Page 77 of The Difference of a Darcy
“What is our story?”
“That we are newly married,” he said, “and that I grew up in the area. I wished to show you my childhood home on our wedding journey. Pemberley has always welcomed visitors. It is not uncommon for tourists to request a walk through thegardens or a view of the house. If nothing else, I hope to gain entry that way.”
Elizabeth nodded, though her heart had begun to pound. They were so close now. And yet what lay ahead felt vast, unknowable, and heavy with consequence.
Darcy exhaled, long and quiet, and the bed shifted again as he turned to face the ceiling. She could sense his unease.
“Are you worried?” she asked.
He did not answer at first.
“Yes,” he admitted at last. “More than I care to say.”
She reached across the space between them, her hand finding his beneath the blankets. Their fingers twined without effort.
He did not speak again, and neither did she.
But they held each other’s hands until sleep claimed them both.
Chapter 15
The sun was sinking low in the sky on the couple’s fifth day of travel. As the carriage grew dim, Darcy drew back the curtain. He leaned forward slightly toward the window upon noticing that they were cresting the final hill. His heart tightened at the first sight of Lambton.
It was nothing like the village he remembered.
As a child, he would run to Lambton from Pemberley nearly every day during the horse-chestnut season. There were the occasional visits for a penny’s worth of barley sugar from the grocer’s wife, or to purchase a new pair of riding gloves. Then, as a young man, he had accompanied his father on Thursdays to settle accounts with shopkeepers—his father always insisting they pay what was owed, even in the leanest seasons. “A gentleman’s reputation,” the elder Mr. Darcy had said, “rests as much on his honesty in trade as in blood.”
But now…
The main street stretched ahead in weary silence. Shutters hung crookedly on half the buildings, paint peeling from cracked window frames. The milliner’s shop was boarded up, the butcher’s door ajar with no sign of trade within. The bakery where he used to buy currant buns as a boy was closed, andeven the church spire in the distance, once the loudest and warmest corner of the green, was cold and still.
A few townspeople shuffled past with downturned eyes, faces drawn tight with suspicion or fatigue. The village had not merely quieted—it had withered. As though prosperity had turned its back and taken the sun with it.
Darcy sat back, stunned.
How could so much damage and decay occur in just a year under Wickham’s control?
Beside him, Elizabeth said nothing, but he saw her glance out as well. Her hand tightened in her lap.
The coach pulled into the yard of the King’s Head Inn—a modest but well-kept establishment in his memory. But even here, signs of decline were evident: the sign was weather-faded, the cobbles were cracked, and the windows were fogged with soot and grime
A young man—not the innkeeper Darcy had known—emerged to greet them and help with their bags.
He was wiry, with tousled hair and sleeves rolled to the elbow, a linen cloth slung over his shoulder. He wore a smile, but it was tired, and his boots bore more cobbler’s patches than polish.
“Afternoon,” he said, reaching for the door as Darcy stepped down. “You have the look of travelers needing food and fire. Welcome to the King’s Head.”
Darcy inclined his head politely. “Thank you. We should like a room for the night—quiet, if you please. And a meal, if it is not too much trouble.”
“No trouble,” the man replied, glancing at Elizabeth with a flicker of curiosity before waving over a stable boy. “We have mutton stew this evening, and I will have a fire going in the front parlor. Cold day for travel.”
Darcy nodded once, then, after a pause, casually said, “I came here many years ago, as a boy. The innkeeper was a Mr.… Wilton, I believe was his name. He had a fondness for putting a bit of flour in the stew.”
The man chuckled. “That he did. Always said it kept his constitution firm.” He extended a hand. “He was my uncle. I am SamuelWhitlow.”
Darcy shook it. “Ah yes, that was it. A pleasure, Mr. Whitlow. Is your uncle well?”
“He is, thank God—retired now. Sold the place to me a few years back and moved down to Sheffield to live with my aunt.” Samuel’s smile dimmed slightly. “Did not have much choice, really. Once business started drying up…”
