Page 95 of I Thee Wed (Pride And Prejudice Variation #2)

Anne did not own a gown she thought fit to wear to her own wedding. In the end, she accepted a day gown Anise lent her. It was pale peach, chosen by Stevens from among the gowns both Abby and Anise had offered.

“This gown suits the warm tones of your gold hair, Miss Anne,” Stevens said. “You will look beautiful standing at the altar with your handsome man if you wear this color. It brings life to your complexion.”

Anne eyed the maid. “Very well, I will wear it. With such a recommendation, I dare not demur. I would be senseless not to wish to look beautiful at my wedding for my man.” She smiled at the maid.

Elizabeth leaned in. “Anne, please, I do not wish to offend, but your hair must be addressed. Pulling it back and fixing pins into it to keep it from your face will not do on your wedding day. Stevens will help you into your gown and will also arrange your hair.”

Stevens grinned. “Miss Anne, since we have little time before you leave for the chapel, let me see how the gown fits. I have time to make a few alterations.”

The result of Anne allowing Stevens to dress her hair, apply a delicate lip stain, and alter the gown was that she held Richard’s complete attention as she walked elegantly up the nave to meet him at the altar. Even Phillip, who stood with him, was stirred by her beauty.

During the wedding breakfast, no one was more delighted than Lady Helen. She drew her new daughter into her arms and held her. When she released Anne, she said, “I am so pleased. At last, I have a daughter. And I see how you look at him. You love my son.”

All the guests had scattered into the dining room or drawing room with plates in hand, laughing and chatting.

In a corner of the drawing room, Darcy stood beside Elizabeth as she and Richard spoke together.

She was pale and subdued, unlike her usual self.

Perhaps the shock of Seton’s accident had negatively affected her.

Or the soaking in the lake had sickened her.

She had not touched the food he had served her during the wedding breakfast, and now she would not look at him.

That was when he knew something was wrong between them.

His attention was recalled when he heard her ask, “And do you foresee conflict with Lady Catherine over your wedding, Colonel?”

Richard looked down at his hands before answering. “My aunt will be furious. We married without her knowledge to avoid her interference. When there is love, nothing else matters. A quiet ceremony among those who care for you is sufficient. My wife is very unlike the two Fitzwilliam sisters.”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “How is that, sir?”

“She had a father who loved her, and it was he who raised her. Unfortunately, he passed, and she was left to the caprice of her mother.”

Darcy frowned. “Uncle Henry is worse even than Lady Catherine. He is a proud, prejudiced, and unfaithful man.”

Richard’s eyes shadowed. “My mother married up.

She was the daughter of a baron, and in those days, a woman rarely defied her parents' will. At their insistence, she married my father, heir to an earldom, though she knew he was a rake. My father has never been faithful to her, and their marriage is not a happy one.”

Elizabeth’s brow creased. “Why, if he was proud, did he marry beneath himself?”

Richard sighed. “My father is a gambler, as was my grandfather. They needed her dowry. Lady Catherine will storm and rail, but our happiness is assured, and I will protect Anne from her mother. I care not what my aunt thinks or says. If she does not comport herself, she will move to the dower house, or, if she prefers, to a seaside resort.”

He looked at his cousin. “Darcy, your mother was cut from the same cloth. She was as proud and prejudiced as her siblings. She never accepted your father’s lack of position or title. Fortunately, Uncle George did not care. He loved her despite her flaws. He was too good for her.”

Darcy looked at him as though at a stranger. “Richard, what do you mean? How do you know of my mother’s supposed cruelty?”

Richard spoke incredulously. “Our mothers were childhood friends, Darcy. They discussed everything.”

Darcy shook his head. “I do not remember contempt between my parents.”

Richard raised his brows. “Perhaps you were too young to understand. Speak to Mother. She will recount how Lady Anne scorned your father, through manipulations, softening her cutting remarks with a laugh or a smile, as if she were only teasing. But she meant every word. She hurt your father, often in front of others, yet nothing she did altered his love for her.”

Darcy was still disbelieving. “How do you know all this?”

“I am four years your senior, Darcy. I remember her cruelty.”

Elizabeth sniffed, and Darcy’s gaze swept over her.

He turned back to his cousin. “I do not understand her reasoning. My father was the best man I have ever known. He was faithful, loving, and respectful. He was wealthier than her father, a brilliant investor. My father was everything your father and grandfather are not. And yet you tell me she disrespected him simply because he had no title or elevated connections?”

He was angry. Darcy’s gaze turned toward Elizabeth, and he saw her wiping her cheeks with a handkerchief. She murmured an excuse and turned away.

Darcy embraced his cousin. “I congratulate you on your marriage to Anne. You have married a good woman. And thank you for opening my eyes to my mother’s prejudices. I begin to see myself for what I am, a proud and prejudiced fool who has not understood his good fortune. Excuse me.”

He left the room to find his wife and discover why she was crying.

Elizabeth hurried up the stairs, entered her bedchamber, and locked the door.

She stood looking into the room, unseeing.

His words were running through her mind: I married the wrong woman.

She had had to hold back her tears through the entire ceremony and through the wedding breakfast. How she did it, she knew not.

She leaned against the door, then slowly slid to the floor. She pressed her head against her knees and let the tears fall.

How had this happened? She had become her mother. She was living with a man who regretted her. She had not been good enough for Alexander, and now, from the lips of the man who had vowed to cherish her, she learned she was not good enough for him either.

She forced her thoughts back to the night he had proposed marriage, when she had first learned what he thought of her.

He had told her so himself, and she had not misunderstood him.

He loved her, yet he had said she was beneath him by every measure of society.

Had she refused him then and fled, she would now be free, and so would he.

That pain would have been less than what she was suffering now.

But she did not flee from him. She went after him.

Why had she done that? Now he was trapped with the wrong woman. They were both trapped.

Elizabeth blew her nose. But how could she bear never to see Fitzwilliam again? Never to be held within his embrace?

She thought over every look, every act he had shown Abby since the first day her friend had arrived at Pemberley. There had been nothing in his manner to suggest divided loyalty.

How could she endure, knowing he thought of another? Knowing he thought of Abby, one of her closest friends, the very woman she had invited into his house?

She heard a soft tapping at the door, then the knob turned. “Elizabeth?”

She blew her nose. “Go away, Fitzwilliam. I want to be alone.”

She buried her face in her handkerchief and stifled the sobs caught in her throat.

“Elizabeth, please, I need to speak to you.”

“Leave me. I have a headache. I am going to bed.”

She rose, walked into the dressing room, and closed the door, shutting out his voice.

She kicked off her slippers and then tugged at her stockings.

How was she going to live through this? She loved him.

She had loved him since Ramsgate. She began to unbutton her gown.

Life was cold, brutal. She dried her tears with the backs of her hands.

She struggled with the last few buttons and stepped out of her gown.

She hung it on a peg and then moved to a dark corner of the dressing room, sat on the floor, and cried, hunched over with her face buried in her hands.

She did not hear him when he entered.

“Elizabeth? What has happened? Why are you crying?”

“I cannot talk to you right now. Leave me alone.”

“You are alarming me. I have never seen you so, sitting on the floor in the dark, weeping. Has Jane suffered some complication in her pregnancy?”

She continued to cry noiselessly.

Darcy was at a loss. What should he do? Why was Elizabeth crying? She had been so pleased that Richard was married, and she liked Anne.

He lowered himself to the floor and sat beside her in the dark. He waited. Perhaps she would speak when she calmed.

In the silence, Darcy thought back over the past days.

Had he said or done anything to wound her?

She had seemed happy. She was happy. Only this morning, they had loved each other in the hour before dawn, and she had been warm, expressive, alive.

Perhaps it was not his doing. Perhaps the shock of Seton’s near drowning was now unsettling her.

He must have sat longer than he realized, for when he looked at her, she had fallen asleep, propped against the corner wall. Should he wake her? He sat with her another quarter hour, then lifted her and carried her to bed. He laid her down, covered her with a quilt, and left her to rest.