Page 76

Chapter Thirty-Seven

D arcy stepped into his study and closed the door behind him.

The afternoon light pressed against the windowpanes, unmoved by the turmoil he felt.

He had meant to work—there were letters from London gossip papers waiting, and his solicitors expected updates—but his eyes kept drifting to the open desk.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow was her wedding. Elizabeth’s name shimmered in his mind with a brightness that made his chest tighten. He should be up at the altar in two hours, if not for another—someone else.

He crossed the room, feeling the sting of betrayal. Not hers—his own. He had signed the documents, sealed the contract. He had made a choice. A deal. He had torn the paper, but the tear lay open between them still.

Could he? Should he? He had no right. He had vowed to do what a gentleman did. He had promised decorum. He had believed in duty.

Yet he could not stand it. Not tomorrow.

And so he paced, pausing before the bookshelf where her favorites stood—Scott, Austen, even a volume of Gray’s poetry.

All his attempts to keep it together collapsed when he brushed his fingers against the spine of Sense and Sensibility, the pages that came as close as any to understanding either of them.

He whispered her name, barely there. “Elizabeth Bennet.”

The burn in his throat caught him by surprise. He had tasted bitterness in his mind—anger, regret, resolve—but now it loomed as pure anguish.

He opened a drawer and withdrew a folded sheet: the announcement for the wedding, printed in bold script and dated tomorrow, with her name and Captain Marlowe’s name beside it. He touched the names as though they were cold items on a ledger.

He turned away and struck his fist against the desk—so loudly that the mountains of ledgers jumped, a bell in his skull ringing.

“I cannot let this stand.”

He would march down the aisle, if it meant she would look at him the way she once had—eyes bright with fury, with wit, with something more. But what would he say? That he loved her? That he had always loved her? That he had offered too late, and now came to ruin her peace with his regrets?

He snatched his coat, then hesitated, hand on the lapel. A memory: her arching a brow at him for his too-earnest expressions. “You would interrupt a wedding?” she would tease.

He had told himself he would not. That to challenge tomorrow would degrade what remained of their dignity. That to speak at the wrong moment would make her a spectacle.

But this was not about dignity. It was about honesty—his own, at long last.

Darcy pressed his palms against the desk, fingers splayed wide as though to anchor himself. The wedding was tomorrow. Her wedding. And here he was, pacing like a lunatic, mourning something he had never dared claim.

He reached for the folded wedding announcement once more, studied the printed names, the florid script. "Captain Frederick Marlowe and Miss Elizabeth Bennet." Neat. Respectable. Final.

His eyes burned.

He would not go. He could not. She had made her decision—or at least, he had left her no room to make another.

To appear now would be a cruelty. To stand at the back of the church like some discarded suitor, hoping for divine intervention or second thoughts—it would not make her his. It would make her a cautionary tale.

And he loved her too much for that.

Darcy sat down heavily, staring at nothing. The fire hissed softly in the hearth. He could feel it again, the ache that had settled behind his ribs since the morning of his own unraveling. He had known then. He would never marry anyone else.

So be it.

Georgiana had looked at him this morning with such hope—hope that he would recover, that something good would come of all this damage. He would not give her more reason to doubt the world’s fairness.

He drew a fresh sheet of paper and dipped his pen. The motion steadied him, just barely. If Elizabeth would not be at his side, then he would still set his house in order—for Georgiana’s sake, at the very least.

"Summon Dyer," he wrote. "Though I know the terms are likely ironclad, I must ask again. There are matters regarding the trust which require immediate attention. I wish to learn if there is a way to name an alternate trustee in the event of dispute."

He paused, tapping the pen once against the inkstand. "Explore whether the dowager Countess may be named in equal standing with the current guardians. Discreetly."

He signed it. Folded it.

It would not bring Elizabeth back. It would not erase what he had done.

But it was something. And it would have to be enough.

T he parcel was thin.

No scent of lavender or paperwhites. No ribbon, no seal. Just her name—Miss E. Bennet—written in a sharp, unfamiliar hand, and a footman in livery insisting it had been paid in advance for immediate delivery. She turned it over twice in her palm. Light, but not weightless.

Mrs. Gardiner watched from the doorway. “Shall I…?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No.” Whatever this was, it had been meant for her alone.

She slipped her finger beneath the flap.

A pamphlet slid out. Cream-papered. The print still smelled of ink. On the Matter of Miss Bennet: A Case Study in Ambition, Disgrace, and Female Conceit.

The breath left her lungs in a single, soft noise.

She did not open it. She did not need to.

The title alone was artful, just indirect enough to avoid libel—just personal enough to burn.

The last in a series. Miss Bingley’s series.

Prepared long ago, likely in tandem with her own failed engagement, set to print and mailed with deliberate timing.

Elizabeth could picture the timeline perfectly.

This had been arranged weeks ago. A farewell slap in print, sent first-class and soaked in perfume-free spite.

It would have been almost admirable—if it were not so very cliche.

A proof, no less. Sent directly to her.

It was almost flattering, in a way. Caroline Bingley had summoned every drop of venom in her inkwell for one last curtain call.

And for what? To prove Elizabeth was vain?

Ambitious? Audacious? She might as well have announced that fire was hot and horses occasionally smelled.

The pamphlet only said what the rest of the world had already started whispering.

The Gardiners had grown silent behind her.

Elizabeth folded the thing carefully, deliberately, and placed it atop the desk like a relic to be buried. Her hand lingered on it for only a second.

It was not even an attack, not really. Just an observation dressed up as social caution. She was too proud. Too clever. Too quick to laugh at the wrong people.

And the worst part? It was not even a lie.

Mrs. Gardiner stepped forward, slow and deliberate. “My dear…”

“I shall not be ill,” Elizabeth said. Her voice was too calm, too clear. It startled even her. “But I do not think I can remain in London.”

Mrs. Gardiner said nothing for a moment. Then she laid a hand gently on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “I thought to write your father.”

Elizabeth shook her head faintly. “Longbourn would be no refuge. Not now. Not with every eye in Meryton fixed on the scandal.”

“No,” her aunt agreed. “But Lambton might be.”

Elizabeth looked up.

“My sister’s house is quiet this time of year. She would be glad to have us. The town is small, and the air is clean, and the neighbors—if they speak—speak with kindness. It is a few days’ journey, but I think it may do you good.”

Kindness. What a quaint indulgence. She had not spoken the word aloud in weeks without choking on it.

Elizabeth hesitated. The name itself felt heavy. Too heavy. “It is too close to—”

“He need never know we are there,” her aunt said quickly. “And no one else need guess it.”

The fire crackled in the hearth, throwing light on the pamphlet lying half-curled in Elizabeth’s lap.

She looked down at it, at the bitter ink, the neat malice.

Let Miss Bingley have her say. Let her carve up Elizabeth’s name with all the glee of a butcher at market. It changed nothing. Society had already decided: Elizabeth Bennet was a cautionary tale in walking boots.

She had nothing left in London worth staying for. And if she could not vanish entirely, then at least she could retreat somewhere quieter. Somewhere her name might not follow, and somewhere she might disappear at least until Jane’s happy future could be secured.

“I should like to leave before the evening post,” she said.

Mr. Gardiner, already reaching for his coat, paused to nod. “Then we will.”

Elizabeth gave no thanks. Only a slight incline of her head. She did not cry. She would not give Miss Bingley even that.

Upstairs, her trunk already sat half-packed by her own restless hands the night before. She would need only a few more minutes.

And a place where she could forget the name Darcy was ever spoken at all—if such a place existed in this world.

23 January

“ Y our uncle will object,” Dyer said without looking up, pen scratching across paper. “You understand that.”

“I expect nothing less,” Darcy replied, standing with arms braced on the mantel.

“But his objection will stand,” Dyer continued. “If you are not married by your birthday, you cease to be her legal guardian. Your father’s will assigned joint custody to the Earl and Lady Catherine until your sister’s majority—or marriage.”

“I am aware,” Darcy said tightly. “I am trying to prevent either from happening under their terms.”

Dyer set down his pen. “Then you are asking me to challenge the will.”

“I am asking if there is any mechanism by which it can be amended. Temporarily reassigned. Matlock sees her as an opportunity. Lady Catherine will spend her dowry.”

“And the dowager?” Dyer asked mildly.

“She is capable. And more interested in protecting Georgiana than parading her. I am hoping that with the… permission of the other trustees, a neutral party can be added to the oversight.”