Page 43 of Mr. Darcy’s Forgotten Heir (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)
“Tonight, at the end of our conversation, there was a moment,” Elizabeth said, her voice softening at the memory. “When he admitted his disadvantage, when he acknowledged that I know him better than he knows himself. There was such openness in his expression. Such a willingness to understand.”
“That is the real Fitzwilliam,” Lady Eleanor said. “Beneath the pride and the ceremony, there is a man of profound feeling and integrity.”
“I know,” Elizabeth replied. “I glimpsed him at the Red Lion, and I see him now, struggling to emerge from behind the walls of propriety and duty he’s constructed. That’s what makes this all so…”
“Confusing?” Lady Eleanor suggested.
“Unbearable,” Elizabeth corrected gently. “How can I love a man who does not know me? Who sees me as a fallen woman deserving of pity and financial compensation?”
“Yet you do,” Lady Eleanor persisted. “Despite everything.”
“He is so lost,” she whispered. “So adrift without his memories, clinging to propriety and duty as if they might save him from drowning. He insults me without meaning to, offers money when he should offer understanding, and yet…”
“And yet?”
“And yet when he looks at William, there is something there—some connection he cannot explain or deny. When he speaks of honor and responsibility, I hear the same man who sheltered me during a storm. When he struggles to understand why I affect him so deeply…” Elizabeth touched the ring through her dress. “Yes. God help me, I still love him.”
Lady Eleanor reached across to cover Elizabeth’s hand with her own. “He will build new memories. He can love you in the present.”
“Not when my circumstances run afoul of his high principles,” Elizabeth remarked. “He sees me as irreconcilable. He thought he was so noble, giving me a settlement as compensation for my sacrifice. And yet…”
“You refused him.” Lady Eleanor nodded. “Of all the young women who approached Darcy House claiming to be compromised, demanding a settlement, you were the only one who cared more for my nephew’s health than your own reputation.”
“Perhaps it was because of William. I could not hide my condition,” Elizabeth admitted. “Even now, I only wish for William to know his father.”
“True, but you weren’t the only one with an expanded figure,” Darcy’s aunt admitted. “You were the only one I granted a private interview. I sent the others to my sister, Catherine. ”
The two women shared a chuckle at the thought of Lady Catherine effectively dispatching the false accusers.
“It must be difficult for Darcy to wake up to this parade of women besmirching his reputation,” Elizabeth said. “That is why I refuse to make a claim. Georgiana wanted to tell him, but…”
“It would cast you in the same light as the others. Do not worry, Elizabeth, whether he will remember your meeting or fall in love with you all over again, I know my nephew. He will be earnest to protect you and William to the best of his ability.”
“And yet, he told me he failed me,” Elizabeth recalled Darcy’s anguish. “Burning with fever, he cried out to me. Said my name.”
“See? It’s returning. Dr. Harrison said that true memory returns naturally whereas false memories can only confuse. Did he recall anything else?”
Elizabeth put her hand on her forehead, despair flowing over her. “He named his attacker.”
Eleanor’s gasp was audible. “Who?”
“A man named George Wickham of the Meryton militia.”
“George Wickham?” Lady Eleanor’s expression sharpened with concern. “The steward’s son? The one who attempted to elope with Georgiana?”
Elizabeth had not known. Her hand flew to her mouth, horror washing over her features as the pieces suddenly connected.
“The very one,” she said, now realizing Darcy’s antipathy for the man. “Wickham laid a trap on the road. I thought at first it was only fever’s fancy. But he repeated it. He was certain.”
Lady Eleanor’s expression had grown increasingly grave during this exchange. “If Wickham was indeed responsible for the attack on Fitzwilliam, we must consider what he hoped to gain beyond simple robbery.”
“He seemed to hate Darcy and rejoiced about his misfortune,” Elizabeth recalled. “Wickham came to the inn after Darcy left. He claimed Darcy had sent him to escort me to London, that I was to be placed in a sanatorium for my ‘delusions’ about our relationship. ”
“A calculated deception,” Lady Eleanor concluded. “Had you gone with him…”
The implication hung in the air, too terrible to voice. Elizabeth felt a wave of gratitude for the innkeeper’s wife who had warned her, for the Honywoods who had offered safe passage, for the instinct that had kept her from trusting Wickham’s false solicitude.
“What did Fitzwilliam have with him when you found him?” Elizabeth asked, remembering Darcy’s words about the documents. “After the attack, when he was brought to London. Did he have any possessions at all?”
Lady Eleanor shook her head. “Nothing but the clothes he wore, and those were so bloodied they had to be destroyed. No watch, no papers, no money—nothing that might identify him. It was only through the recognition of a former acquaintance that he was eventually identified as Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
“Then Wickham took everything,” Elizabeth concluded. “The marriage license, his papers, anything that might prove our connection. He left Darcy for dead and erased all evidence of our marriage.”
“He loathes Fitzwilliam for blocking his suit with Georgiana and her thirty-thousand-pound dowry,” Lady Eleanor concluded. “But with Wickham, there was always another angle. Monetary advantage. If he held on to the papers, it could mean he would sell them to the highest bidder.”
“What will you do?” Elizabeth asked.
“I suppose I might contact my sister first or pose as Darcy’s concerned aunt.
” Lady Eleanor rose. “I don’t suppose you young ones require my presence much longer.
The breeding season is over for the sheep, and I have a marriage license to locate.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for a most invigorating autumn. ”