16. A Matter of Courage #2
Lady Sophia watched them both over the rim of her porcelain cup, her pale eyes alight with the satisfaction of a strategist who had provoked a lion into showing his claws.
She yawned. “I do say, the morning is well spent, and Miss Bennet has a matter of business requiring your signature. I believe I shall take a well- deserved nap right here by the hearth. Do not let my snoring disrupt your ledgers, Fitzwilliam.”
Elizabeth took the graceful distraction Lady Sophia provided, reaching for the trust documents with alacrity.
“I have been studying the portfolio,” she said, her voice higher than usual as she forced the conversation onto the safe, dry ground of commerce. “The trust documents you provided, the income summaries, the dividend schedules.”
Darcy adjusted his cuffs, the dangerous heat slowly receding from his jaw as he accepted the pivot. “You have been remarkably thorough.”
“I have been sleepless, which is nearly as effective.” She spread the papers between them, ink-stained fingers betraying only the slightest tremor. “Fifteen thousand a year: seven from Consols, five from canal shares, three from Bellwood Park. Is that correct?”
“Approximately.” Darcy moved a step closer, still looming over her. “The canal dividends vary somewhat from year to year, and Bellwood’s rents depend entirely on the autumn harvest. But the Consol income is stable. Government bonds at five percent. The safest investment available in the kingdom.”
“Yes, I had worked that out.” Elizabeth traced a line on one of the documents, her finger following the neat columns of her angular handwriting. “Which is why I have decided to give it away.”
Darcy’s hand, which had been reaching to turn the ledger toward his own view, stopped completely in midair.
He blinked, his formidable brow furrowing. “I beg your pardon?”
“Not all of it. I shall keep two thousand of that portion for myself,” she explained, her voice gaining strength as she looked up to meet his eyes.
“But the remaining five thousand I wish to divide equally amongst my mother and my four sisters. One thousand per annum to each of the five, settled irrevocably, to be administered by my uncle Gardiner as the trustee.”
She said it as if she were shifting pennies between teapots, not dismantling her own security. Darcy searched her face for a hint of jest, but found only stubborn resolve.
“Miss Elizabeth.” He sat down heavily in the chair beside her, propriety forgotten in the face of financial disaster.
“That would leave you with only two thousand in stable income. The remaining eight thousand comes from canal shares and agricultural rents, both of which are subject to considerable volatility. Napoleon is still fighting. Trade is disrupted. Canal companies fail. Harvests fail. You would be gambling your security on investments that could halve in value overnight.”
“I understand the risk.”
“Do you? Because 33 Grosvenor Street alone costs three thousand a year to maintain. Staff, fuel, maintenance, social obligations. If the canal shares collapse and Bellwood has a bad harvest, you would be forced to choose between keeping the house and keeping your staff. You would be vulnerable in ways that?—”
“I have been poor before, Mr. Darcy.” Elizabeth’s voice was gentle but immovable. “I survived it with reasonable good humor.”
The words stopped him as effectively as a wall.
He leaned back in his chair, acutely aware that he had been lecturing a woman who understood privation far better than he ever would.
The master of Pemberley, who had never in his life worried about whether he could afford coal for the fire, presuming to explain financial anxiety to Elizabeth Bennet.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I did not mean to suggest?—”
“You meant to protect me. I know.” She smiled, and the smile held neither reproach nor offense. “It is what you do. But I have thought about this carefully, and I have decided.”
“May I ask why?”
Elizabeth looked down at the papers, and when she spoke again, her voice had changed.
“My mother is afraid.” The words came slowly, raw with reflection.
“Every day of her life since my father married her, she has lived with the knowledge that when he dies, she and her daughters will have nothing. The entail will take Longbourn, and Mr. Collins will take possession. And my mother, who has never worked a day in her life, who has no skills, no connections, and no resources beyond her husband’s uncertain health, will be thrown upon the charity of whatever daughter has managed to secure a husband rich enough to support her. ”
She paused, her fingers still resting on the documents.
“I used to mock her—the scheming, the matchmaking, the mortifying announcements of every gentleman’s income.
Perhaps it was vulgar, but beneath it was terror.
She lies awake, picturing herself begging in the hedgerows, and has done so for twenty-five years.
I mocked her because I was young and comfortable, and I had no idea what it meant to have no power over your future. ”
Darcy admired her all the more. Mrs. Bennet and her daughters had every reason to fear. The heir of Longbourn could toss them out with nothing but their nightgowns. Her hysteria was the natural result of a system that left women defenseless.
“One thousand pounds per annum,” Elizabeth continued, “is not wealth. But it is security. It means my mother can stop lying awake. It means Jane can refuse the next Mr. Bingley, who appears with easy manners and unreliable constancy. Mary can hire a music master, attend concerts, become the person she was meant to be, and explore friendships and cultural interests. Kitty will have the chance to flourish without Lydia’s influence, and even Lydia—well, Lydia will spend hers on ribbons and frivolities, but at least she will have the choice to do otherwise. ”
She looked up, eyes bright with something suspiciously like tears—if Elizabeth Bennet were the sort to cry over government bonds.
“Lady Sophia gave me this fortune because she believed in my character. I cannot think of a better use of it than proving her right.”
Darcy sat motionless, words deserting him. She was halving her own security to free her family from fear, and doing it with the same calm certainty she’d used to refuse him at Hunsford.
“This is not a request for permission,” Elizabeth added, and Darcy heard his mother’s voice behind her words, the same steel that Lady Anne had wielded when she had made decisions that everyone around her disapproved of.
“I am informing you as my trustee so that you can arrange the legal settlements. But I have already decided.”
This is the woman my mother prayed for. The thought would not leave.
Elizabeth was not selfish; she would never let those she loved suffer.
His mother had been the same—standing in his father’s study, hand on the desk, voice steady as she declared: This is not a request for permission, William. The school will be built.
He’d been eight, eavesdropping in the corridor. His mother had built the Pemberley school over his father’s objections, and the phrase this is not a request had lodged in his mind as the sound of a woman who would not be moved.
He would never tell Elizabeth this. But the echo of it pressed against the ache in his chest, crowding out his composure.
“I would not presume to deny permission that was not sought,” he said. “But I would advise caution regarding timing and disclosure.”
“Meaning?”
“If your sisters become known as women of independent income, the siege that has surrounded you will expand to surround them. Miss Bennet is already conspicuous. Miss Mary’s musical talent has attracted attention that was, until the musicale, entirely professional.
If it becomes known that each Bennet sister possesses a thousand a year, the fortune hunters will multiply. ”
Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. “You mean to say, even Mary?”
“Yes, she would become a target. A woman with musical accomplishment and a thousand pounds per annum independent of her elder sister’s fortune is a very attractive prospect to a certain kind of man.”
“The cellist who accosted her,” Elizabeth said, and her expression darkened. “The one at the park.”
“Among others. And your younger sisters at Longbourn. Miss Catherine and Miss Lydia, with income, in the vicinity of the militia, near Mr. Wickham.”
He stopped. The name sat between them with the weight it always carried.
“Wickham is in Meryton,” Elizabeth said, and something in her tone had changed. “He is still in the militia.”
“For the present.” Darcy’s voice was careful. “A man of Wickham’s inclinations does not remain in any situation long once he has exhausted its possibilities. If your sisters at Longbourn are known to have income, he will not overlook the opportunity.”
“Then the transfers must be made quietly. Through the solicitor. Without public announcement.”
“I would recommend precisely that. The legal instruments can be drawn to provide the income without creating a widely known settlement. Your sisters will have security without advertisement.”
“And Mamma?”
“Mrs. Bennet presents a different challenge.” He chose his words with the care of a man walking across ice. “Your mother’s discretion is not what it ought to be.”
“My mother will tell every living soul within six miles that her daughters have independent fortunes,” Elizabeth said flatly. “She will tell them at dinner, at church, at the milliner’s, and at the assemblies, and she will tell them with a volume that will carry across three counties.”
“I was attempting to phrase that more diplomatically.”
“And I appreciate the effort.” The smile returned, wry and warm. “We must tell Mamma last, in a letter to my father, so that the initial explosion occurs in Hertfordshire, where the blast radius is smaller.”
“I will instruct the solicitor,” Darcy said. “The transfers can be arranged within a fortnight.”
“Thank you.” She held his gaze a beat, then dropped her eyes to his hand, the scratch visible, before returning to his face.
Lady Sophia opened her eyes, stretching with a loud yawn. “Now then, my nap is ended, and perhaps we might discuss a matter of somewhat greater delicacy. Mr. Bingley and Miss Bennet.”
The shift in subject was not unexpected, but Darcy’s shoulders tightened. He had been waiting for this conversation since the promenade, when the whispers about Bingley’s constant attendance had become impossible to ignore.
“I have observed that Mr. Bingley calls upon Miss Bennet every day,” Lady Sophia continued. “He accompanies her to every outing. He stands at her side at every entertainment and looks at her as though she were the only woman in London.”
“Bingley has always been demonstrative in his attachments,” Darcy said, keeping his eyes fixed on the table in front of him.
“He has also always been easily led,” her ladyship countered. “And the ton has noticed that his enthusiasm, however visible, has not yet produced an official declaration. Miss Bennet’s reputation is beginning to suffer under the delay.”
Elizabeth’s expression sharpened. A crease of pain marred her brow, and she twisted her ink-stained fingers together in her lap with an agitation that pierced through Darcy’s defenses.
“The gossip implies Jane is pursuing him,” she said, her voice dimming. “They whisper that she is using my newly acquired fortune to purchase a second chance at a match she could not secure on her own merits in Hertfordshire. They imply she is desperate.”
“They are idiots,” Darcy snapped, heat cracking his tone. The idea of anyone treating Miss Bennet—or Elizabeth—as a commodity made his blood boil.
“The gossips are London, Fitzwilliam,” Lady Sophia corrected with chilling pragmatism.
“Their opinions become reality the moment enough of them agree over their tea. If Mr. Bingley does not propose within the fortnight, Miss Bennet will be pitied. If he departs without speaking, she will be ruined.”
“I shall speak with him,” Darcy volunteered.
Elizabeth looked at him, her lips parting slightly in an expression of quiet astonishment. The defensive wall she had erected since their Cecilia skirmish cracked, just as it had in the park, revealing the soft vulnerability beneath.
“The fault in this matter,” Darcy continued, his voice steady, low, and entirely devoid of emotional appeal, “rests primarily with myself. I, along with his sisters, advised him to leave the county. Once I discovered my error, I wrote to Bingley and encouraged him to call on Miss Bennet. However, I have not advised him toward a declaration.”
Elizabeth was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice carried a soft, searching note that made the space between them thrum with unsaid things.
“A man who can be persuaded away by his friend can also be persuaded toward by his friend. I should not wish for Bingley’s declaration to be compelled.”
“You are correct,” Darcy agreed. “Then I shall not persuade him toward anything. I shall merely lay before him the reality of what the ton perceives, and ensure he understands what the steadiness of a gentleman requires. The rest must belong to his own heart.”
The same remained true of Elizabeth’s heart. He could not persuade or demand. His only hope was patience, proximity, and the slow, unglamorous work of earning her trust—and perhaps, in time, her heart.
The conversation clearly concluded, he picked up his gloves and hat, and tucked the documents he needed under his arm. “The legal instruments for the Consol transfers shall be ready by Thursday. I shall see you at the hour of eleven, Miss Elizabeth.”
He bowed—a single, formal nod—and left the room.
He would not let Elizabeth Bennet see him as some tragic, dithering Mortimer Delvile.
He was a Darcy, and she was no longer the portionless girl he’d once thought beneath his consequence.
She was an heiress with fifteen thousand a year and a world of suitors.
He had offered his heart once, and she had refused it.
His pride—honorable, protective, and stubborn—would not let him impose again.
He told himself he would step back, let her find happiness elsewhere if she wished.
Yet even as he thought it, a cold misery enveloped him.
He knew himself too well. If the Season ended and she chose another, he would almost certainly lose all sense, blunder past his defenses, and risk her rejection again rather than let her go.
It hadn’t come to that yet, not when he was her assigned guardian, and hence, he would bide his time.