Page 47 of Tempted (Heart to Heart Collection #2)

Chapter 47

E lizabeth spent an hour with the countess and the dowager that morning. Tears were shed, yes, but after that, wisdom and practicality became the order of the day. Lady Matlock was disappointed that she was to be once again cheated out of planning a grand Darcy wedding, with all the resources of Pemberley and her own ingenuity to make it the event of the season. But she consoled herself with the fact that Elizabeth was, once again, her sister, and would bring much good to the earl’s brother in his life’s sojourn.

Through that sweet parting, Elizabeth tried to focus her thoughts on the cares of the moment—no more. She would never have expected the two noblewomen to prove the very iron to gird her spirit, but such they were in these final hours. Alas, the dowager was no young woman. When her eyes grew visibly weary, Elizabeth withdrew, making the excuse that she had business with her maid, letters to write, and final preparations to undertake.

The truth was none of these. The truth was that her beating heart was just as weary as the dowager’s mortal coil, and the fatigue would surely reduce her once more to tears if she lingered.

A maid met her as she came out of the room. “Excuse me, ma’am, but Jenny is waiting in your room to help you change into your riding habit.”

“Riding habit?”

“Yes, ma’am. Mr Darcy informed us you wished to go out this morning. The horses are already waiting in the courtyard.”

Elizabeth caught her lip between her teeth. A ride with William… It was the most reckless idea she could conceive.

It was also just how she would wish to say goodbye to him. There could be no more fitting tribute to their time together, no purer seal to their final moments than a sunlit afternoon by his side. No ears to hear their parting words, and yet the space of horseflesh would be between them, to help her remain strong.

“Tell Mr Darcy I will only be a few moments,” she decided.

William was waiting for her just before the stables. He stood straight and proud, and anyone would think he was only anticipating a pleasure outing. Anyone but her, for she could see what others might not notice—the largeness of his pupils, the faint tremor in his smile, and the way his shoulders were not quite so erect as in former days. He held Sage’s head, and just beside her, his own big hunter, the one she thought was still at Pemberley.

“I thought you would like a farewell ride on her.” His voice sounded clearer than she expected, but just at the end, the final note dropped tellingly.

She approached and laid her hand on the mare’s neck. “You're not thinking of coaxing me into running away, are you?”

His mouth tightened. “I would if I thought you would ever run from anything. Fear not, Elizabeth, it is only a ride. May I help you to mount?”

She turned slightly to him, meaning to accept, then thought better of it. “I can manage.” One last time, she touched Sage on the shoulder, and the little mare bent the knee so she could step up.

“Where shall we go?”

He looked as if he had some inspiration and caught his breath to speak, but the light in his eyes dimmed. “Anywhere. I just need the exercise, and I daresay you do, as well.”

They turned up the lane, neither knowing where their steps would carry them. No words passed for a long while, nor did they dare look at one another. It was more than they could have hoped to just walk side-by-side, feeling the steady sway of equine muscles, the even clapping of iron shoes on the gravel.

“Will you take her back to Pemberley?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes on the mare’s bobbing head.

His answer was slow in coming. “Yes. Though, I doubt I shall ever ride her again myself. I ought to leave polo to the younger lads, and she seems to enjoy being a lady’s mount better. Perhaps Georgiana will take a liking to her.”

“I hope so.” Elizabeth patted the mare’s shoulder wistfully. “She deserves someone to look after her.”

“So do you,” William blurted, but by the time Elizabeth looked over at him, his lower lip was already compressed in regret. “Forgive me. I ought not to have said that.”

“I was actually thinking the same about you,” she replied softly. She longed to say more—to ask how he would manage with everyone, even Georgiana, gone, but the answer already shone in his face. He was dying inside, and these cherished few minutes were his final reprieve. She would not fracture them with talk of the future they both looked to in dread.

They had, however, nothing else to talk of. There was an embargo on every possible subject, and they fell to a lingering silence so uncomfortable that after a time, Elizabeth began to regret accepting his invitation. Surely, a short farewell would be a less painful memory than this!

It was William who broke the dismal shroud of silence at last. “You know, Richard… I have always thought highly of him. He is one of the best men alive.”

She looked over at him. “Yes, I know.”

“And he will make a… a good husband.”

She nodded.

“And a good… good father.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were entirely filmed over. Any moment, she would crumble. “William,” she choked, “why are you doing this?”

He cast his gaze over the hilltops in the distance, shaking his head and gesturing vaguely as his throat bobbed. “I have to. I have to believe you will be well, or… or I do not know what. I do not think I could carry on in life if I could not think that somewhere in the world, you were well and safe. Happy—Elizabeth, you must be happy, or I swear to you, it will kill me!”

Her lungs squeezed—tight bands constricted her voice, and she merely looked ahead, trying to accept his words.

“One thing I have not said,” he continued. “I have not begged your forgiveness.”

She blinked dewy lashes and stifled back a deeper breath. “For what?”

“For making this more difficult for you. For trying to tempt you away, for trying to hold you myself… for loving you in the first place.”

“No,” she replied softly. “Never apologise for that. You made me, William. Loving you has been the finest hour of my life, the sweetest privilege I have ever known. The rest of my years, I will cling to this, for no matter what comes, how I grow to… to love Richard, it is you who have defined my being.”

He drew up his horse. “Elizabeth, are you sure of this? Going with him? Are you sure you can endure being cut off from everyone and everything, and be content with him as your only comfort?”

She sniffed and looked down. “No.”

“Then, why?” He stepped his horse sideways and came close enough to reach out. His hand hovered beside her cheek, over her riding veil, then touched softly on her shoulder. “Would you come with me instead?”

She gasped a broken laugh. “I would follow you to the moon and back, much good that would do us. We both know—”

“Hang what we both know! I mean it, Elizabeth. If you are so willing to hop on a ship with Richard and depart to Lord knows where, would you do the same with me? We could… oh, we could follow Anne and your cousin around the world, or buy some nice little piece of land in Canada. If you mean to start over somewhere else, why not with me?”

“William, please don’t do this again,” she sobbed. “It is not about where I am, or even who I love. It is acting with honour, looking my Maker in the eye at the end of my years and knowing I did the right thing. Do you really think I could live with myself or love you as I ought if I felt guilty for being with you?”

His hand fell, and he nudged his horse forward again. “No,” he said after an ugly, stricken silence. “I know you could not. Then it is to be Richard who tastes Heaven on Earth. And all for the simple fact that he met you first.”

“Even so, I am glad of it.”

William looked back at her. “Glad? You are glad?”

She swallowed and nodded. “Had I not married him, I would never have known you. My life is richer for that.”

She heard him sigh… once, twice, and then a final, quaking moan rent his breast. “So am I, my love.”

“I believe that settles it.” Reginald blotted the page before him and set the pen aside. “I'll have this drawn up and dated for last year—just for appearance’s sake. As to the money, I have enough presently in my strongbox that we shall not need to go to the bank. It should be sufficient for a good start for you somewhere.”

Richard rose from the desk in his father’s study—now his brother’s—and allowed himself another full look about the room that had defined so much of his boyhood. “I never thought,” he murmured, “that when I came back to this place— if I ever came back—that Father would have gone before me.”

“His heart was simply finished,” Reginald answered quietly.

“His liver, you mean. He drank too much and too often, but I still believed I would see him again, for all that.”

Reginald nodded and began to rearrange the pens on his desk. “It was a terrible shock to us all, and worse when we got the telegram about you two weeks later. I thought it would kill Mother. As it is, I think it has taken five years off her life.”

“I imagine it has. Do you know, she told me after all that, Elizabeth was her saving grace. Fancy that!”

“Yes! A real surprise she gave us—Elizabeth, I mean. And Mother as well, to be truthful. None of us believed a word of Elizabeth’s story, you know. Darcy did, I suppose, but the rest of us… why, we nearly missed a real gem of a girl.”

“I should have written to you,” Richard confessed. “But I never thought it would come off that way. I certainly put you lot through a great deal.”

“It would have been nice to know the truth of the matter all those months,” Reginald agreed. “But as to being put through a great deal, it was truly you who bore the hardship. I often remind myself of that. No matter what difficulties we have had here, you have had it far worse.”

Richard snorted. “Sometimes I wonder about that. I think about all the galas and soirees Mother would drag us to, with all the preening young misses vying for your attention and the posturing young bucks challenging mine. Nothing is ever as it seems in the drawing-rooms and ballrooms of our sort of society. A cross word in an unguarded moment can instigate a scandal that wags tongues for weeks. No, it is not so very different, save that I can expect a straight-up fight with my fists rather than being stung by a thousand nettles. Still, I would take a starched collar and uncomfortable shoes over malaria and bullets any day, given the choice.”

“Indeed. At any rate, you should be free of them all now. Richard—” Reginald paused, his brow lined with some thought or other, and he held up his hand. “No. Never mind, it is better left unsaid.”

“What was it?”

“Nothing, really. A silly sentiment that would have meant nothing, because I do not know how to say what I truly wish.”

Richard extended his hand to his elder brother. “I will miss you, too, Reginald. God willing, maybe I can come back someday. Perhaps when I am too old and grey to be of interest to the Army, no one will recognise me for myself, and I can come as a common traveller. One never knows,” he finished lightly.

“I hope that day comes sooner rather than later.”

Richard grunted. “I would ask one favour, though. Look after Darcy, will you? It occurs to me that he will be quite alone when everyone has gone. He always was a solitary chap, but I do not think he enjoys it that way.”

Reginald nodded. “That is a ticklish subject, but I will do all I can.”

“If you ask me, he needs to be introduced to some pert young lady. He cannot be pining away for Anne forever.”

Reginald’s expression changed. “Pining for Anne? Is that what you think troubles him?”

“Oh, I am as shocked as you are, for I never saw any particular symptoms of affection between them, but you ought to have seen his face earlier, when I asked about her. White as a sheet, he was.”

Reginald rounded his desk with an odd curiosity marking his features. He tilted his head once or twice, then looked Richard directly in the eye. “Have they told you nothing?”

“Well… no. I asked him where she was, and he told me she found someone to make her happy. That was all he said.”

The earl’s eyes widened. “That ‘someone’ she found was your wife’s cousin, William Collins.”

“Billy!” Richard nearly roared in laughter. “The spineless dandy of a youth, who whiled away his days dreaming of big cities and looking at fashion magazines? That Billy Collins?”

“The very one, and as it turns out, they were better matched than anyone could have imagined. I thought it would set Darcy on his ear, but Anne’s defection was—at the time anyway—precisely the relief Darcy wanted.”

“Relief? Explain.”

“Well… Elizabeth! Good heavens, man, do you know nothing?”

Richard squinted. “I have been recovering from a fever for a week, and everyone has been walking on eggshells and whispering about me. I know the woman I married is not half so tart as she was when I met her, though I suppose past and present circumstances might explain that. And I know that Darcy looks as if he is swallowing bile every time I see him.”

“They were engaged, Richard!”

His face fell. “Engaged?”

“Affianced, betrothed! The only thing they were waiting on was official documentation.”

Richard shook his head. “That cannot be right. Darcy and Elizabeth? No, it… Impossible. He said nothing of this.”

“Well, to begin with, I warned him off speaking. He was all determined to tell you everything at once, but we decided it was too much for you to hear. I deferred because it was his to share, but I cannot believe he said absolutely nothing. Are you certain? You were not entirely yourself when you first came. Perhaps he spoke, and you misunderstood.”

Richard blinked vaguely as he tried to remember. “He said something horrid that he apologised for later, and it begins to make more sense.”

Reginald put his hand on Richard’s shoulder. “I know this must come as a shock, but do not let it trouble you too much. Think, you were gone nigh on a year, and many a handsome young widow is swept off her feet in less time than that. I say it is a jolly good thing it was Darcy and not some other rascal who would not behave so honourably in the circumstances. Darcy and Elizabeth had accepted the way things are, have they not?”

Richard’s chest quaked. “Have they?”

“Of course. She is your wife, clear as day, and Darcy is stepping back as a gentleman. I thought I would have to cuff him in the mouth once or twice, but really, can you blame the man? He is not a fellow to fall lightly for a woman if he does fall, but neither is he a cad or a fool.”

Richard put a hand on his forehead. “I should have seen it.”

“As you said, you were recovering from a fever. How were you to see anything? I would have told you sooner, but I thought that was Darcy’s place.”

He wandered away from his brother, dazed. “Are you certain Elizabeth understands—she could be Mistress of Pemberley if she stays.”

“But she cannot stay because she is your wife. I confess, I doubted her constancy when put to the test, but she means to act like a proper lady, and no mistake.”

His breath staggered two or three times, and he wandered blindly about the room he had known so well, seeing none of its rich articles or memorable curios—only stumbling for the only thing that ever seemed to draw him these days. Light and freedom, open spaces, and fresh air. The window, with its warm glow, promising liberty from his bonds.

“Richard, are you well? Are you sure you are hale enough to travel?”

“Yes.” He squeezed his eye once more and rubbed it with his thumb. “Just a headache, you know. I get them often these days.”

“I should hope it goes away soon. It would be a miserable passage, sailing while still diminished by your fever.”

Richard grunted and opened his eye… and blinked several times. Reginald’s study window looked out over the western face of the house, with a full view down a gentle slope of the old earl’s pride and joy: the stables. And standing in the drive before them were two horses, held by a groom, while a tall, broad fellow helped a woman to dismount.

A thousand feelings slammed his chest from the inside. Envy, foremost among them—bitter jealousy that Darcy, who already possessed so much, would dare even look at a poor soldier’s woman. The second was dismay, in how her gloved hand rested on his for a second longer than was proper, how her veiled head looked dotingly up to him when he said something to her.

Other feelings roiled within his stomach, impossible to catalogue. His fists clenched, and blood hammered inside his ears. What did he feel, confronted with the truth of his own inconsequence?

“Excuse me for a moment, won’t you, Richard?” Reginald, apparently oblivious to the scene down at the stables, went to his study door at the sound of a knock.

Richard stole that moment to compose himself. It was not as if they were out there making love in the driveway. Be reasonable, man , he scolded himself.

They must have been attached to one another, if they had meant to marry. He knew them both, or he thought he used to, too well to believe otherwise. It was not unthinkable that they might wish to bid each other farewell, but an unchaperoned outing on horseback was hardly the way most couples achieved that. What else had they done on that ride? What had happened in the last months?

“Richard—” Reginald’s voice was sharp as he came back from the door. “You should see this.”

Richard was seeing enough already, and a great deal of it was a tyrannical red in shade. He snorted and turned away from the window.

“What is it?”

“This just came.” Reginald held out a letter. “It is written in the same hand as the last note, the one that told me you were in Liverpool. Someone is watching you, Richard.”

“What?” He took it and read, and his veins chilled. “The army knows I’m alive,” he breathed. “And they know I’m in Derbyshire. Reginald, have someone call for my travel case. And send for Elizabeth! We need to leave at once.”