hamish appeared to know it. “I do not deserve your compassion, Miss Elizabeth.”
“No, you do not.” Elizabeth kept her voice steady through sheer force of will.
“But Mr MacKinnon, the real Mr MacKinnon, showed compassion to a defenceless old woman even knowing it would cost him his life.
I should like to think he would not want his name associated with the destruction of his innocent child's happiness, whatever crimes have been committed in it.”
Hamish rose from his chair, his movements slow and heavy. He paused at the door, turning back to face them one final time.
“Mrs Bennet. Miss Bennet. Miss Elizabeth.” He addressed each of them in turn, his voice rough with emotion.
“I am sorry. Those words are hopelessly insufficient, I know. I deceived you all in the worst possible way, allowed you to believe in a future that could never exist, and I have no defence to offer except that I was a desperate man trying to build something good from the wreckage of terrible choices. I wished only to provide for my daughter and to make amends for my cowardice, and I convinced myself that the good I did could somehow outweigh the lies I told. I was wrong. I see that now.”
The silence stretched.
“Miss Elizabeth, you deserved far better than what I offered you. You deserved honesty and honour and a man worthy of your remarkable spirit. I hope someday you find such a man. I hope you find the happiness I could never have given you. And I hope that in time, you might remember me not only as the man who deceived you, but as one who recognised too late what a precious gift your regard truly was.”