Page 72 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
Amanda walked to a shelf and returned with another bottle of wine. “English, I fear.”
Darcy opened and poured, but then she suggested they move to a pair of chairs beside the fire that was presently burning low. It was the middle of summer, but there had been a rain shower while he was asleep, and her cook had laid in a fire against the evening chill.
Once they settled in, Amanda said, “I believe you were speaking of sand and fingers? You need not tell me whathappened. You are a widower like me, though every other aspect of your life is different.”
“Such as?”
“Such as marriage, for example. I can marry, and as owner of a prosperous shop, I have plenty of choices. Youmustmarry and should have years ago. If I do not wed again, this little shop is the only thing affected, and the half-dozen people that rely on me will need to be taken care of. Ifyoudo not, hundreds, perhaps thousands, would be affected. You have a long family history that must be passed whole and complete to your son. I have four years of history that I can do with as I will. I could sell this shop and retire any day I like. Our situations are vastly different.”
“I suppose that is true. I also have more freedom of movement, but more responsibility to go with it.”
“Obviously! May I ask a delicate question?”
Darcy was surprised by the tone of her query, as if he had been speaking to Mrs Thorne through a wall for three months and she had opened a tiny window so they could face each other.
He surprised himself. “You may ask me anything you like, and I will do my best to answer.”
“What happened?”
Darcy settled back into the comfortable chair and reflected that this bookshop had far more comfortable chairs than all of Rosings combined before Bingley and Anne took charge.
He thought a minute and finally sighed resignedly. “My marriage was forced. I later learned that it wasmoreforced for my wife than for me. She tried in vain to run away—twice!”
“Go on,” Mrs Thorne said guardedly, which did not surprise Darcy in the least. He had just admitted he seemed a terrible prospect and probably not someone she should be all that comfortable with, but she seemed unbothered.
He dragged his attention back five years to the time of his greatest failure. “She was unsuccessful, but I knew nothingabout that until later—much later—after she died, in fact. I may have mentioned I went to France right after the wedding?”
“I believe you went to ransom your cousin, the current Earl of Matlock, and became ill?”
Darcy sighed, remembering the sheer hopelessness that descended on him when he returned to Pemberley. “That was when the war left mail service non-existent, and the French were being particularly strict about it. It was just before the invasion of Russia. The British Navy was blockading France, so nothing but privateers and smugglers got through. I sent her five letters all told, but not even one arrived before she left. The first, sent a few days after the wedding, went down with a sinking ship, though I learned that much later.”
“Did you treat her badly?”
“Yes, I—” then he found his hand shaking a bit, even after all those years. “I did not beat or starve her, but I did something as bad. I distrusted her. I ignored her. I humiliated her. I am not the least bit surprised she left. It turned out that—”
He sat, thinking what he wanted to say, and finally continued shakily. “I think both of us were not quite serious when we made our vows. We gave them provisionally, even though that goes against the spirit of the whole thing.”
“I was not aware there were provisional vows.”
“There are not, but we did it anyway. She gave me six months to say one kind word.”
“That seems fair.”
“More than fair,” Darcy said with a shrug. “My attitude was more nefarious. I mostly ignored her and vowed that I would do whatever I had to do to make her into an acceptable wife upon my return—little understandingI was the one in need of reformation.”
“People seldom change others. Change must come from within.”
“Yes, it was a stupid plan. It was arrogant and foolhardy. I think the last words she ever said to me were what, at the time, I considered an assassination of my character, but they turned out to be an assessment—a frightfully accurate one at that.”
“And yet, you are not the man you were—or if you are, you hide it well. What happened between then and now to transform you?”
“Her death was odd, and frankly suspicious. She died in a place where her body could not be recovered, where she should not have been in the first place, travelling somewhere she should not have known about, to find a husband she despised. It all made no sense.”
“Perhaps all that is true, but it sounds more like bitterness.”
Darcy shrugged resignedly. “Naturally. I did not know whether to believe it or not. I thought it could well be a ruse—a particularly good one, but a ruse nonetheless—so I investigated.”
“I would assume no less. What did you learn?”
