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He groaned. “After… well… after , I must have dozed off for a time, because the next thing I remember, I was alone in the bed and someone was pounding on the door. It seemed like some sort of surreal dream when Richard burst in and began ordering me about, telling me that we must leave immediately. I was in a rather embarrassing situation, my wrists still tangled in my shirt, my breeches down about my ankles, and naught but a sheet across me. He gave me barely a moment to put myself to rights before he dragged me off to the carriage he had waiting. I don’t believe either of us spoke a single word for the entire ride.

I was too busy trying to sort out what exactly had occurred and pull together some shred of dignity.

And I suppose Richard was trying to decide how best to tell me… the news.”

Elizabeth looked up as his tone shifted from embarrassed to deadly serious.

“Richard got me home and took me up to my chambers himself, not leaving me until my valet took over and got me into a hot bath. Once I was dressed in clean clothes and returned to my sitting room, my cousin was waiting by the fire with hot coffee and dry toast. At that point, I was more… conscious of my surroundings… and all I really wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for several days… and hopefully just forget the entire episode. I fear I unleashed some of my poor temper on Richard. I’ll never forget the way he just looked at me, and then told me to sit down and drink the coffee he poured for me.

I did, out of shock if nothing else, but after a few moments I became aware that my valet was directing a footman to take my traveling case down stairs.

“When he saw that I had noticed, Richard sighed and took my cup, so that I wouldn’t drop it, I suppose.

And then he looked at me and told me he had some hard news and that I was going to need to brace myself.

While I had been out carousing , you see, an express had come from Pemberley that my father had taken ill and was not expected to recover. ”

Remembering the scene, Fitzwilliam rubbed his face with his hands.

“It was as if a bucket of ice water had been thrown over me. My father had his faults, but he had taught me so much… my duty to all those people who depend on Pemberley… how I must appreciate the work they do… and how hard their lives often are. I’m not explaining this very well. ”

Tears had welled up in Elizabeth’s eyes upon hearing of his father’s illness, and she rubbed his back in an attempt at comfort. “You’re explaining it perfectly well. Having seen you at Pemberley, how you care for the tenants and servants, and how they care for you, I do understand.”

He touched her hand and whispered, “Thank you.” Then he took a deep, rasping breath, feeling as if someone had welded iron barrel hoops around his chest. “Well. Richard got me sorted out and into the carriage headed for Derbyshire as quickly as possible. I’m not sure if I slept—it all seemed like the haze of a nightmare.

I’ve never been so grateful for Richard’s friendship as I was over those hours.

We drove through the night—he had arranged for fresh horses to be ready at the coaching stops along the way—but it still took days to reach Pemberley.

When we drove up to the house, I remember thinking that there were odd shadows on the front portico…

but then I realized that they weren’t shadows, but black bunting.

I was too late… my father had already died. ”

Feeling how he blamed himself, Elizabeth cried, “But Will… you did your best to get there. If it was his heart, it might have happened at any time, at any place. You could not have known his death was coming any more than he did. We must accept that such things are in the Lord’s hands.”

At this, Darcy made an odd sort of grimace without meeting her eyes.

After some minutes of silence, he made a decision and squeezed her hand before standing and pacing before her.

“Elizabeth… I’ve been so alone for so long.

I have longed for someone whom I can trust with…

everything, the good and the bad. I… I would like to tell you something I have never shared with anyone. Not even Richard or Georgiana.”

When he finally turned to meet her eyes, he saw that they were filled with a love deeper than anything he could have dreamed. Nodding to himself, he moved to sit at her feet with his back to the log and soon he felt the comfort of her fingers moving through his hair.

“My mother loved lily of the valley,” he said, seemingly apropos of nothing.

“I remember she always had a vase of the flowers in her dressing room.

She even had the gardener coax the bulbs to bloom in the conservatory so that she could have fresh flowers during the winter.

Because she always had them around, all of the children were taught from a young age that the water from the stem or even a vase that had held lily of the valley was as deadly a poison as hemlock.

After the fever at Pemberley… after my mother died…

my father could not stand the scent and had all the plants burned.

There are still some that grow wild by a bench near the lake where my mother liked to sit, but they were never again brou ght into the house or used in arrangements.

“I was only eleven when she died, but in hindsight I believe my father went a little mad. Even with his infidelities, she was his wife and she had died at Pemberley trying to manage the crisis while he had been kept safe at Matlock. I’ve come to understand what an immense weight of guilt he must have carried for those years.

He felt that he had failed in his responsibilities…

his duty to safeguard his family and all the people dependent on him.

So many people died from the pox that summer… ” Will shut his eyes for a moment.

“After the epidemic, he was different. Gone was the jovial, gregarious man I remember from my childhood.

He no longer socialized and rarely even smiled, let alone the great, deep belly laugh I remember from before.

He threw himself into work. I was sent to school within the year and, in all that time, and really whenever we were together for the rest of his life, the only subjects I remember talking to him about were matters of business—estate management, the mines, investments, family history…

and above all, the responsibility of being Mr. Darcy, Master of Pemberley.

“Georgiana once told me that he would occasionally come to the music room when she was practicing, but he would rarely say anything. He would just sit there, staring into space. It frightened her—somehow she got the idea that if she displeased him she would be sent away too. I suppose that is why I’m so protective of her.

In some ways, she’s been an orphan since our mother died. ”

Darcy took a deep breath. It was time to tell the worst. He trusted Elizabeth, but to put it all into words felt akin to eating glass.

“So, my father had banished lily of the valley from the house because the smell reminded him of her… but that night, after Richard and I arrived to find that Papa had already died… I went up to his bedchamber to see him and hold vigil. And on his bedside table was a small vase with lily of the valley… but no water.”

By that point, tears were leaking freely from his eyes and Will pressed his face against Elizabeth like a small child.

He felt her arms wrap around his shoulders and draw him closer, her cheek resting on the top of his head.

“Oh Will…. I’m so sorry. My love… my poor, poor, dearest love.

What a burden for you to carry alone. But is it certain, absolutely certain that it was suicide? ”

“I asked the doctor that attended him some questions, but I did not want to raise any suspicions. He called it apoplexy… but I compared the symptoms that he described to those listed for the poison in a medical text and they were consistent. And when I think of his actions over that last month… he had seemed… not happier, but lighter, somehow. Easier. As if a burden had been lifted. He told me several times that he was proud of me and that I would make an excellent Master of Pemberley. Oh God, Elizab eth… all that business in London with the bankers and solicitors… It was not just the usual matters of an heir coming of age… My father was settling his affairs and making certain that my inheritance would transfer smoothly. He arranged for Georgiana to visit our Fitzwilliam cousins, made certain that I was occupied in London, and then he went home to Pemberley so that he could die alone.”

“Oh Will…” Elizabeth could think of nothing to say… no comforting platitudes that would not sound trite after a revelation of such magnitude. She could only hold him and love him as he finally released that grief which had been bottled up since his father’s death.

They sat thus for a long time and it seemed as if even the woodland creatures went silent in sympathy. Even as Darcy’s tears dried, he clung to her like a child, soothed by the touch of her fingers brushing his curls back from his brow.

While Fitzwilliam recovered from his confessions, Elizabeth contemplated his revelations.

After a time, she knelt beside him, taking his hands in hers and meeting his eyes.

“Will, it tears at me to know you have been through such pain… I would do anything to ease it… but I also begin to comprehend how you grew into the man you are today… the man I love with all my heart.”

“But also the proud, arrogant, cynical git who you despised,” he muttered gruffly, studying their hands.

She responded slowly, choosing her words with care.

“Fitzwilliam, you are the best man I’ve ever known.

Knowing you better, I understand how you used those attitudes to protect yourself from all the hurts and disappointments that cut at you.

That you could live through so much and yet still remain, at your core, such a good and honorable man, shows an uncommon strength of character, I believe.

Elizabeth focused on his face and saw that, though he was blushing a little, he was also looking at her with a sort of awe.

A giggle bubbled up from deep within her and, despite the weighty subjects that had been canvassed that day, the couple was joined in a feeling of lightness and intimacy that bonded them just as strongly as the vows that they would repeat before church and God later that week.