Page 82 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“Your mother⁠—”

“My mother will have hysterics, and then she will recover and find a way to turn this to her advantage.” Elizabeth’s hands came up to cup his face, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Listen to me. I did not fall in love with Pemberley. I did not fall in love with ten thousand a year, the Darcy name, or the portrait gallery. I fell in love with the man who rewrote an entail to protect a family that was not his own. The man who saw a widow’s roof and fixed it without being asked. The man who submitted to yardstick deportment lessons because my sisters asked him to.” Her voice caught. “That man is still here. That man is still you. And I am not letting him push me away because he thinks he is being honorable.”

Darcy closed his eyes. Her hands were warm against his face, her presence solid and real in a world that had become suddenly, terrifyingly unstable.

Let her go, a treacherous whisper urged. Let her go now, before the scandal erupts, before her name is dragged through the mud alongside yours. Set her free.

But he could not. He would not, because she was looking at him with those extraordinary eyes, telling him she loved him, and he was not strong enough to refuse what she was offering.

“The workers,” he said, his voice rough. “I must give them instructions. They are to report to Bingley until—” He hesitated, the thought unfinished. Until what? Until the world rearranged itself to his understanding?

“Yes, do what you must, Fitzwilliam.” She used his name freely now, her love overriding any formality. “But do not stand in a frozen field and offer to give me up as if that were the honorable course. You have made me an offer and a promise. Let me stand beside you while you sort through the wreckage.”

Darcy looked at her—at this woman who had spent a night alone with a dead woman’s truth. He could not speak, but he could accept her bravery, her care—something he could never have done when he first descended upon Longbourn when he was the sure master and heir. Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead against hers, holding the moment, two people holding each other upright over an abyss.

Then he straightened. Drew breath. Became, by force of will, a man capable of giving instructions, and told the workers that Bingley would oversee the removal. He helped Elizabeth mount Molly, and untied his horse.

They rode back to Longbourn in near silence, Hercules and Molly walking abreast along the frozen lane, their breath rising in matched columns of white. Two matched bays from the same bloodline.

Elizabeth reached across the space between their horses and laid her gloved hand over his on the rein, and he turned his hand beneath hers and held it, and they rode like that for perhaps a quarter of a mile before the lane narrowed and the horses drew apart, Molly in front, leading the way back to the house just visible through the bare trees, its windows lit with breakfast candles, a thread of smoke rising from the kitchen chimney, the ordinary signs of a household beginning its day. He had once sat at that breakfast table as the accepted suitor of the house’s second daughter, certain of his place, certain of his name, of Pemberley, worried about uprooting his bride. Now, he had no place to take her, no place to locate himself.

“Georgiana,” he said, and his voice caught on his sister’s name. “How do I tell Georgiana? She lost our parents, but she always knew her place in our family. Secure. The Matlocks still hold; they are on my mother’s side. Lady Catherine and our cousins. But the Darcy line died long ago, and I must tell her that the family she has clung to—the portraits she has studied, the ancestors she has traced, the name she has carried with such pride—is built on a purchased child?”

“You tell her the truth.” Elizabeth’s voice was gentle but firm. “You tell her that she is still your sister, that you love her, and that nothing in this packet changes who she is or who you are to each other. The rest—the legal questions, the social consequences—those can wait. But Georgiana cannot wait. She will sense that something is wrong, and she will imagine worse than the reality.”

“Alice… she lived a reality worse than the lie.” Darcy felt the decision crystallize inside of him, like steel forged and beaten on the anvil of truth. “We tell them, because to hold this secret another generation is intolerable.”

She turned to look at him—her eyes full of love and grief and unyielding resolve. The ground steadied beneath him, moored not to a name or an estate, but to her, Elizabeth Bennet… Bennet.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

THE BENNET BOURN

How does one inform a family that the foundations they believed secure was founded on a lie? Elizabeth took her toast and tea in the small parlor while sitting across from Jane. The door was shut, because the discussion would be more difficult with Mrs. Bennet’s exclamations, except Mamma had stood still in the corridor, her silence so complete and unlike herself that Elizabeth heard Lydia ask her if she was well.

There was no audible answer. Jane quietly dabbed her eyes, sensing the turmoil, without any explanation, waiting patiently, which was patently Jane, who could remain serene despite the earth cracking underneath them.

The strange silence persisted until the carriage from Netherfield arrived. The wheels had barely stopped rattling when Mr. Bennet emerged from his study. Jane rose from the settee, where she had sat facing the window, and together, they watched Darcy hand his sister down from the step.

Georgiana’s face was pale, her dark eyes wide, searching for answers, and her steps unsteady. She held Darcy’s arm tightly as they crossed the yard, and Mrs. Bennet stirred finally, asking Hill to bring tea, cakes, and sugared almonds.

“Tea would be welcome, Mamma. Thank you.”

Mrs. Bennet nodded. “I shall see to it. And the fire should be built up. It is cold today. Miss Darcy will want warmth.”

She bustled away, and Elizabeth caught a glimpse of Mary, Kitty, and Lydia clustered at the top of the stairs, their faces pale and curious. They knew something was wrong. The entire house knew. But they had not been told, and they would not be—not yet, not until the people most affected had been informed.

“Elizabeth,” Mr. Bennet said softly. “I believe I should be present for this conversation.”

“Yes, Papa. I think you should.”

He studied her face for a long moment, his sharp eyes reading what she could not say aloud. Then he nodded and selected a small armchair in the corner.

Elizabeth went to the door and welcomed Georgiana with an embrace. She held the girl’s thin shoulders while beholding Darcy’s pained visage. She would do most of the talking, and she would show him the small comfort of not having to cushion the blow for his sister.

The tea tray was brought in, and Darcy stoked the fire, then took his position beside Georgiana on the small sofa. Jane remained in the window seat, and Elizabeth moved the chair to face them.

“Sisters,” she addressed both Jane and Georgiana. “There is no better way to say this, but that I have discovered that our families are rooted in the same place. Here at Longbourn.”