The Women Who Own the Houses
For a moment, Elizabeth could not speak.
His lips had touched only her glove, and yet the restraint of it seemed to ask more of her than boldness would have done.
“Fitzwilliam,” she said again, because she could, because he had asked it of her, and because the name no longer belonged only to silence.
He closed his eyes briefly. Then, from somewhere beyond the bend in the path, Colonel Fitzwilliam coughed.
Mr Darcy straightened. His hands released hers with the same careful deliberateness with which he had taken them, and Elizabeth had the impression of a door being closed. It was neither locked nor sealed. Simply closed, for now, because now required it.
She stepped back half a pace.
Colonel Fitzwilliam appeared around the bend, studying the flower beds with intense professional interest and every appearance of having merely taken a wrong turn.
“Darcy,” he said pleasantly. “Miss Bennet. What excellent luck. I thought I had lost the path entirely.”
“The path is quite clearly marked,” Elizabeth said.
“Is it? I find gardens confusing.” He fell into step beside them with perfect ease, apparently unaware that he had interrupted anything. “Miss Bennet, you must allow me to tell you that my aunt’s shrubbery is looking very well this year. Particularly this section.”
“I had noticed,” Elizabeth said.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s eyes moved briefly to Mr Darcy. Whatever he found there seemed to satisfy him.
“We should go back,” Mr Darcy said. “Lady Catherine will want us before luncheon.”
“She will want us before everything,” Colonel Fitzwilliam agreed. “It is one of her more reliable qualities.”
They walked back along the path, three abreast where the path allowed and single file where it did not, and Elizabeth was aware of Mr Darcy walking behind her with the same quality of attention he had always given her, only now she understood it for what it was.
At the edge of the shrubbery, where the path opened onto the lawn, Colonel Fitzwilliam fell behind to examine something in the hedge that did not require examining.
Mr Darcy came level with her.
“August,” he said quietly.
She did not look at him. “I know.”
“After August…”
“I know,” she said again.
“Elizabeth.”
She looked at him then, briefly, in the full morning light with Rosings visible beyond the lawn and Colonel Fitzwilliam tactfully absorbed in a hedge.
“I know,” she said for the third time. “Go in.”
He went.
She had almost reached the lawn when she stopped.
“Mr Darcy.”
He turned and walked back to her.
“I thought you had agreed to call me Fitzwilliam.” A smile danced on his lips.
She looked at him.
“We are on the lawn,” she said.
“We are at the edge of the shrubbery.”
“A very small distinction.”
“I find I am becoming particular about small distinctions.”
Elizabeth almost laughed. It surprised her, the ease of it, standing in Lady Catherine’s grounds with everything still unresolved and Rosings visible over his shoulder.
“Fitzwilliam,” she said.
The smile reached his eyes.
“You had a question,” he said.
“Several. Where is Mr Wickham now?”
“At Newmarket. Richard’s man has him as far as Cambridge.”
“And when he turns south?”
“We will know before he reaches London.”
“And Kent? How is it that you are safe here?”
“He should not know yet. By the time word can reach anyone useful to him, I must be gone. Rosings is also the last place he would wish to create an open quarrel while the Earl’s petition is moving. He still needs to appear entirely untroubled.”
“How long do we have?”
“A fortnight. Perhaps three weeks. The Earl moves within the week. Edward has finished with the affidavits.”
She took this in. “Then it is nearly over.”
“Nearly.”
A movement at the edge of the wood caught her eye.
The movement came again: a pale ribbon, then Miss Stourton’s dark skirt between the trees. Maria was beside her, carrying a book pressed to her chest.
They were not close enough to have heard, Elizabeth thought. They were close enough to have seen that Mr Darcy had walked back to her.
Maria stopped first.
Miss Stourton, quicker or kinder, turned her head as though the view across the park had claimed her whole attention.
Mr Darcy’s expression closed at once.
“Fitzwilliam,” Elizabeth said, very softly. “Go.”
He bowed, as if she had offered nothing more significant than a comment on the weather, and crossed the lawn towards Rosings.
Darcy had almost reached the terrace when Richard caught up with him.
“Well?”
Darcy kept walking. Richard glanced sideways at him. “That well, then.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Excellent. You generally have nothing to say when something has gone very badly or very well. Since Miss Bennet did not strike you, I shall assume the latter.”
Darcy stopped short. Richard stopped too.
“She understood,” Darcy said.
The humour left his cousin’s face.
“All of it?”
“Enough.”
Richard was quiet for a moment.
“Miss Lucas and Miss Stourton were in the wood,” Darcy said, before he could ask.
“I know. I saw them.” Richard’s voice was even. “How close?”
“Not close enough to hear. Close enough to see.”
Richard said nothing. That was, in its way, worse than if he had spoken.
“Miss Stourton looked away,” Darcy said.
“Miss Stourton is Lady Catherine’s niece and a sensible young woman who knows when not to have seen something.” Richard paused. “It is not Miss Stourton I am thinking about.”
“Wickham has no one in Kent.”
“That we know of.” Richard turned towards the terrace. “Darcy, he is accelerating. The accounts tell us that. A man who is accelerating does not wait for information to find him. He sends for it.”
Darcy looked at him.
“I want my man at Cambridge to send word today,” Richard said. “Not when Wickham turns south. Today. I want to know if anyone left Newmarket in the last forty-eight hours heading in any direction that is not north.”
“You think he has already moved.”
“I think a man who burned a library does not rely on one plan.”
They had reached the terrace steps.
“Then send the message,” Darcy said.
“I intend to.”
“And if Wickham has already sent someone south?”
Richard looked towards the lawn. Miss Bennet was gone now. Only Miss Stourton and Miss Lucas remained at the edge of the trees, walking slowly towards Hunsford.
“Then we find out who,” he said.
Darcy followed his gaze.
“And quickly.”
Richard’s expression hardened. “Yes.”
“There is something else,” Richard said.
Darcy looked at him.
“Wickham spoke to her in London. In the street, in a shop, in front of her aunt.” Richard kept his voice level. “That was not accidental, Darcy. He did not simply happen across her in Cheapside. He knew she was there. He knew which street. He knew which shop.”
The implications settled.
“He has someone watching her,” Darcy said.
“He had someone watching her. Whether that someone is still in place, whether the instruction extends to Kent, whether he has anyone within twenty miles of Hunsford—” Richard stopped.
“I do not know. That is the problem. I have been watching Wickham. I have not been watching everyone who watches her. She has been careful,” Richard said.
“More careful than most people would have been without anyone telling them to be. But careful is not the same as invisible, and if someone saw her walk into Lady Catherine’s shrubbery this morning and come out with you behind her—”
“She came out with you.”
“After I coughed loudly enough to wake the county.” Richard’s jaw tightened. “It may be enough. It may not.”
Darcy was very still. “How long before you know?”
“Today,” Richard said. “I will know today.”
Behind them, one of the French windows opened. “Darcy,” Lady Catherine called. “You are standing outside when I have questions for you.”
Richard’s mouth twitched. “After you.”
Darcy went in. Lady Catherine was standing by the window. She had been watching the lawn.
“You have been walking,” she said.
“Yes.”
“With Miss Bennet.”
“With Richard. We encountered Miss Bennet in the shrubbery.”
Lady Catherine looked at him for a long moment. “The shrubbery is not generally considered a destination. It is generally considered a route to somewhere else.”
Darcy did not reply.
“Sit down,” Lady Catherine said. “Richard, you may also sit, if you are capable of being still for five minutes.”
Richard sat, apparently confident he had survived worse interrogations and would survive this one. Lady Catherine took her own chair and settled into it with such finality that the furniture seemed subordinate.
Darcy sat opposite her. “What did you wish to ask me?”
“I did not wish to ask you anything. Anne has written. She and the boys arrive the day after tomorrow.”
Richard looked up. “The day after tomorrow?”
“Yes. Apparently Anthony has decided Easter begins when he says it does.”
“I have also sent word to Mrs Collins. They are to dine here tomorrow evening, with Miss Bennet and Miss Lucas.”
Darcy looked at her in surprise. Lady Catherine noticed. Of course she did.
“You need not appear alarmed. I invited them because I wished to.”
Richard turned away, badly disguising a smile.
“And Clara will be glad of Miss Lucas,” Lady Catherine continued. “As for Miss Bennet, she has opinions. Dinner improves when someone at the table is willing to use them.”
“I like Miss Bennet,” Lady Catherine said. “She has sense, and enough courage to make use of it. I shall be interested to hear what account she gives of meeting my nephew in the shrubbery this morning.”
Darcy went still. Richard looked down, hiding a smile.
Lady Catherine regarded them both. “Really. Did you imagine the windows at Rosings faced inward?”
“No, ma’am,” Richard said.
“Then stop looking as though I have performed a miracle. I merely looked outside.”
Lady Catherine turned back to Darcy. “Now. Your travels.”
Darcy met her eye. “What of them?”
“They have apparently made you thinner and less communicative, which I had not thought possible. How is Georgiana?”
“Well.”
“And the children?”
“Also well.”
Lady Catherine’s mouth softened briefly. “Anne writes of them. George is still reading everything he can reach?”
“Yes.”
“And Wickham?”
“At Newmarket.”
“Of course he is.” Lady Catherine reached for her coffee. “That man has always mistaken dissipation for occupation.”
Lady Catherine set down her cup. “And does Georgiana know where you are?”
Darcy hesitated.
“That is what I thought.”
Richard glanced at him.
“She writes less than she did,” Lady Catherine continued. “Her letters are careful. Georgiana was never careful with me as a girl.”
“She has had reason to become so.”
“Yes.” Lady Catherine’s mouth tightened. “I blame Wickham for many things. Teaching a Darcy to weigh every word may be the one I resent most.”
Darcy looked at her.
She met his gaze steadily. “Do not mistake silence for ignorance, nephew.”
“You were eleven,” Lady Catherine said. “And at school. Your father told you nothing because he believed children should be protected from unpleasant facts.”
Darcy said nothing.
“Georgiana believed herself in love. Wickham had spent years learning precisely how to be loved by your family. By the time your father understood what had happened, there were tears, letters, servants whispering, and Georgiana declaring she would marry no one else.”
Richard’s expression hardened.
“I told your father to send Wickham away,” Lady Catherine said. “He chose marriage instead.”
“He was ill,” Darcy said at last. “He was not himself.”
“No.” Lady Catherine’s voice was flat. “He was not. But illness does not explain everything. Your father was a good man who wished to believe good things of people he had known all his life. Wickham’s father was loyal to him for thirty years.
He could not bring himself to believe the son was something different.
” She looked towards the window. “I could.”
“You had always disliked him,” Richard said.
“I had always seen him clearly. There is a difference.” She turned back to the room. “Charm is not difficult to see through, if one is not required to love the person exercising it. Your father loved George Wickham’s father. That coloured everything.”
Darcy looked at his hands.
“I do not tell you this to wound you,” Lady Catherine said.
“Your father’s failings were those of a generous man.
There are worse things to be. But you should know that you are not the first person in this family to have understood the danger.
Nor the only one who has been made to wait while others decided whether the danger was real. ”
Richard looked at her carefully. “Aunt, what are you saying?”
Lady Catherine reached for her cup again.
“I am saying,” she said, “that when the time comes to act, you need not act alone. And that Rosings has resources you have not thought to ask for.”
Richard met her gaze. “Aunt—”
“Do not,” Lady Catherine said pleasantly. “I have been waiting years to say this to someone, and your cousin is finally in the same room.”
Richard’s jaw tightened. “There were reasons.”
“There are always reasons. Your father had reasons. Your cousin has been conducting himself with great patience and no small personal danger, and it did not once occur to any of the men managing this situation to tell him that there was someone at Rosings who had seen it coming before it was a crisis.”
“We did not wish to involve you.”
“No. You wished to protect me.” Her voice was precise and entirely without warmth.
“Richard, I have buried a husband, raised a daughter who would not be managed, and spent thirty years watching a family I love make decisions I was not consulted on. I am not a woman who requires protection from information. I required information five years ago, when there was still time to act on what I knew.”
The silence that followed had weight.
Richard said nothing. There was, to his credit, nothing useful he could say.
Lady Catherine turned to Darcy. “I do not blame you. You were barely more than a boy and you were managing it alone. But someone in this family should have told you sooner that you were not.”
Darcy looked at her. “What resources?”
Lady Catherine’s brows rose. “Do you imagine Rosings manages itself?”
Richard leaned back in his chair.
“I have servants who have been here longer than Wickham has been married, tenants who know every road between Kent and London, horses, money, and neighbours who owe me favours they would prefer I forgot.” She took up her cup.
“You Fitzwilliams have always been too fond of making complicated plans without consulting the women who own the houses in which you make them.”