Page 46 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“I believe Mr. Darcy is also family, although from a distant branch,” Jane said.

“Ah, yes, up north they had a custom of installing second sons into other family lines,” Mrs. Pratt said. “My grandmother told me about it. We always wondered why Mr. Bennet did not find another heir when Mrs. Bennet stopped bearing, although, please excuse me, an old woman who does not watch her mouth.”

Jane met Elizabeth’s startled look with a serene dip of her head. “Pray do not heed us, Mrs. Pratt. We are happy to hear your grandmother’s tales.”

“It may be nothing, though,” Mrs. Pratt’s demeanor brightened. “But my grandmother said in her day there was a boy from up north who was lent to the first Thomas Bennet. He was the second son of his family—some great family, but your great-grandfather was sickly, and they did not have females in the entail, even though there was a daughter named Alice among others.”

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as Elizabeth recalled Colonel Fitzwilliam mentioning Darcy’s great-grandfather’s journal and his descriptions of spending summers at Longbourn.

“Was he a Darcy?” Elizabeth asked.

“I do not know his family name, except that his name was George.” Mrs. Pratt’s eyes grew distant with memory. “He was sent here sporadically to learn the estate. In case the heir died, he would inherit and carry on the Bennet name.”

“But the heir did not die,” Jane said.

“No, miss. Thomas Bennet survived the pox. Sickly and weak, but he married and had sons and daughters.” Mrs. Pratt broke off a wedge of her seedcake. “By then this George had visited one last time, big strapping boy, and he fell in love with Alice Bennet.”

Both Elizabeth and Jane set down their forks and stared at each other.

“Alice used to sit in the orchard and tell stories to all the children. I remember her. She always carried a basket with peppermint. She died before you girls were born, but her stories live on.” Mrs. Pratt’s eyes grew distant with memory. “She described this George as the tallest boy she knew, and how she used to walk as fast as she could to keep him off balance. He was too clumsy to catch her as she skipped over stiles and hopped fences, but she delighted in the ways she could make him blush.”

“What happened to them?” Jane asked quietly. “George and Alice?”

“George’s elder brother died up north, and he was recalled to Derbyshire to take up his proper inheritance.” Mrs. Pratt shook her head slowly. “The families quarreled over it, my grandmother said. The Bennets felt betrayed. They had loved him as their own, and now he was being taken away. The Darcys felt they had every right to reclaim their son. Alice said she was not allowed to see him again.”

“And George never returned to claim her?” Elizabeth asked.

“No, Alice never married.” Mrs. Pratt’s eyes met Elizabeth’s with unexpected shrewdness. “She lived to a great age. They say she kept a letter from this remote heir until the day she died. Carried it in her pocket wherever she went.”

The fire crackled, the kettle hissed, and Mrs. Pratt rose to tend it. Jane’s hand found Elizabeth’s beneath the table. Somehow, the tale of George Darcy—she was certain now it was he who had written so fondly of Longbourn—had become the story of Mr. Darcy, who had also come and found a Bennet daughter he could not forget.

“Mrs. Pratt,” she said slowly. “Did your grandmother ever say—did Alice ever speak of why George left? Whether he wanted to go?”

“Oh, he didn’t want to go.” Mrs. Pratt said it with certainty. “My grandmother was clear on that point. He wept when they came for him—a young man of eighteen or nineteen, weeping like a child. But duty called, and the Darcys were not a family who ignored duty. He went because he had to. Because honor demanded it.” She paused. “Just like your Mr. Darcy, I suppose. Called away to his sister when he would rather have stayed.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest that he was not her Mr. Darcy, but the words would not come.

Elizabeth still had no words as she and Jane walked back toward Longbourn. The lane curved by the paddock where Jane’s mare stood, flicking her tail, past the outbuildings and the stable yard, and past the hedge that screened the steward’s cottage from the main house.

And there it was: the steward’s cottage, dark, its windows unlit, its chimney cold. Hoof marks, footprints, and wheel ruts tangled in the snow, evidence of the gentlemen’s earlier departure. Elizabeth halted, her heart thudding, and swallowed a lump she chose to blame on the seedcake.

“Lizzy?” Jane paused beside her. “What is it?”

“I want to look inside.”

“The cottage? But it will be empty.”

“I want to check that it has been secured.”

Jane looked at her—a long, quiet look that saw everything and pressed nothing. “Of course.”

“I shall not delay above a moment.”

Elizabeth climbed the low stile and crossed the yard. The cottage door was closed but not locked. She lifted the latch and stepped inside. The air was still and cold, carrying a faint mineral smell of stone and plaster. The valet had swept before they left, with the floor clean and the shelves bare of personal items, no shaving kit, boot-brush or leather journal lying conveniently in a forgotten nook.

The Longbourn ledger sat on the desk, and Elizabeth opened it, flipping the pages, not sure what she expected or hoped to find. There was no loose paper, and the invoices had been noted and paid with Darcy’s precise handwriting.

A single inkblot marked the surface near the right-hand edge—fresh enough that the edges had not yet dulled to brown, dark and round and glistening faintly in the thin light that crept through the shutters. He had sat here this morning, dipped a pen, and written the note to her father. Short, polite, and clear.