Chapter 2
The ground beneath Darcy pitched like a ship's deck in a storm. His throat tightened. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Have you come to pay your respects?” Barnaby stood in the open doorway.
The butler looked much older than Darcy remembered.
Darcy tried to smile, but his own shock and the blank expression on the old butler’s face weighed like lead against his lips.
He was too late. Barnaby looked at him more closely.
Darcy waited for the light of recognition to brighten his face, but none came.
Had he changed so much in ten years that he was now unrecognizable?
The butler stepped aside, allowing Darcy to pass. “There is still time for you to bid your farewells before he is taken away.”
Oh, he had bid his farewell before. He just prayed his father had forgotten his angry speech.
Darcy wished he could forget; he remembered every bitter word.
When you are old and alone, remember that you chose to trust your unbendable judgment rather than your own son, whose happiness you would sacrifice to satisfy your pride.
I hope your pride will give you comfort because I shall not be here to bury you.
In a daze, he followed Barnaby across the entrance, past the grand staircase, where the butler stopped in front of the first door.
Empty chairs lined the rim of the front parlor.
Black draped the walls, covering his mother’s paintings.
Darcy wanted to tear the dreadful fabric away, but the sight of the coffin in the center of the room bled the fire from his veins.
His father lay encased in elm on a bed of white fine-weave crepe.
Slowly, cautiously, Darcy approached. Father was thinner, gaunt.
A shell of the hard man he had known. Drawing closer, Darcy examined his features.
Father’s bold eyebrows, so similar to his own, his strong chin, just like his, the scar on his forehead—a souvenir from an old hunting accident—now a faded, jagged line.
Darcy stood over him for some time, expecting him to rise, to open his eyes and demand an explanation for Darcy’s delay.
None came.
Pressure built in his chest, stirring fresh guilt with that old, familiar anger. After a lifetime of failing to meet his father’s expectations, Darcy could not even travel fast enough to see him one last time before he died.
If Father had truly wanted to see him, why had he not written? Unless… he had not wanted Darcy. Had no need for him anymore.
It had been a mistake to come. He ought to have spun on his heel and left the moment he saw that blasted wreath. He should have torn Reynolds’s letter and burned it in the fire the day it arrived.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to compose himself, to leave his father’s house with dignity, but his body was heavy and slow to reply to the commands of his mind. “Damn you,” he mumbled to his dead father, to himself.
“Darcy?” a deep voice called behind him.
Darcy wiped his face and spun around, bringing the man who charged at him with fists clenched stuttering to a halt. His cousin was set to strike a blow. Lord knew as well as Darcy did that he deserved it.
“My apologies”—Richard’s eyes narrowed and his words slowed—”I thought you were someone else.”
Dear Lord! Not him too! Frustrated, Darcy cried, “Richard!”
Lowering his chin, Richard crossed his arms over his chest, a picture of angry restraint. “Darcy.” It was not a question but an accusation. “I should have popped your cork while I had the chance.”
Would that he had. A throbbing nose was preferable to the ache gnawing in Darcy’s chest. “I have missed you.”
“Is that why you quit writing? Why you disappeared?”
“You were the only one who noticed.”
Richard jutted his chin toward the casket.
“He noticed.” Darcy doubted that. His father had not written to him.
Not once. In an undertone, Richard added, “If only his pride would have allowed him to admit it.” His posture relaxed and his eyes softened, and when he stepped forward it was not to jab Darcy in the nose but to wrap his arms around his shoulders.
A few slaps on the back later, peace was restored and Richard stepped away, shaking his head and whistling as he inspected Darcy from head to toe.
“You really fooled me, Darce. As brown as you are and with that beard… Had I not heard your voice and were you not the same stature as Uncle George at his prime, I would not have recognized you at all.”
“So I am coming to learn.”
“My God, man, where have you been?”
As far away from his father as he could manage, building a life earned under his own name, where every success was his alone—no Darcy legacy to open doors, no family influence to smooth his path.
He had proved himself in ways his father never could have anticipated, in places his father would never condescend to look.
And for what? The bitter hope that one day he might return and lay it all at his father's feet like a wayward son's offering. See? I was worth something after all.
Darcy felt ill. He looked at the lifeless face in the coffin. Had his father regretted their parting, or had he been relieved to be rid of his disappointing son? He would never know. The finality of it settled like a stone in Darcy's chest. It was too much to explain—too much to feel.
He waved about the vacant room. “Why is nobody here?”
Richard's jaw tightened, but his expression shifted—anger giving way to relief, or perhaps exhaustion. “Most of them have already paid their respects; the service is this afternoon. Rest assured, the halls of White’s will be empty until Uncle’s body is placed on a cart to transport him to Pemberley. ”
A credible explanation, but it did not account for the lack of relatives. “And Lord Matlock? Lady Catherine?”
A bitter smile flickered across Richard’s face. “They will be at Pemberley for the burial and the reading of the will.”
Darcy scoffed. “Of course they will.”
“Things did not improve after you left, but Aunt Catherine will hold out hope until the end that she might sink her claws into you.”
“Anne is not married?”
“Aye, she married.” Richard guffawed. “A brilliant man who knows how to keep Anne happy and Aunt Catherine subdued.”
“I would not have believed such brilliance existed.”
“I look forward to introducing you to him.” Richard rubbed his hands together. “I cannot wait to see Aunt Catherine’s face when she learns she will get no share of your fortune.”
“Not my fortune.”
That stopped Richard’s tongue long enough for Darcy to take pity on him.
“Father wrote me out of the will. For all I know, you will inherit.” To lose Pemberley to anyone else but Richard would be unconscionable.
Richard, at least, had tried to be a constant friend.
But there was so much he did not understand.
Shaking his head as though he refused to countenance the idea, Richard said, “Only your father’s solicitor knows. Uncle George was tight-lipped until the end about his final wishes, but I am confident he made things right.”
Darcy cast Richard an incredulous look.
“He was a kinder man toward the end,” Richard added.
Just as Reynolds had written in his letter. Father was kind to others, but Darcy had too rarely experienced it himself to believe he would have been happy to see him. “Was he ill?”
Richard nodded gravely. “He lost his appetite. Poor Mrs. Reynolds tempted him with all his favorites, but he only managed a bite or two.” Darcy's chest constricted as he imagined his father wasting away.
“This went on for months. When he started coughing, he was too weak to recover. It happened quickly.”
That was some small comfort. Mrs. Reynolds would have been there, faithful as always. Darcy nodded, his throat too tight to utter a word or even breathe.
Barnaby entered the room with a maid and four footmen. “My apologies, gentlemen, but the cart is ready to take the master away. Do you require a few more minutes?”
Darcy glanced at his father one last time, unable to move or speak. The servants waited for him to reply, but no words came.
Richard tugged on his arm, pulling him away. “Thank you, Barnaby. We will leave you.” To Darcy, he said, “The service is not for two hours, and we have a great deal to discuss. When did you arrive?”
Darcy stumbled toward him, trying to set one foot in front of the other and formulate a reply. “This morning.”
“Good Heavens! Have you eaten? Do you need to rest? You can ask Barnaby—”
Darcy held up his hand, bringing a stop to the outpouring of questions. He could think of nothing worse than staying here, at Darcy House. “I need an occupation.”
“Gentleman Jackson’s?” Richard raised his fists and grinned. His levity lightened Darcy’s steps and loosened the vise-grip around his stomach somewhat.
“You would enjoy that too much.”
“I would.” Richard rubbed his side whiskers, falling into thought again. “Angelo’s?”
“Too many people. Too much noise.”
“How about a nice long walk?”
Darcy nodded, and they departed from the house together to walk along the hushed streets.
“What do you plan to do?” Richard asked.
“I shall return to Smyrna.” Darcy loved his former home, the friends he had made, and the satisfying work he accomplished. But hearing his decision aloud failed to produce the comfort he sought.
“Smyrna?! What does Smyrna have that you cannot find here?”
“My life.” Sunshine. Warmth. Friends who knew him.
“Your life is here now.”
“There is nothing for me here.”
“Nothing here?! What about Pemberley? All the families who depend on your estate? What about me?”
That last question stung. Richard had written to him every week for a year after Darcy had left England… until he had changed his name and disappeared. “Pemberley could not have a better master than you.”
“I do not want Pemberley! I want you to stay!”
Darcy glanced at him askance. There was a great deal Richard did not know, nor did Darcy know where to start.