A Matter of Honor

by Abigail Reynolds

  She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. “Answering your questions has brought me to this point, so I will not answer any more. You asked what you could do to help, and this is my answer. Tell them I am married.”

  “But it is not true, and then they would ask about your husband, what he is like, and other questions I cannot answer.”

  “You can invent something.” She gritted her teeth. “Or does your precious honor forbid that?”

  He drew back. “I do not wish to lie to anyone, but what I meant is that I am not constitutionally able to tell convincing stories. People always know when I am lying.”

  Damn him! He would not even try. He had said himself that he was a selfish being, and it was true.

  “Very well, Mr. Darcy,” she said evenly. “Let us try it a different way. Listen carefully to me. Once I reach Edinburgh, I will be married within the week. You heard me say that, did you not? Now will your honor permit you to tell them that I said I am on the verge of marriage?”

  His brows were furrowed, but his eyes pleaded with her. “I do not understand.”

  “What is there to understand?” she burst out. “You can tell them in complete honesty what I just said. I am not asking you to lie.”

  “But it makes no sense. Why would I know nothing about your husband?”

  She rolled her eyes. “If you need me to make up a story, I am marrying – let me see – an actor at the theatre. Yes, that will be good, because it makes me disreputable as well. You met Mr. Sampson at Christmas dinner; he will do as well as anyone else. Can you manage that?”

  He raised his hands, palms up. “I simply do not understand. Why would you want them to think you are married?” He paused and his face hardened. “Or perhaps I do understand,” he said heavily. “You disappeared to avoid being forced into a distasteful marriage, and you are afraid that could still happen. But if everyone believes you are already married, then you need not fear pursuit from your unwanted suitor. That is it, is it not?”

  Her hands balled into fists. Why must he keep pressing her? “You may believe what you like, but it comes down to this. If you cannot bring yourself to tell everyone I am married, then I will have no choice but to make it true. I will find the first man willing to take me for my inheritance, marry him, and send out an announcement to the papers. That would be the price of sparing your honor.”

  His face was white. “I find it hard to believe you would refuse to marry me because of our inequality and then jump into marriage with a perfect stranger who only wants your money.”

  She stared at him in bewildered helplessness. She had forgotten about her attempt at a polite refusal of him, and it made nonsense of her current assertion. “You will never accept something is needful simply because I say it is, will you? Very well. You will not help me to escape the dilemma you yourself caused. I will do what I must, and you may comfort yourself that your honor is intact at the price of forcing me into an unwanted marriage.” She turned away blindly. Conscious that Mrs. Graham was watching them, she grabbed a book to give herself an excuse to leave the room.

  “Elizabeth, wait,” Darcy said heavily. “I will tell them you are married to an actor.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She fumbled for her handkerchief before tears could blind her, but lost her grip on the book, sending it tumbling to the floor. Pressing the fine linen to her eyes, she slowly stooped to pick up the volume and set it with excessive care back on the side table. When she could trust her voice again, she said, “Thank you. I am in your debt.”

  “You are not in my debt,” he said angrily. “My presence in your life has caused you nothing but trouble. All I wished was to make you happy. I wanted it so much that I offered you myself and everything I own. Yet all I do is bring you grief and loss, and the only thing you want is for me to tell people who love you that you are married. Of course I will do it, and I will try to feel grateful that I can do anything to give you even a small measure of comfort.”

  Now the hot tears insisted on pouring out. Oh, it was so much easier when she could believe he was a selfish monster insistent on having his own way! She mopped her eyes fiercely. “I know you never meant me any harm.”

  He was silent for a long moment. “I understand you do not wish to answer questions, but I would like to tell you why it was important for me to tell Mr. Gardiner I had found you, if you are willing to hear it.” He sounded hopeless.

  It was little enough to ask. “If you wish,” she choked out.

  “After I learned you had left Longbourn, I used to lie awake at night, wondering not only if you were even alive, but how intolerable your life might be. Perhaps you were your aunt’s unpaid servant, run ragged at her beck and call, and that spark which brightens your spirit waning to dimness with fatigue. Or perhaps you were working as a governess, with the master of the house abusing his power over you. Or were you forced to become a maid, or even to sell yourself on the streets to avoid starvation? Do not tell me these things do not happen to disgraced gentlewomen, because we both know they do, and such women have little recourse when their families have cast them out.” His voice dropped to just above a whisper. “I have imagined you in all those situations, and I know Mr. Gardiner has as well. I do not have the words to tell you how I felt when I discovered none of those were true, to have that eternal gnawing in my stomach go away and be able to sleep through the night unhaunted by dreams of what you might be suffering. My first thought was to give Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner that same relief.” He paused. “It was beyond cruel for your father to refuse to offer any assurance beyond that you were well, for your uncle, like me, could not trust him on that subject when he did not allow you to write anyone. We could not understand your silence, so that silence was filled with nightmares.”

  Elizabeth pressed her fist to her mouth and bit her knuckles until the pain overwhelmed her guilt. “I had not known,” she said brokenly. But what could she have done if she had known how they were suffering? She had been a fool to rely on her father to provide reassurances when he could choose to simply hide in his study and be silent. She rocked back and forth in a hopeless attempt to soothe herself.

  Mrs. Graham’s sharp voice came from the doorway. “Mr. Darcy, I must insist on putting an end to this conversation. I may be a lax chaperone, but I will not tolerate ye reducing a poor lass to tears.”

  “Rightly so.” Darcy’s voice was clipped. “My apologies for causing you distress, Miss Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth swabbed away the last of her tears. “You must not blame him. He was merely telling me news of my family in England that made me sad.”

  Mrs. Graham snorted. “I am not a fool. I know a quarrel when I see one, lass.”

  “We did quarrel, I admit, but we had already resolved that. Mr. Darcy is not at fault for anything worse than being more stubborn than I like, and I am certain he would say the same about me.” She tried to put a note of finality in her voice.

  “Miss Elizabeth, you know perfectly well that I would say nothing of the sort. I am grateful for your patience with me,” he said quietly.

  “Very well, then,” said Mrs. Graham testily. “Go wash your face, lass, and then perhaps we will manage some civil conversation.”

  EVERY INSTINCT TOLD Elizabeth to flee. Away from Kinloch House, away from this agony, away from Darcy. She could not face being alone with his words ringing in her ears, so she stopped by the nursery to see Timothy. He sat at a small desk, quill in hand and the tip of his tongue stuck out between his lips in concentration, Bonnie Prince sprawled in all his three-legged glory by his feet. When he heard Elizabeth come in, he carefully placed the quill in the inkwell, scrambled to his feet and made a sketchy bow. Nurse must have been speaking to him about his manners again.

  “You look like you are working hard,” she said.

  The boy shrugged. “I was making a fair copy of my Latin composition for Mr. Darcy. He said my last one had too many blots.”

  And of course, whatever Darcy wanted, he got.
“You need not worry about that for long. I am told the snow in the pass is starting to melt, and we should be able to return to Edinburgh soon.” She tasted bile at the back of her throat.

  “No!” Timmy cried. “I don’t want to go back!”

  Startled, Elizabeth said, “It was always the plan we would only stay for a month.” What had happened to sweet, calm, cooperative Timothy?

  “But that was before! I want to stay here with Bonnie Prince. I want to play with Andrew and have my lessons with Mr. Darcy, not go back to having purgatives and being bled. Today I walked almost all the way to Andrew’s house, and in Edinburgh I will have to stay in bed all the time again.” He burst into noisy sobs.

  She tried to put an arm around his shoulder, but he pushed it away. “Perhaps if we show my aunt how well you are doing, she will consent to stop the purgatives.” This was the last thing she needed.

  “I won’t go. I’ll stay at Andrew’s house and work in the fields,” he said defiantly, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Bonnie Prince needs me here.”

  Elizabeth resisted the temptation to point out that Bonnie Prince had done perfectly well for many years without Timothy. “We must go back. Edinburgh is where we live.”

  “I hate Edinburgh! All the stinky soot makes me cough, and I hate that doctor who only wants to see me suffer until I die. I wish he would die!” He wiped his face on his sleeve. “Don’t make me go back there. Mr. Jack is my doctor. My real doctor.”

  “Timmy, you were perfectly happy in Edinburgh,” she said in a weak attempt at sternness. “The doctor there only wants to help you.”

  “I wasn’t happy! I was too weak to care about anything.” He flung himself face down on the bed. “I’ll die if I have to go back to that!” His shoulders shook.

  She sat down on the bed beside him and laid her hand on his back. What could she say to help him accept her decision? One thing was true; in Edinburgh he would not have had the strength to carry on like this. Everyone had believed he did not have long to live. Now he had grown stronger, if only a little. If she took him back to Edinburgh now, would he lose the ground he had gained? Would her aunt agree to stopping the bleedings? She had such faith in Timmy’s doctor, whom she said had come highly recommended. Perhaps if Timmy had more time here, his progress would be more obvious, and her aunt would listen. As long as Timmy had Nurse and Mr. Jack to care for him, he did not need her.

  But even if Timmy stayed, Elizabeth could not. She needed to put this into the past and go on with life. More time with Darcy would just make it that much harder to forget him. Even worse, for a moment tonight she had been so close to giving in and telling him everything, despite knowing what it would cost, just because she could not bear the distance between them.

  Now she was starting to cry, too.

  “I must return to Edinburgh as soon as I can, but I will see if there may be a way for you to stay a little longer,” she said slowly. “And I will do my best to convince my aunt that you do not need bleedings and purgatives. But you will have to return to Edinburgh sometime.”

  Timothy sniffled and turned his face to look at her. “If I have to go back, could I bring Bonnie Prince with me?”

  She bit her lip. “Oh, Timmy. Bonnie Prince needs open space to run and sheep to herd. He would be unhappy in the city.” Timmy would be leaving a piece of his heart here, just as Darcy would be taking part of hers. It was not fair. “But you could come back to visit him.” That was more consolation than she would have.

  IT WAS NEARLY AN HOUR before Elizabeth felt able to face Darcy again. It would have been so much easier just to stay upstairs until bedtime, but that would be the coward’s way out, and she would once again have to spend the entire night worrying about seeing him in the morning. So she washed her face, tidied her hair, and trudged down to the drawing room like a soldier facing a hopeless battle.

  Mrs. Graham was in her usual chair by the hearth, and Timmy sat pressed up against Darcy in the chaise longue. The guilty look on the boy’s face told its own story. “Is it not nearly your bedtime, Timothy?” she asked. It gave her an excuse not to meet Darcy’s eyes.

  “Sorry.” Timmy extricated himself from the chaise and scurried past her.

  “Good night!” she called after him. Squaring her shoulders, she walked over to her chair and sat down. “I hope he was not bothering you, Mr. Darcy.” Might as well meet the enemy head on.

  “Not at all,” said Darcy gravely. “He was only here a few minutes, and I have almost finished writing my letters to Bingley and your uncle. Big Tom assures me that he will personally make certain they reach the post in Aberfoyle tomorrow.”

  “But the pass may not open for a few days yet,” said Elizabeth.

  He smiled slightly, though his eyes were shadowed. “Apparently there is a track on the mountainside that a determined man with a sure-footed mule can make it through in a pinch.”

  “If there has not been an avalanche over the track,” said Mrs. Graham. “There has been nae word of one, though. But it is time for dinner, and I have asked your butler to set up the small table in here again so we can all eat together.”

  The idea of spending hours at the dinner table with Darcy sounded like torture, but Elizabeth squared her shoulders. “A good idea. Perhaps your sure-footed man with the determined mule – or is it the other way about? – could stop at the village blacksmith on his way back to see if your Bath chair is ready. Then you would be able to eat at a proper table.”

  Darcy poured himself a glass of wine from the small decanter beside him. Was it still laced with laudanum? “I never thought I would be grateful for a Bath chair, but I will be happy to see it arrive.”

  Chapter 13

  EVER SINCE HER ARRIVAL at Matlock Park, Georgiana Darcy had been trying to have a private conversation with her cousin Richard Fitzwilliam, but she could never find him alone. If he was not playing billiards with his elder brother or closeted with his father discussing politics, his mother was claiming the neighbors would be insulted if he did not visit with them when they called. She was almost to the point of skulking outside whatever room he was in to catch him when he came out, but the servants would inevitably notice her odd behavior and just as inevitably report it to her aunt.

  Instead she skulked at the stables. The grooms and stable hands always liked her and were unlikely to say anything, and if anyone mentioned that Georgiana was spending hours grooming every horse in the stable, even though none of them needed it, everyone would just laugh and say, “Oh, we know all about Georgiana and her horses!”

  Her strategy worked. Cousin Richard came to the stables the next day when she was currying Bucephalus. She dropped her currycomb, hurried after him, and caught his coat sleeve. “Cousin Richard, may I speak to you?”

  He stopped, his expression registering surprise. “Of course. Is something the matter?”

  “I want to go to Edinburgh. Since my brother is away, I need your permission.” Why had she blurted it out like that? She had meant to lead up to it gradually.

  His eyebrows rose. “Edinburgh is a very long journey. Why do you want to go there?”

  She gulped. “I want to see William. I am worried about him.”

  “Darcy is in Edinburgh? I had no idea,” he said. “He never mentioned any plans to go there.”

  “I... I think it was a sudden decision. Something bad must have happened when he was visiting Mr. Bingley this autumn because he came back early and in such low spirits, even worse than in the spring. Then, one day in late October, he sent me a letter saying he was leaving the next day for Edinburgh.” Once she started, the words came out in a rush.

  Cousin Richard tapped his foot. “I have not heard from him in some time. Not since Michaelmas, at least. He must have written to you from Edinburgh, though.”

  “He did for a time, twice a week, just like always. At first his letters talked about going to soirées, assemblies, and musicales. Then they became shorter, and all he wrote about were the sights in Edinburg
h, nothing about himself. He thinks I do not notice, but I do. In December it was even worse. His Christmas letter was all about how dark and cold it was, and he had no plans for Christmas. This is the first Christmas we have been apart since our father died. There was one short note after Christmas, and then nothing. He almost never misses a letter.”

  “Perhaps it was misdirected or lost. Snow might have delayed it,” he said soothingly. “Nothing to worry about.”

  He did not believe her. She pulled out a packet of papers and thrust them at him. “Would you be so kind as to read his letters?” It was her last chance to persuade him there was a problem.

  He took the packet with a sigh and sat down on a hay bale. His expression showed nothing as he perused the first few letters, but a crease appeared between his brows when he reached the later, shorter missives. After he read the last one, he paged through all of them again, apparently checking the dates, and reread the last few.

  Refolding them carefully, he said, “I agree something is troubling him, but I would assume he wishes to handle it himself. A fortnight without letters is hardly surprising in midwinter. I do not see any reason for you to go there, especially in this foul weather, and the Scottish roads can be in poor condition. I am certain you will receive a letter in a day or two.”

  “But...” Georgiana stuffed back her protest. There was no point in arguing, not when Cousin Richard still considered her a little girl. She could not stop the tears from rushing to her eyes, so she turned and fled out of the stable and into the wilderness garden to find a private place to cry. If she went to her room in tears, her maid would report it to her aunt. Why could they not leave her alone?

  AT BREAKFAST LADY MATLOCK said, “Richard, I understand you plan to travel today.”

  Richard Fitzwilliam scowled. He loved his family, but could they not allow him a little privacy? It was bad enough that Georgiana now kept her head bowed and would not look at him. “Some business in London calling me back sooner than I expected.”