Page 30 of The Same Noble Line (Darcy and Elizabeth Happily Ever Afters)

June 1822

Pemberley had never been more alive than it was today. The great house hummed with activity as family members from every corner of England converged for Mary Bennet's wedding to the new vicar of Lambton.

Mamma Bennet's voice carried through the music room. “I have seen your wedding clothes, and you have chosen morning dresses that would better suit a housekeeper. Oh, Mary! What will the neighbourhood think?”

His sister Mary, seated at one of the instruments with her betrothed, Mr. Alistair Clarke, merely smiled. Clarke turned the page for his intended, his expression rapt as her fingers danced across the keys.

From a quiet corner, Darcy saw Elizabeth observe her sister's contentment with satisfaction. Of all the Bennet girls, Mary had taken longest to find her path, but she at last had met a man whose dedication to both faith and music matched her own. That he had also read every text on moral philosophy that Mary had ever recommended had only increased his appeal.

The debates they had engaged in over those books were quickly becoming part of Pemberley’s family legends.

“Cousin Darcy!” Little Diana Fitzwilliam reached for his hand. “Papa says you must come support him. He and Uncle Beckworth are arguing over old stories again.”

Darcy allowed himself to be led to where Fitzwilliam stood with his brother, their wives looking on with fond exasperation. Richard's two daughters, in matching blue frocks, were attempting to teach Viscount Beckworth's youngest son to dance while his elder siblings looked on with brotherly disdain.

“I tell you, Darcy was there,” Richard insisted. “He saw the whole thing.”

“I was where?” he asked.

Elizabeth appeared at his side, little Georgiana on her hip.

“Hamilton's wig,” both brothers said at once.

Before Darcy could reply, Jane approached. “Lizzy, might we steal Mary for a moment? We need her opinion on the music for tomorrow.”

“If you can separate her from her betrothed,” Elizabeth replied. “I have never seen a man so enchanted by Bach.”

“It is not the Bach,” Jane said softly. “They suit perfectly. And now we shall all be settled at last.”

Darcy's gaze swept the room. Kitty, happily married to a Hertfordshire squire, was showing Georgiana's husband a miniature of their daughter. Lydia, somewhat matured by marriage to a sensible barrister but still irrepressible, was teaching all the children a country dance while their nurses looked on in mild alarm. Lady Matlock sat with Mamma Bennet, both of them examining the piece of lace that Mary would wear in her hair, while Lord Matlock dozed in a nearby chair.

“I was there,” Darcy told Richard and Beckworth. “Attempting to stop you both from ruining the wig and getting yourselves sent down.”

Bennet entered then, a book tucked under his arm. “I see most of the family has anticipated me. The library was quite peaceful until your children discovered I was reading The Odyssey .”

Said children poured into the room behind him.

“They come by their love of stories honestly,” Elizabeth replied. “On both sides.”

“Indeed they do.” Her father's eyes twinkled. “However, they none of them yet know Greek.”

A chorus of childish laughter rang out as little Diana Fitzwilliam went spinning past, her cousin Edward attempting to lead despite being half a head shorter.

From her place at the pianoforte, Mary began to play the piece she had composed as a wedding gift for Clarke, who gasped. She was a far cry from the serious girl who had once lectured her sisters on propriety, but then, Darcy thought, they had all come such a long way from who they had once been.

Elizabeth, in search of her father, peeked into the grand library at Pemberley. There he sat in his favourite armchair, a well-worn copy of Gulliver's Travels open in his lap and seven children arranged around him in various attitudes of rapt attention.

“And so,” he intoned dramatically, “when the Emperor of Lilliput arrived in his finest regalia attended by several thousand of his tiniest, most distinguished subjects—” He waggled his eyebrows at Thomas Bingley, who giggled.

“How many exactly, Grandpapa?” asked his sister Elizabeth, aged eight and precise in all things like her mother.

“Five thousand three hundred and seventy-two,” her father replied without missing a beat. “I counted them myself when I visited last summer.”

“You did not!” declared Jane Darcy, who at six was beginning to suspect that adults were not always entirely truthful.

“Did you not see me there?” her father asked, peering at his grandson over his spectacles. “I was standing right next to Mr. Gulliver himself, though I appeared quite tall in comparison to the Lilliputians.”

“You are taller than most everyone except Papa,” nine-year-old Richard Darcy said seriously.

“But Grandfather,” said Anne Frances Darcy, aged seven and her father's daughter in both looks and logic, “you were here all summer. I remember because you taught me to play chess.”

“True,” Papa crooned happily, “but that is the wonderful thing about books, my dear. They can transport us anywhere, even to Lilliput, without our ever leaving our chairs.” He turned the page with a flourish. “Now then, where was I? Ah yes—the Emperor was wearing his tallest heels, which made him almost as tall as my thumb . . .”

Three-year-old Charlie Bingley had crawled into his grandfather's lap, his copper curls bright against Mr. Bennet's waistcoat as he reached to touch the page. “Picture?” he asked hopefully.

Her father dropped a kiss on the top of Charlie’s head. “Not yet, my boy, but soon. And when we reach it, I shall tell you about the time the Emperor nearly fell into his own soup tureen.”

From her hiding place near the door, Elizabeth watched her father weave his tale, his voice rising and falling with practiced ease, his eyes twinkling as he held his grandchildren spellbound. How different this was from the man who had once hidden in his book room to escape his family. Now he seemed to delight in sharing his sanctuary, particularly with the next generation.

She smiled as Thomas let out a peal of laughter at his grandfather's impression of a very offended Lilliputian courtier, complete with squeaky voice and exaggerated gestures. Even her little Georgiana, only two and usually as quiet as her aunt had once been, was sitting at her grandfather’s feet staring up at him with her thumb in her mouth.

“But Grandpapa,” Jane interrupted suddenly, “I thought Odysseus was the one who—”

“That was a completely different adventure,” Papa said smoothly. “Remind me to tell you about that one tomorrow.”

Elizabeth pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle her own laughter. Her father caught her eye and winked, never pausing in his tale. She lingered a moment longer, treasuring the scene before her: her father, once so eager for solitude, now the centre of this warm tableau of family affection.

How far they had all come.

The letter arrived with the morning post, which Darcy had taken to read in the library. Even when empty, as it was this morning, the space held warmth and life that his own austere study never had.

He broke the seal of a letter addressed in an unfamiliar hand, postmarked from Warton.

17 June 1822

Dear Mr. Darcy,

I am writing to you as the new vicar of St Michael's, having succeeded the late Reverend Compton two years ago. He was the vicar here for more than sixty years. In organising the parish records, not a small task, I discovered the enclosed letters that I believe may be of interest to your family.

They were sent to the parish orphanage in the year 1760 by a clergyman in Liverpool. They appear to have been misfiled, still unopened, and then quite forgotten. Forgive me for breaking the seal, but I did not wish to burn them without perusing their contents, on the chance they might be sent on at last.

I was not expecting what I found. They contain the confession of a midwife regarding a certain event at Pemberley in the year 1758.

Given the sensitive nature of their contents, I thought it best to forward them directly to you.

Your servant,

The Reverend Thomas Morton

Darcy had nearly forgotten that cold, hasty journey to Warwickshire early in the year twelve. His hands trembled slightly as he opened the small packet. Inside was a note from a pastor in Liverpool and a single letter containing a dictated confession. The paper was aged, the ink faded, but still legible. As he read, his breath caught in his throat, and when he finished, he sat quietly for a time before reading it again.

“Fitzwilliam?”

He looked up to find Elizabeth in the doorway, her expression shifting from cheerful to concerned as she caught sight of his face. “What is it?”

“We have found her,” he said quietly. “The midwife who took your father.”

Elizabeth crossed the room swiftly, settling beside him on the sofa. “After so many years?”

“A confession, made to a priest in Liverpool before she sailed for the Americas. It was lost all this time.” He passed her the first letter. “Her son had incurred gambling debts. The men he owed threatened his life. She had arranged to say the babe had died and sell him to a man who desired an heir. It so happened that your father was the first male infant she came across, and being a twin, she thought it would not be so difficult for the mother to lose him.”

Elizabeth's hand flew to her mouth. “But how did Papa end up with Grandfather Bennet? You do not mean to say that he was the one who paid . . .”

“No.” Darcy kept reading. “She discovered the man who had engaged her was cruel, particularly to his wife. She could not bear to leave the child in his care. Nor could she return to Pemberley, for fear her son's creditors would find them or she would be caught and imprisoned.”

“So she took him to Reverend Bennet.”

“To the orphanage, yes. She thought the fine blanket would ensure he was well cared for, and later expressed her hope that her confession would lead to his recovery.” Darcy's jaw tightened. “She and her son booked passage to Boston and were to leave the day after this was dictated.”

Elizabeth was silent for a long moment and then she placed a hand on his arm. “We must tell Papa.”

Darcy gathered the letters carefully. “He will want to read these himself.”

They found Bennet in his usual chair by the fire, surrounded by his grandchildren. He was regaling them with what appeared to be a highly edited version of Perseus and Medusa. When they entered and met his eyes, his smile faded.

“Elizabeth, Darcy. You look uncommonly serious this morning.”

“Papa,” Elizabeth said gently, “might we speak with you privately?”

Bennet studied their faces, then turned to his eldest grandson. “Richard, my boy, would you take everyone to the nursery? I believe Mrs. Carlson mentioned something about fresh biscuits after luncheon.”

Once the children had departed with their governesses and nursemaids, Darcy handed over the letters.

He watched as Bennet read through the confession, his hands gripping the paper more tightly with each passing moment.

Finally, his father-in-law set the letters aside and removed his spectacles, polishing them with more attention than they required. “Well,” he said at last. “I suppose that answers the question that has troubled us these ten years.”

“Are you well, Papa?” Elizabeth asked softly.

“Quite well.” He replaced his spectacles. “Though I confess, I find myself rather grateful to that desperate woman. Had she completed her original scheme, I might have been raised by a cruel man, been badly abused, or become cruel myself. Instead, I had a father who loved books and learning.”

“She might better not have taken you at all,” Elizabeth said quietly. “But I do not know what would have happened to Jane and me if she had not.”

Darcy’s heart beat a staccato rhythm in his chest. If Bennet had not been there to save Elizabeth, his own family would not exist. He did not like to think on that.

Bennet picked up the letters again, his expression thoughtful. “I suppose we ought to add these to the family papers. Future generations might enjoy realizing that our history was not so dull after all.”

A shout from the hallway interrupted them, followed by the thunder of many small feet running in the hall and Thomas’s cry. “Grandpapa! Jane says there cannot be biscuits because we have not yet eaten luncheon, but Mrs. Carlson says we must only ask permission first!”

Bennet's eyes twinkled as he handed the letters back to Darcy. “It seems I am needed elsewhere. There is an urgent matter of biscuits to attend.” He placed a weathered hand against Elizabeth’s cheek. “I would not have changed a thing, my Lizzy, except that I should have liked to be a better father to you all.”

Before he or his wife could reply, Bennet had gone to meet his grandchildren. As the children surrounded their grandfather, Darcy slipped his arm around Elizabeth's waist. The final part of the mystery was solved at last, but the series of desperate choices and missed connections that had begun and ended here at Pemberley had led them all back to this moment, to this family.

He could not be more grateful.