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“Then let us return together and hope that everyone will just assume we were having a cigar in the card room or out on the terrace.”

As they re-entered the ball, Amelia and Jenny were still engaged in conversation with Elizabeth, assuming that they had kept her from realising that William was missing. And fully aware of their efforts, Elizabeth had dutifully played along. Unfortunately, neither knew of the special bond that united the pair. The weeks Elizabeth had spent in the recesses of her mind, lost in despair, William had been the only light to penetrate the darkness. And as her soul reached out to connect with his, she had learned to sense his presence. Thus the moment he entered a room, she could feel him, and subsequently, she also knew the minute he left.

~~~*~~~

Later that night, after all the guests had departed and the family had retired to their rooms, or in the case of the Darcys and Ingrams, to their own townhouses, Elizabeth asked the question that had been on the tip of her tongue since William had disappeared from the ball.

“What secret are you withholding until you believe I am capable of dealing with it?”

In the process of removing his boots, William stopped with one halfway off. Shrugging to himself, he wondered how he ever thought he could hide anything from this beautiful, intelligent woman. Still, he did not answer, but unhurriedly finished undressing under her watchful gaze. She would wait until he found the words—she always did. As he gathered his thoughts, he relived what had transpired two days before.

At the soft knock, he looked up to see Mr. Barnes at the door of the library.

“Sir, there is a woman at the door insisting that she is Mrs. Darcy’s mother. I barely got her to wait on the stoop while I came to inform you. I would not let her in without your consent.”

William quickly calculated how long Elizabeth would be gone on her shopping trip with his aunt. “Barnes, if Mrs. Darcy returns while this woman is here, I would not like them to meet.” Barnes nodded. “Please escort her to my study and have a footman wait outside the door while I interview her.”

Mr. Barnes quickly went back to the front entrance. Once there, he took a deep breath and opened it. “Follow me, madam.”

Pleased to be allowed inside such an expensive house, Mrs. Bennet could barely follow the butler for surveying and touching the elegant furnishings. Looking back to see her dawdling, Barnes chided, “I said follow me please!”

She stepped up her pace and shortly found herself inside a study. As she turned in a circle, envying the splendour, William entered, motioning for the footman following to wait at the door as he closed and locked it. He then crossed to sit down behind the desk, his face an inhospitable mask as he eyed the woman he had come to despise. She stood looking about uneasily, as he never offered her a place to sit.

But seeing as she had the attention of the elegant Mr. Darcy that she remembered from Netherfield as being very wealthy, she began her prepared speech. “I am Mrs. Darcy’s mother, Frances Bennet!” She dipped a low curtsy.

With no little disdain, William spit out, “Explain why you are here!”

“In London?”

“At my door!”

She smiled hesitantly, taking a seat on the edge of a chair. “I came to London in pursuit of the whereabouts of my eldest daughter, Jane Bingley. When I saw in the news that you were to be in London for Colonel Fitzwilliam’s engagement ball, I rushed here. You and Charles Bingley are friends, are you not? You would know where he has taken my Jane.”

“Why do you not know where your daughter resides?”

Mrs. Bennet cocked her head guiltily, not meeting his eyes. “Jane was helping to support me and my other daughters. Once Mr. Bingley found out, he spirited her away from Hertfordshire and cut off all communication. He is indeed most ungenerous.”

Lifting shifty eyes, she eyed William to gauge his reaction to her next statement. “I was hoping only for information on my Jane when I arrived, but I found so much more! I found that my Lizzy is not dead, but alive, and I was equally shocked to find that she is your wife!”

“I can assure you, madam, that Mrs. Darcy is not your daughter. My wife is the former Elizabeth Lawrence, a cousin of mine from Sussex.”

“Nonsense! I know my own daughter! You and she were leaving the bookseller on Centre Street when I exited the shop across the street. I could not get to your carriage in time, but I clearly saw my Lizzy.” She shrewdly looked about the room estimating the cost of the furnishings. “And I know that with so wealthy a husband, my daughter would want to help her destitute family, since my Jane is no longer allowed to do so. Besides, you are so much wealthier than Mr. Bingley. It would not surprise me if you were to set us up in a much nicer estate and with an allowance.”

William’s jaw clenched as his hands formed fists. He stared coldly at her until she shrank back in the chair speechless.

“Madam, according to Jane Bingley, your daughter Elizabeth resides in a grave in the cemetery at Meryton, put there by your greed and selfishness.”

Mrs. Bennet tried to assume an innocent look. “I assure you all those rumours of how I benefited from her marriage were not true! And now I learn that even my Lizzy’s death must have been a lie meant to wound me. After all, I saw her for myself only yesterday!”

“ENOUGH!” William shouted, his voice vibrating through the room and silencing the harridan. “MyElizabeth’s surname is Lawrence—Elizabeth Elise Lawrence. She is no kin of yours, I can assure you!” William’s eyes darkened and narrowed as he leaned forward. “And if you persist in spouting this nonsense, do you know what action you shall force me to take?”

Mrs. Bennett’s head slowly moved from side to side, her eyes widening in fright at the expression of hatred on his face.

“I shall be forced to have you arrested for threatening my wife and have your sanity evaluated. I assure you, with my friends in the medical field, that you shall be found insane. Then my uncle, the Earl Matlock, will begin proceedings to have you committed to Bedlam straightaway.”

Mrs. Bennet took a ragged breath, her head still swinging slowly left to right as she wondered at the turn her mission had taken.

William stood, slamming both hands down on his desk as he leaned forward, making her jump. “Bedlam, madam! Where a delusional woman—one who has contributed to the death of her own child, whom she buried in the local cemetery and now insists is alive—should reside!”