“I have written to Wickham’s colonel asking that he alert Mr. Stone if he thinks Lydia is being mistreated in any way. Even with that, she will face challenges once she reaches Newcastle. I grew up in the North, and its people are shaped by its harsh climate. We are coarser than our southern brethren, but more honest to my mind, and we have no tolerance for artifice and lies.

“In that same letter, I again warned Colonel Davenport of Wickham’s proclivity for walking away from unpleasant situations. The colonel assured me that no such thing would happen, as his soldiers were going to be put through a rigorous regimen as he was anticipating that the regiment would shortly be receiving orders to go to the Peninsula to fight Napoleon’s forces in Spain.”

“The Peninsula? I had not thought. Were you aware of this when you helped secure Wickham’s commission?”

“Wickham signed the requisite papers for a commission as an officer in an infantry regiment. His days of parading about the village in his well-tailored uniform so that the ladies might admire him are over. His shoulder will be put to the wheel. As for Wickham’s possible deployment to Spain, he is an officer in His Majesty’s Army, and as such, he will go where he is sent.” After watching the young Lydia enter the carriage with Wickham, he added, “I am a man of faith, Mr. Darcy. As such, I believe good deeds are rewarded, and bad deeds are punished,” and he said no more.

With the newlyweds traveling to Longbourn in three days’ time, it would be impossible for Darcy to go to Hertfordshire to see Elizabeth. However, Elizabeth had written to say that Jane and she were coming to London so that her sister might purchase material for her wedding dress. This was the silver lining to the marriage he had just witnessed, and so there was something to celebrate after all.

Chapter 53

Kitty was a faithful reader of The Insider, and since her sisters were now engaged to men who occasionally appeared in the magazine, she began to read past issues looking for any instance when the names of Bingley, Darcy, or Fitzwilliam appeared.

“Jane, Mr. Bingley’s name was once mentioned in connection with Miss Alice Winthorp, who married Sir Arthur Kentwell. It says here that he made his money in herring. Does that mean he fished for herring or sold herring?”

“If you are asking if Sir Arthur made his money as a fisherman or fishmonger, I am confident in saying ‘no,’” Lizzy answered. “It is more likely he owned the ships or bought the entire catch.”

“Lizzy, in this issue, it says Mr. Darcy was seen to be coming out of Mrs. Conway’s house in Bedford Square near dawn. I wonder what he was doing there at such an hour?”

“Mrs. Conway is a prominent Whig hostess, and there is nothing suspect in a person with similar interests visiting her salon. And you must remember that half of those things are made up. It may very well be that Mr. Darcy was there, but left at 1:00 in the morning and the reporter decided that was close enough to dawn for him.”

“Well, if what you say is true and half of it is made up, I wonder how much of what is written about Lord Fitzwilliam is the truth as he is in every issue. But the ladies he calls on must be from elite families because their names are hinted at, but not mentioned. In a recent issue, the earl’s name does appear one time with Mr. Darcy’s. It said there is a new courtier in town, a Madame Aumont. The two men provided her with the financial support she needed to open her own shop after she had fled France, and now she has a clientele that includes Lady Edgemont and a Polish countess.”

“She must be the lady who made all of Miss Darcy’s dresses for her debut,” Lizzy said. “I remember she had a French name.”

“Lizzy, since I must choose a dressmaker,” Jane said, “why should she not be a friend of Mr. Darcy’s, especially since she was approved by his sister and he has chosen to support her efforts to start a business?”

“Yes, I agree. I think it will make a nice surprise for Mr. Darcy,” Lizzy added.

* * *

On Lizzy’s first night in London, Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy, and his sister dined at the Gardiners’ home. Darcy was pleased to see how happy Bingley and Miss Bennet were together. Another pleasure was to witness the friendship that was developing between Georgiana and Elizabeth. When he had heard Elizabeth ask his sister about the progress of her story, he knew Georgie would have an ally supporting her desire to write novels, and he felt the first crack in his resolve that his sister should do no such thing.

All of this was well and good, but it was nothing compared to his enjoyment at seeing Elizabeth. She need not say or do anything as her presence was enough to make him happy, and although he wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, he understood they probably would not have a moment alone until they were married. Lizzy gave him a slight smile, and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing, too.

The next day the two couples went for a ride in an open carriage in St. James’s Park, and a number of his friends and acquaintances had asked for an introduction to his beautiful companion. And so it had begun. Everyone would want to know about Elizabeth and who her parents were and what her accomplishments were and whether she was related to Viscount Louis Bennet. Let them pry and comment and criticize. He no longer cared about any of it.

The following afternoon, after returning from a breakfast he had attended with his sister, Darcy went straight to the Gardiners’ home, where Jane happily showed Mr. Darcy the fabric she had chosen that morning for her wedding dress. He smiled at Elizabeth, and she knew he was thinking that shortly she would be doing the same thing.

“Mr. Darcy, I have employed your sister’s dressmaker, Madame Aumont, and she has proved to be indispensable in picking out the material for my wedding dress. I was quite overwhelmed by all of the choices, and she is to make Lizzy’s dress for the ball at Clermont House.”

“Miss Bennet, who told you that Madame Aumont was my sister’s dressmaker?” he asked in a serious tone of voice.

Jane looked to her sister, and Lizzy answered. “Mr. Darcy, we read that you and Lord Fitzwilliam had provided financial support for the start of Madame Aumont’s business as she was an émigré who had left everything behind her in France. From that we assumed she was Miss Darcy’s dressmaker.”

Mr. Darcy made no reply. Instead, he went to the window and stared out at the street scene below. The sisters looked at each other. Obviously, they had erred in their assumption as Mr. Darcy was clearly unhappy. Because no formal announcement of their engagement had been made, Lizzy thought it improper to mention the family’s name. Therefore, she did not tell Madame of her relationship with Mr. Darcy.

“Miss Bennet, my sister’s dressmaker is Madame Delaine, and it is true I have provided Madame Aumont with limited financial support because promised funds from her bank in France were never transferred to her bank here in London. As to what support Lord Fitzwilliam offered Madame, I have no way of knowing that. I have never been in any business arrangement with my cousin as he has the financial intellect of a goat.”

Lizzy bit her lower lip, knowing that she had made a serious mistake. How stupid of her! Mr. Darcy would never allow his name to be associated with someone who led a life that was the antithesis of his own. But she suspected Lord Fitzwilliam was not the main cause of his apparent unhappiness. His mood had altered at the mention of Madame’s name, and that was before she had uttered one word about Lord Fitzwilliam.

That morning, the sisters had remarked on how beautiful Madame was. Lizzy had never seen eyes so green nor hair so golden, and Jane and Lizzy had guessed she was in her late twenties, five years short of the mark. Not only was Madame Aumont beautiful, but she was a most agreeable lady. While showing Jane the different patterns, she had shared that she had not been in England in ten years. Although she was English by birth, her heart was French, as that was where her mother was born and where she had spent her early childhood. From that conversation, Lizzy could deduce that Mr. Darcy must have met her during his tour of the Continent when he had been a young man without a care in the world. It was a time when he had attended masked balls in Venice and grand galas in Paris, and unless her instincts were completely wrong, the beautiful lady and the young Fitzwilliam Darcy had been intimate.

Mr. Darcy returned to the window and continued to say nothing.

“This is all my fault,” Jane mouthed to her sister. “I assumed and now Mr. Darcy is unhappy.”

But Lizzy knew that Mr. Darcy wasn’t unhappy with anything Jane had done. He was unhappy because Lizzy knew what he had done.

* * *

Darcy had withdrawn to the far end of the room because he could hardly take in what had just happened. Christina Caxton was going to make Elizabeth’s ball gown for the Clermont ball—the very ball where he intended to introduce his future wife into London society? This was Antony’s doing, and he would have his hide the next time he saw him. But, in the meantime, had Elizabeth guessed from his reaction that Christina and he had a history? She was smart and intuitive, and she missed very little. Yes, she definitely knew. He finally asked Jane if he could be alone with her sister.

“It seems my past has caught up with me. Elizabeth, I am a man of twenty-eight years and have lived in the world, and I am no innocent. But because of the profound love I have for you, I tried to erase the past. I wanted to think of no other woman as being a part of my life. I wanted to be your knight in shining armor—perfect and unblemished. But now that is not possible as I have been exposed.”

Once again, she had guessed correctly, but the reason she had come to that conclusion so quickly was because she had already given his past some thought. While Kitty was reading aloud the different items in The Insider to her sisters, Lizzy had been thinking about Darcy’s romantic interests. Surely, there had been other women in his life, as he was nearly thirty years old, and although she lived in a country town, it was impossible to be ignorant of what went on in London among the social elite. There wasn’t anything odd about Mr. Darcy’s name being mentioned in The Insider. What was unique was how infrequently it appeared in the gossip magazines considering the prominence of his family, his eligibility, and his large fortune. And had anything really changed because she now knew that Mr. Darcy was, as he put it, “no innocent?” No, Madame Aumont belonged to his distant past when he was bound to no one. It would have been worse to have it remain a secret. Secrets created barriers, and she wanted nothing like that in her marriage.

Darcy came and sat next to her, and she accepted his handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. After composing herself after such a confession, she finally said, “You worried unnecessarily about my opinion of you. I have never thought of you as being perfect.”

It wasn’t until she smiled that he realized she was in jest, and he burst out laughing. “I know I am forgiven, my love, as you only tease your friends,” and he kissed her gently on the lips. “But may I ask where you read the story about Christina?”

“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I read it in The Insider.”

“You read The Insider?” he asked with concern in his voice. He would not have thought of someone as sensible as Elizabeth reading what he considered to be a rag filled with half-truths and, in some cases, stories made up out of whole cloth.

“Everyone in the provinces reads The Insider, Mr. Darcy. We must have some amusement.”

“Do you read every issue?” he asked with growing concern. Had she read about Miss Montford and Mrs. Conway? It would give her the impression he was inconstant in his affections.

“No, not every issue. But then I don’t have to as Kitty tells us all about the most interesting items. She has even gone back and read past issues looking for your name.” Lizzy could see that Darcy was growing increasingly uncomfortable, and she wanted to put his mind at ease. “Sir, I have no interest in your past alliances. Every relationship must have a starting point so that past errors may remain in the past. I do not wish to be reminded how wrong I was about Wickham’s character, or how I failed to recognize your goodness. So, for me, our beginning must be at Pemberley when you said that its beauty must be shared.”