Page 82 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
She shrugged. “Sometimes you cannot help it, Fitzwilliam. You see—” she said resignedly, then slumped and stared at the floor for another minute. “When you appeared in my shop, that was thesecond hardestmoment of my entire life. It was at least ten times harder than our wedding day, fifty times harder than the compromise. That was the day everything I built and strove for, risked all and sweated for, ran and hid for—all came tumbling down. That was the day when all my choices, good and bad, wise and foolish, came home to roost. It was the day of reckoning—Judgment Day.”
She looked back at him with a frown. “Theonlyway I could think to save myself was to brazen it out, and I had to decide the fate of myself and everyone who depends on me in a matter of seconds. Peoplechangein five years, and I daresay you barely knew me before, even if your mind had not been ravaged by your illness. In that moment, when I had todecide, for myself and all my companions, I bet everything on the assertionI was Amanda Thorne, and would remain her through sheer force of will. I only had to get rid of you once and for all, and that seemed easy enough.”
Darcy chuckled. “You did manage that. I have wondered more than once if you were actually Elizabeth, but I always came back to believe nobody could pull off such a brazen lie,” then with a careless shrug of his shoulder, he added, “I was wrong.”
“Sometimes a big lie is easier than a small one. The sheer flagrancy of the untruth lends it credibility. People have trouble believing someone could lie soblatantly.”
Amanda paused a moment and nodded absently, then tears started from her eyes again, and she whispered, “The absolute hardest part was saved for last.”
He replied in a whisper, “Tell me.”
“The hardest part of all,” then, shuddering and sniffling, she continued, “the hardest part wasnot,as one would expect: the weight of lying to you for six months instead of the six hours or days I planned. It wasnotthe difficulty of pretending to be someone I was not, never breaking character for even a moment. It wasnotthe guilt of spending time with you and building expectations, as I thought I was entirely clear on any number of occasions.”
“You were more than fair,” he added quietly. “I do not begrudge you the lies. It was your only choice, and any reasonable person would say I deserved what I got.”
She shook her head in negation but did not argue the point.
She finally looked down, her head bowed, her eyes crying once more, and continued, “It was not the regret of learning you were not the ogre I remembered, but you were in fact sweet, kind, and generous. It was not the fear you might one day discover my secret and expose me—or worse.”
She dabbed one of her eyes. “It was not any of those, even though any one of them might have broken my spirit if I let them.”
She took another deep breath, glanced up seriously.
“The very hardest part was learning—very much to my surprise—that against my will, against my reason and even against my character, I had grown to love you more than I could have imagined possible; but I could never have you. I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
She glanced at him but then stared back at the floor.
“It was all impossible! How could such a muddled mess be fixed? How could someone so duplicitous as to lie about her very identity for half a year to the husband she swore her vows to ever be trusted? How could I even tell you without risking my very own life, or that of my new family? How could I risk others’ fortunes with honesty?Thatwas the hardest part—knowing I would have to forcefully cut you out of my life.” She sniffled and stared at him hard. “Which I planned to do after today, before I let the excitement of that crate force me to drop my guard.”
She looked at him with tears running down her face, and Darcy’s heart broke at what had been endured by both through their own combined obstinacy.
Carefully, so carefully he barely moved, he thought of what he wanted to say. He was still wearing his gloves and wisely thought that a wrong word or gesture could easily throw them off yet another cliff. Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward until he could put his hands on the floor, knuckles down, then unbent his entirely too long legs so he could roll up on all fours.
He slowly covered the distance between them, and much to his surprise, he let out a short laugh that seemed to come from nowhere.
Elizabeth looked at him sharply, and he thought he needed to act at once.
“I am not laughing at you, Elizabeth. I thought of something to—to make you laugh—if I may be allowed the privilege.”
She smiled sadly. “You may try.”
“When I returned to Pemberley, and found you gone—”
She gasped, but he just leaned forward, put his fingers together to his lips in a shushing motion, and then leaned over to wipe the tears from her face with his gloved thumbs and continued.
“I met with Bartlet and Longman in the bookstore. I suggested that, if I could just find you, I would crawl on hands and knees to make things right. Well, here I am, as predicted!”
He let out a little bit more robust laugh, but she continued to frown in frustration, though her tears had subsided (mostly).
“You gave me three names who you arenot. Will you allow me to suggest who youare—a name that perfectly suits you and this situation in all its glory and complexity?”
She stared at him, thinking there could be any number of names for a woman who had done what she had, most of them not nice at all, but Fitzwilliam would never use them, so she nodded her permission.
Darcy leaned into his hands, leaned forward until his face was less than a foot in front of hers, and whispered, “Amanda Darcy.”
“What!” she snapped, in complete shock.
Still speaking softly, he continued, “I have thought about this a great deal. I have even consulted solicitors, enough to best your seventeen law books by at least half.”
