The Disappearance of Georgiana Darcy: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery (17 page)

“Or maybe not so still.” Elizabeth smiled knowingly at Darcy. “I shall be happy to entertain Mrs. Joseph until your return. It shall be a small consolation.”

“After tomorrow, Pemberley will seem quite empty.”

“At least, Kitty shall remain in the neighborhood,” Elizabeth said.

Darcy kissed the back of her hand. “Let us bid the Reverend Mr. and Mrs. Winkler farewell. They will enjoy the privacy of the dowager house for the next week.”

Elizabeth teased, “You sound as if you wish it were us.”

Darcy's eyes twinkled in mischief. “I would welcome the privacy, but I much prefer the familiarity of our current intimacy to those early days of uncertainty.” He brought her a bit closer. “I find knowing how to please you more intoxicating than learning what pleases you,” he murmured into her hair. “And I will spend
my time in Scotland concocting new ways to bring the pink flush to your face.”

Elizabeth blushed profusely, and Darcy chuckled. However, she managed to offer him a challenge. “As you well know, Mr. Darcy, I am not an easy woman to please.”

After Kitty and Mr. Winkler's departure, the various guests bid Pemberley's hospitality farewell. Within the hour, the Bingleys' two coaches rolled toward Cheshire. Sir James and Lady Winkler had retired to their son's small house. They would leave Derbyshire for Dorset on the morrow. Rose Winkler had rejoined her parents at the ministerial lodgings, a fact which had vexed Ruth Joseph greatly. “I do not see why Miss Winkler could not remain at Pemberley for one more evening,” she had protested to a less than sympathetic Mrs. Joseph. Her husband and Mr. Darcy had ridden out closer to two than to the one of the clock that Pemberley's master had preferred.

Mary sighed deeply as her husband's figure disappeared over the rolling ridge leading to the main turnpike road. With a like gesture of resignation, Elizabeth interlocked her arm with Mary's, and together they turned toward the main entrance. “We have been abandoned, Mary, for the prospect of great riches,” Elizabeth said in that conspiratorial tone they had often shared. “How shall we persevere?”

Mary glanced up at Pemberley's majestic entrance. “At least, they left us a proper abode in which to while away our time.”

As the tension in Mary's grip lessened, Elizabeth laughed easily. “There is that advantage to our loneliness,” Pemberley's mistress declared with an easily recognized false bravado. “Perhaps, Mr.
Darcy shall return to find the house decorated in his favorite shade of pink.”

Mary laughed also. They would make a go of their loneliness together. “It would well serve him if it were possible to do so.”

“We shall start with the gentleman's private chambers.”

It was there. She had searched the room for Darcy's letter. In her heart, she knew he would leave one for her, but when she had purposely looked for it earlier, disappointment had greeted her efforts. As she retired for the evening, she had sought one of Darcy's shirts in place of her nightgown. She knew herself foolish, but she would risk the servants' whispers to keep her husband close in his absence.
Hannah shall silence the gossip
, she had told herself as she draped Darcy's fine lawn shirt over her shoulders. Elizabeth had had a delightful afternoon and evening with Mary and Ruth. They had even created a whimsical list of all the pink items she would need if she were to redesign Darcy's sitting room and bedchamber. Now, it was time to be alone with her fears for him. “I shall never order another new night rail. Only new shirts for my husband,” she had told herself.

When she had passed through Darcy's dressing room to reach her own, she found the letter propped against the mirror. On the outside, Darcy had written in his familiar scrawl, “Yes, Elizabeth, this is for you!”

“The man is too self-assured,” she grumbled, but she happily snatched up the letter and returned to her bed before reading it. Carelessly, she wondered how this particular letter would rate among Darcy's previous ones. For a man of few wasted words, her husband was absolutely garrulous when he took pen in hand. She should have recognized that quality in him prior to their marriage.
She had witnessed the number of letters he had written to his sister and his cousin and his man of business when they both had stayed at Netherfield.

“How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter.” Despite her best efforts, Elizabeth could easily recall Caroline Bingley's manipulations to earn Darcy's attention. The lady, on one particular occasion, had seated herself near Darcy and had watched the progress of his letter to his sister, while Elizabeth had been sufficiently amused by what passed between Darcy and his companion. Later, she had regretted thinking poorly of the man she had come to love, but at the time, she was quite convinced of her own absolute opinions. “I should have listened to my heart. I should have realized that my anger existed because I so deeply wanted his approval,” she whispered to the silent room. That particular evening, Miss Bingley had repeatedly called off his attention with messages to Georgiana. The perpetual commendations of the lady on either Darcy's handwriting, or on the evenness of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern with which Miss Bingley's praises were received, had formed a curious dialogue, and was exactly in unison with Elizabeth's opinion of each at the time.

Over the past three years, her opinion of Caroline had not altered. In fact, try as she might to feel otherwise, she disliked the woman completely. “The Americans do not deserve such an abomination,” she declared. Then she thought of the man with whom Miss Bingley had eloped, and Elizabeth knew her censure unjust. The man they had known as Beaufort Manneville had proven himself quite false. “The lady should have aligned herself with someone who would curtail her wickedness, not encourage it,” she decided. Elizabeth's thoughts returned to how foolishly she had misjudged Darcy. “Of course, I did not always love the man so well as I do now,” she thought with a self-chastising snort of laughter. “But in such cases as
these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself.”

The image of Darcy ignoring Caroline Bingley hung in Elizabeth's mind. “He was quite crotchety now that I consider his words,” she mused. “Oh, my,” she laughed openly. “I wonder if my dear husband realizes in hindsight how often he defended me with his every rebuff of Miss Bingley's regard. It is quite delicious now that I dwell on it.”

“You write uncommonly fast,” Miss Bingley had said to capture Darcy's attention.

Without looking up, Darcy had countered. “You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.”

“How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year! Letters of business too! How odious I should think them!”

Darcy had responded in that same voice Elizabeth now recognized as the one he used when someone annoyed him. “It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours.”

Miss Bingley had ignored his tone. “Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.”

“I have already told her so once, by your desire.” In retrospect, Elizabeth should have recognized his censure. Instead, she had thought they spoke intimately.

“How can you contrive to write so evenly?”

He remained silent.

“Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp, and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley's.”

“Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present, I have not room to do them justice.”

“Oh, foolish, foolish me,” Elizabeth moaned. “Why did I not see Mr. Darcy's worth prior to that volatile encounter at Hunsford? I should have acknowledged our compatibility, at least to myself, when we shared the time at Netherfield, and I should have seen how little Fitzwilliam liked Miss Bingley's flattery. Was I jealous of the woman? Even then? How humiliating is this discovery! I could not have been more wretchedly blind.”

Accepting her foolish pride as her weakness, Elizabeth shrugged away her self-censure.
It cannot be undone
. Upset with herself for being so naïve, she snuggled lower into the bed linens for comfort. Turning on her side where she might lay the pages on the wool pane covering the bed, she traced Darcy's script with her fingertip. Then she sniffed the shirt's sleeve and closed her eyes to bring Darcy near. “I am humbled by your love, Mr. Darcy,” she said before unfolding the page.

Elizabeth chuckled. The Master of Pemberley often gave orders when he slept. Yet, she could not find fault with the man's air of superiority. He had taken on his shoulders the responsibility for all their lives, and Fitzwilliam Darcy performed his duty well. Nothing escaped his notice.

Elizabeth brushed aside the tear crawling down her cheek. “The man always manages to reduce every emotion to its unique core. I shall never understand how he does it.” Elizabeth read the letter twice more before blowing out her candle. She slid the message under her pillow. Eventually, it would join the others in the beribboned stack in the bottom drawer of her wardrobe, but not before she had committed it to memory, just as she had done with all the others. “Good night, my love,” she whispered to Darcy's empty pillow. “Hurry home. Bennet and I shall not sleep soundly until we feel your strong arms holding us again.”