Bethnall Green, Jan 1820

A few days after the New Year the maid announced a visitor, a gentleman, "has the same last name as you, ma'am," she said. Elizabeth had taken to calling herself Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy, not correcting people if they assumed 'Fitzwilliam Darcy' was her entire surname and not her married name, her husband's Christian and surname together.

And Edward Fitzwilliam walked into her parlor.

She had thought it might be Mr. Darcy. He was to be granted access to his daughter and she would never bar him from her house. When she had left Pemberley they had not really said goodbye. They had dined together in the evening but could not speak in front of the footmen. He had asked her to find him in the study later which she did.

Their conversation had been as difficult as the one in which she had first mentioned Mrs. Hunt and Ralph. Neither spoke for minutes at a time and neither looked each other fully in the face. He explained he would begin to draft a legal separation that he would provide for her, give her money. There had been a long pause then.

"You will always be my wife. I expect you to conduct yourself with decorum," and he had looked her fully in the face then.

"I will," she had promised. She supposed he thought her to run to his cousin, but she wondered if they no longer corresponded and he did not know Fitzwilliam was gone from the country.

He mentioned their daughter and an arrangement for her to come to Pemberley every summer to visit. Elizabeth longed to ask if she could come as well, stay at one of the inns at Lambton or with Kitty and Mr. Watson if they would have her but held her tongue. She did not wish to reveal her fears that he would take the child. And then he dismissed her, said that was all. There was no handshake, no kiss on the cheek, no goodbye and she left the next day.


She clasped a hand to her chest at seeing him.

"Fitzwilliam," and she sank to her seat all the while staring at him. He was dark of skin, his hair longer than he normally wore it. His face, perhaps, a little more lined than when she had last seen him almost a year ago.

"Lizzy," and he bowed and then stood looking at her.

"Edward," she said but still sitting immobile.

He took a step forward, "may I?" She nodded and he placed himself near her.

"Edward…" she began her insides felt a flutter.

"Susanna told me you were here. I returned from the West Indies three days ago. Cotton farming is not to be in my future," and he smiled. She did not feel so witty or light-hearted to return the smile.

"I have been settling back into my dull bachelor quarters and catching up on correspondence. And doing some visiting." He was anxious; she could read that in his countenance.

"It is good to see you again," she offered. Elizabeth was in turmoil. Fitzwilliam had gone away; she had thought he was gone for good. She had settled into her lonely life, lifted up only by her daughter and her painting which she had found again once leaving Pemberley. She had not wanted to consider her happiness entangled with another person beyond that of her daughter. "How is Lady Susanna?" she asked.

"She is well," he replied. Then there was silence between them and around them.

"Lizzy," he looked at her, "How are you faring?"

"I am well," it was a well-used response.

"Truly?" he pressed. She looked at him with those beautiful dark eye', the joie de vivre had been diminished over the years, with her marriage and now this separation. "Tell me how you are doing, truly?" he pressed.

"No," she answered softly. "No," she repeated. "I had wanted happiness in marriage and I found sorrow. Darcy loved me, but he did not love me enough. We did not seem to wish for complimentary things in marriage. It was not a notion of mine that he would wish to take a mistress; he was in many other ways so loving. He is a good man and yet probably an ordinary man and not to be faulted for acting like other men do." Sadness rolled off of her—there were no tears, not yet.

"So I sit here in a sort of exile though it is better than having stayed. He had loved me once but no longer, do you know how hard that has hit me, Edward?" her eyes still shone but he felt despair over seeing the flame inside them diminished. "Our relationship has been reduced to a bill of sale. All set down in black and white." She cried then and he moved over and enveloped her in his arms and held her while she cried. She clung to his broad chest and wept over so many months of despair, wept tears of sorrow, tears of anger, tears of hope lost. He nestled his cheek against the top of her head and held her.

When her torrent of tears was over he kissed the top of her head and released her, pressed a handkerchief on her and they discussed the weather and how she liked her little village. His half hour was up and he left soon afterwards.


He came every day for tea. He shared tales of his adventures in Nassau, the sea voyage over and back. Of the constant sun, the different pace of life, the assortment and character of the people he met. He told her about his family, of his brother, Dunchurch's son, the new heir Francis—the new Lord Radbourne—who looked like a Fitzwilliam, all the Ladbrokes describing each in turn, but especially Jamie. He had a hundred stories about James Ladbroke.

In between Elizabeth ventured some of her experiences, how she no longer heard from either of her parents. Her mother, it seemed, could not forgive her for giving up being mistress of Pemberley. Her goal in life had been to marry off her daughters to wealthy gentlemen and Mrs. Bennet had loved to brag about rich Mrs. Darcy. It was with tears that she spoke of the loss of her father that she had somehow sinned in his eyes, erred in a way he could not express or handle or fathom.

She did still have the love of two of her sisters. Lydia was entirely supportive of her. If she had fallen out of love, thought Lydia, then they should separate. She and Mr. Smith were still in love, apparently, though never blessed with children. He had chosen to adopt baby George as his own. In that respect, Jane had been right and he was a good husband to Lydia and father to George.

Jane did not understand. Home, husband and children were ever her life and her happiness. Each son gave her more happiness, even if they did also tired her out. But she was still excessively devoted to Bingley and they took Mr. Darcy's view, whatever that was, in this.

Catherine was supportive of her, as was Mr. Watson, though given his profession they could not sanction such a thing as a separation. But Mr. Darcy had moved Mrs. Hunt and Ralph from Kympton, removed that source of neighborhood gossip and they were extremely sympathetic to Elizabeth knowing how Ralph's presence in Mrs. Hunt's nursery had soiled her marriage. She had not heard from Mary.

Mrs. Gardiner had written once and said she was sorry and offered her words that came to mean condolences, but then wrote no more. It was something, that letter from her aunt, those condolence. Mrs. Gardiner had loved Elizabeth but had valued Mr. Darcy so Elizabeth feared she could not forgive her but hoped that her aunt's love for her, in time, would prevail, that they would converse and perhaps might even speak in person some day.

Weeks went by.

Fitzwilliam stood up after tea one day to take his leave and was standing with her hand in his, "I do not wish to let go," he said.

She looked up at him.

He raised her hand to his lips then put his other around her waist and looked at her.

"I will proclaim before God and witnesses that I will never leave your side again."

She was silent.

"Forever, I am asking you for forever, Elizabeth. Do not send me away to my dank hovel any longer. Let us proclaim ourselves before God, before our family, that we want to be together forever," he looked down at her with loving eyes.

"We cannot marry," she argued.

"I want you by my side. I do not wish to leave again to keep up this pretense of afternoon tea. I do not care that we are not sanctioned by law. Let me write my family. Say you love me. Say you will pledge yourself to me in front of them. Be by my side forever. Bear my children," and his voice broke then, "bear my children," he kissed her, "love me forever."

"I am not convinced I can have any more children. I am cursed with barrenness," she was sad.

"You are not cursed with anything," he cried, "unless it is to bear my company forever."

"I had believed I would be forever condemned to live alone, Edward," she began, "when my marriage began to crumble last year and you were gone." She paused. "Did you know…did you hear about his son?" it was a subject that necessitated tears.

"I did not know," and he held her to him as she wept again on his chest, "I had no notion he had done such an injustice to you. He told me," it pained him to confess but he felt he must, "he told me years ago he had a mistress. I thought it was a temporary thing, while you were with child. Not that he had kept her for years."

"Some part has to fall on me," she cried, "that was the summer of Waterloo, did I drive him to it? I was so anxious about my sister Lydia's fate that I was unreasonable and pressed him to search for her. I believe that was where our marriage first began to fall apart." The tears abated, and she looked up at him, "I asked him to do more than what he was capable of doing."

"You are not to claim any responsibility for what he chose to do. A man's actions are his own and must reflect upon him." He held her tightly. "Which is why, I Edward Fitzwilliam would be the happiest man on earth if you agree to spend the rest of your God-given days with me in whatever form they come. To share our joys and sorrows together. To welcome any children that may come or to only find joy in Amelia. To share my house and my bed and to never leave my side until we are parted in death. And though we may not be sanctioned by Man's institutions I will swear in front of God and my family to love you all the rest of my life."

She lay her head on his chest and let him hold her; lay in his arms for a while.

"I have always loved you," she said at last. "I have never stopped." She looked up at him. "Kiss me," and he obeyed with the same fierceness and passion he had always shown for her.

"I will," she said, "be by your side forever."

He said he would put it all down in writing as well, but she answered. "You are a gentleman and I take you at your word." There was so much of her and Darcy's relationship that was put into words that she did not want theirs to be set down on paper.