Page 81 of The Longbourn Bloodline

I write this because I cannot speak it, and I cannot carry it to my grave without someone knowing the truth.

George Darcy, whom the world believes was born at Pemberley in 1694, was my brother. My true, full, legitimate brother—the son of Thomas and Philippa Bennet, born at Longbourn in the same year that the Darcy heir was born at Pemberley. They were infants together, and then the Darcy child died, and my parents—God forgive them, for I cannot—sold my brother to take his place.

“Sold him!” Darcy exclaimed. “But… this is incomprehensible. Why?”

Elizabeth’s hand tightened on his arm, steady and warm, though her lower lip quivered and her eyes, wide and dark, seemed to absorb every shade of his pain.

“Where did you find this? And why did she write this in 1775?”

“She died that year.” Tears pooled in Elizabeth’s eyes. “She loved him to the very end.”

“And she kept it secret except to one she would warn?”

“She could not let the lie rule over the truth. She discovered he had died the year earlier, and he went to the grave believing she did not love him. She wrote this… to him… and to me.”

Darcy could not read on. The torn Bible page, bearing George’s true name, matched the signature he had once seen in the journal—the hand of a man who fancied himself the Bennet spare, lent out as an heir of convenience. George had dreamed of marrying Alice, inheritance or no.

He had died a broken man. A Bennet.

And then, a thunderbolt clapped against his heart. He clutched his chest, staggering, and a painted miniature dropped from the packet. Elizabeth snatched it up, taking the rest of the packet, the ribbon, and the loose Bible page.

“Let me see that.” He reached for the miniature and saw an infant, startlingly similar to his own miniature, with that strong Darcy brow, the one that reached across the space between. “Is this… George?”

He turned it over. It was undated and unsigned.

“His mother, Philippa, painted it herself. Giving him away broke her heart.”

“But they sold him. They…”

Elizabeth’s finger brushed his trembling lips. “They lent him, Fitzwilliam. Alice was furious, understandably, but I have thought about it all night. Such arrangements were common when a wealthier family lacked an heir or wished to ensure their estates passed intact rather than surrendered to the Crown. They would designate an heir to take their name and⁠—”

“But they took him when he was an infant,” Darcy protested. “They erased his identity so that when he came to Longbourn, he believed himself a Darcy. Most of these arrangements do not replace a son wholesale. I must write to Mrs. Reynolds and search the Pemberley archives.”

“Is that truly your first thought?” Elizabeth’s face slackened with hurt. “Should we not tell Georgiana? Jane? Bingley?”

“Yes, of course. Bingley’s great-grandmother is mentioned here. She was his sister, possibly with Darcy blood, but Elizabeth, if this is true… then I am not who I claim to be. I am not a Darcy.”

“You, Fitzwilliam, are still a Darcy in every way that matters.” She shook him gently, and he saw the workers glancing at them, their shovels and picks idle.

Guard your heritage, his father’s voice said from the depths of his memory. The Darcys have held Pemberley since William the Conqueror. Guard it.

But the Darcys had not truly held Pemberley since the early 1700s. The Bennets had, wearing the Darcy name like a borrowed coat, passing down a lie through generations until it had become indistinguishable from truth.

“I must go to London,” Darcy declared. “I must consult Blythewood. He will know the exact language of the entail. He will know—” He broke off. What would Blythewood know? How to manage the dissolution of everything Darcy had ever been?

“Fitzwilliam.” Elizabeth’s voice was firmer now, steadier than his. “Look at me.”

He looked at her. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed from a sleepless night, but her gaze was unwavering, steady as a vow.

“This changes nothing between us,” she said. “I love you, and I will marry you. Whatever happens with Pemberley, whatever the solicitors say, whatever the world thinks—I am not letting you go.”

“Elizabeth—” The word came out rough, scraped from deep in his chest. “You cannot marry me. Not now. Not when I do not even know who I am, or what I have to offer you. The scandal alone⁠—”

“I do not care about the scandal.”

“You should. Your family⁠—”

“My family will survive. They have survived worse.”