It was in a fine mood that Elizabeth stepped back into the parsonage door.
As soon as she stepped into the parlor, Mr. Collins worriedly asked why Elizabeth had walked for so long, and if she still could dress properly before they must walk across to Rosings. The parson’s anxiety was met by Elizabeth with a bright smile.
Mary hurried her upstairs to dress together. This was also met with a bright smile.
She had told him.
And he did not despise her.
And Mr. Darcy had invited her to join the party when Bingley and Jane went to Pemberley.
There was precious little imperfect in the whole world in her humble opinion. All future tears now could be delayed until Mr. Darcy married, or at least until after that visit to Pemberley.
As they sat while the maid arranged their hair, Mary said to Elizabeth, “You appear to be in a good mood.”
“No. I do? But how? How could you tell?” Elizabeth grinned brightly once more.
Mary rolled her eyes. “Lizzy—you were walking with Mr. Darcy again, were you not? Did he say anything of particular interest?”
“He made a proposal to me,” Elizabeth paused for just a fraction of a second to let Mary’s eyes start to widen, before she quickly added, “A post teaching Latin and Greek at a girl’s school that he is a patron of.”
Mary stared at Elizabeth for half a minute. “You did that on purpose.”
“I have no notion what you mean,” Elizabeth replied primly. “But there is no time to discuss the whole.”
They went across to Rosings Park, with quite a cheerful air. Mr. Collins gave a delightful speech about how great Lady Catherine’s respect for him was, and how that had been proven by her giving them a new invitation to dine so soon after the previous one.
From within Elizabeth glowed. She had told Darcy, and he barely cared.
Into the house, over the black and white marble entry hall, up the stairs with the rich bannisters, down the corridor and past the staring family portraits of the gallery. Elizabeth was delighted by the whole house. And then the drawing room.
The familiarity of one visit was not quite enough for Elizabeth to have lost all interest in looking about her as their feet echoed.
Opened door.
Butler’s announcement of their names.
Elizabeth’s eyes looked around for Darcy.
A completely bald man who looked to be in his fifties sat next to Lady Catherine. The left side of his face was a little fallen in, in the way of those who had only half recovered from an attack of apoplexy. But his eyes were sharp and alert.
He stared at her with a hunger.
The world froze when Elizabeth saw him. Motes of dust caught in the afternoon light. The draft caused by the opening of the door and Miss de Bourgh’s fire in the grate. Breathing.
Mr. Darcy frowned and looked between her and the man. Viscount Hartley also frowned at the tableau, but he appeared confused, while Elizabeth felt as though Darcy thought he understood.
He was the man who had beaten her as a child.
The tightness in her chest relaxed a little at seeing Darcy’s attention to her. Part of her was convinced that nothing really bad could happen to her while he was in the room. She at last heard Lady Cathreine ordering her to sit in the chair directly across from that man . She thought the order had been given several times already.
With an unsteady step she sat, not five feet from him. Then she moved the chair to the side until she sat closer to Darcy than him .
Flickers went through her memory.
He had been familiar. He had often been there. That beating was not the only time she had seen him. She had always been frightened of him. But at times she had loved him as well.
The solution to the mystery seemed obvious, yet her mind refused to say it.
The gentleman spoke with slight slur due to the weakness in the left side of his mouth, “I am astonished. Lady Catherine, I confess it. I had not expected this. Not even after all you had said—from her appearance there is little question.”
Though he spoke to Lady Catherine his eyes did not leave Elizabeth’s.
Why ? Lord, heavens. Why!
Speech was impossible for her. As was looking away from him, even towards Mr. Darcy.
“I ought to make my own examination,” the man said, “though my heart already knows. Elizabeth, tell me about when Mr. Bennet took you. What happened?”
At his use of her name, ice swept through Elizabeth’s chest. It was a familiar feeling, though she had barely any memory of the familiarity. No, she did. He would use that tone. He always used that tone when she had run about too freely or loudly.
And she would freeze. She could not explain. And then he would—
“Speak. Explain yourself. Now.” That tone of anger from him. It brought fear of punishment. She had to talk, or else he would progress to anger.
“It was raining,” Elizabeth stuttered out. “Mama was so hot. I remember a carriage ride. Very long. It was with other people. Strangers. Mama gripped my hand. She became very sick. She threw up in the carriage...it was a stagecoach; I realize that now. Took a room in the inn. Or maybe it was...there was a man who gave her something to drink. To reduce pain. And then...we slept together in the same bed that night. Mr. Bennet was there the next day. Mama told me he was kind. That he would take care of me. She was so sick. I was so scared. But I did not know that she would die. I did not know. And then...she was even hotter. She screamed and raved. Then she convulsed, shaking terribly. And then...then she was still. She didn’t move. I finally touched her. She was still warm. And—”
Elizabeth could not speak more. She could not see for a time with the tears of memory blinding her.
“All this time.” The gentleman smiled with the strong side of his face. “She has been dead all this time—my rage. My fear that I would become a murderer in truth if I ever knew where she was. And the Lord had killed her, without my efforts. The Almighty has been kind! There was balm in Gilead. The Lord struck down the adulterer, and he has restored my daughter to me.”
“Good God,” Darcy exclaimed.
“You never killed them?” Lord Hartley cried. “And she is...little Lizzy?”
“You are the one who beat me. You beat Mama too!” Elizabeth suddenly exclaimed. He had said enough, she knew enough of who he was to guess at the whole. But her mind did not want to give him that name.
“I would not have beaten you had I known,” the gentleman said. He was Lord Rochester. “I was under a misapprehension. But your appearance shows the truth now. You are the image of my mother, your hair color is identical to Bobby’s, and to what mine was when I was young. You still have the marks on your face of your mother’s ancestry—I wish there was nothing left of her in the world. But you are my daughter.”
Everything was hazy. Scared, so scared. Elizabeth’s breath caught; she could not breathe right. It was as though she were choking, but she could not faint. She had to watch him. She had to, so she could tense up when he struck her. Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt as much. She had to—
There was a touch on her hand and Elizabeth jumped in startlement. She had not seen Darcy get up and come stand next to her. He pressed her hand. “Do not fear,” he whispered to her, “You do not need to fear him.”
She took his hand and squeezed it as tightly as she could.
Prompted perhaps by Darcy coming to Elizabeth’s side, Mary also came and embraced her around the shoulders. “Lord! I’d seen that you had the same coloring as Lord Hartley! But I never imagined.”
Looking at the man Elizabeth said, “You called me a bastard, and you beat me. I remember that. I always remembered that. I believed it. I’ve never forgotten.”
“I was mistaken,” he said. “But you need not worry. Your coloring, the look of your face, there is no question. Despite the many sins of my wife, which the Lord saw fit to kindly punish her for, she had not presented me with a false child. The Lord has been kind to me. I had chosen to forgive her, to find her so that I might test if I could forgive her when I saw her—the Lord saw my soul, and he knew it was good, and he rewarded me. She is dead already, and I have a second child. There is balm in Gilead.”
“I think,” Darcy said sharply, “that your attempt to find forgiveness in your soul for your departed wife has clearly failed.”
“By what right do you criticize me—” The earl sputtered. “Get away from my daughter, Darcy. I do not give you permission to touch her.”
Elizabeth had a spark of fear, but Darcy did not move.
“You beat me,” Elizabeth said again. “You beat me and called me a bastard.”
“I only did so because I had been mistaken about your identity.”
“You beat me.”
The gentleman waved his hand, as though he wished Elizabeth’s words to float away as the trivialities that they were. A matter of no importance, not next to things of greater importance. “I am a man of strong temper, and my rights had been stolen from me. I was full of anger. And I was mistaken. You need not—”
“And Mama. She screamed! I remember her screaming. There was a crack as you kicked her.”
“She deserved what she suffered. I’ll let no gentleman in England say otherwise. And I would have shot her lover if he’d not fled to France. Darcy, step away from my child, or I shall remove you.”
There was that look in his eyes. That look that he’d had then . The anger made the weakness in his face more apparent, the difference between the drooping left side and the harsh lines of the right side greater.
“Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy said with a pretense of ignoring Lord Rochester, but there was a tenseness in his form, and a way of holding his head that showed that Darcy watched him from the corner of his eye. She saw that Darcy was prepared to stop him if the man abandoned his drawing room manners so far as to attack her, “Do you wish to retreat? You cannot find present company congenial, and you must wish to have some time to think upon what you have learned.”
“Fitzwilliam Darcy,” Lady Catherine said sharply, “You will sit down immediately, and cease to interfere with Lord Rochester’s conversation with Lady Elizabeth.”
That name.
She wasn’t a bastard. She wasn’t illegitimate.
And she wasn’t Mr. Bennet’s daughter in any real way. She had a living father who she feared. Was she supposed to go with Lord Rochester?
No. He’d beaten her, and he only spoke of how he had been right to do so.
Elizabeth pulled in a deep breath.
Darcy’s hand on hers. Mary’s arms around her shoulders. Clear afternoon sunlight streaming in. Velvet cushion beneath her.
Lord Rochester’s sunken in face. That familiar haughty expression. The old fears.
Lord Hartley stood. He stepped between Elizabeth and his father. “You really are. I saw it. I thought I half recognized you. Elizabeth. You really are Elizabeth.”
“I had not imagined this,” Mary whispered anxiously into Elizabeth’s ear, “as the solution to that mystery. When I see that man, I know why Papa hid you.”
Feeling warmed by those who surrounded her, Elizabeth stood unsteadily. “I thank you, Lady Catherine, for this information. Lord Rochester, I will—”
“You will not speak to me in such a way. Come stand next to me. Let me see you closer, daughter.” He stood and walked forward to her. That the one foot dragged a little did not change that it was a gentlemanly stride with some steadiness.
That fear came back. A flash of memory, a fear of a hand made into a fist. The memory of pain.
But so long as Darcy and Mary supported her, she would not quail or scream. “And if I do not come with you, will you beat me? No, no. No, I remember what sort of man you are—Good day.”
Lord Rochester sharply said, with no slur in the voice this time, “Sit down. I have not dismissed you.”
She barely stopped herself from running. But Darcy was with her. Mary was with her. And he could not stop her.