Page 57 of Stuck

“Well, he hasn’t met the rest of our family yet. I’m hoping one disaster might mitigate the other.”

“That is a very good point. Are you planning on introducing them soon? Mum mentioned that she’d like to meet him.”

“Soon, yes.” I noticed some hesitancy in her voice. She was fiddling with the corner of her magazine, too, which was a dead giveaway that she was nervous, because she was usually fastidiously precious about her magazines.

“What?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Just… It won’t be this weekend, that’s all, because… well… Bingley asked me to go to Paris with him.” She babbled this last bit as if it were all one word then held her breath while she waited for my answer.

“Okaaay,” I replied slowly. “Why are you saying that as though I’ll be cross about it?”

“Because you’re injured!”

“It’s my left hand. It’s not like I need you to wipe my bum for me or anything.”

“You know I would, if you needed me to.” She was probably the only person on the planet who would. “But I’ve been away every weekend in September—it feels like I’m deserting you.”

“I’ll cope.”

Her phone pinged, and she picked it up from the table, unlocking it as she said, “I know you will. But I feel guilty. Bingley wants to go today so we have more time there, and he’s got us booked on a one o’clock Eurostar—Oh.” This last was said whilst looking at her phone, and it was not a happy “oh.”

“Do I want to know?” I asked.

She looked up at me with chagrin. “Apparently, Darcy isn’t at home. His cleaner says he’s gone back to Pemberley for the weekend.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t care if he’s on the moon. Tell Bingley to ring him.”

“He did. Darcy’s not answering. Bingley thinks he might have turned his phone off.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Jane, I’m pleased you’ve fixed things with Bingley, and I’m pleased he’s taking you to Paris to make up for being a prat. But please know that if he hasn’t told Darcy everything before he steps foot out of this country, I will follow him to France and personally drown him in the Seine. Capisce?”

She started typing on her phone. “I’ll tell him to keep trying.”

“That’s all I ask,” I said with a saccharine smile. Taking my tea with me, I retreated to my room to fume in solitude. When I picked up my phone to start scrolling through some rage bait to aid the process, I saw I had a message of my own from Mary King.

Hi Elizabeth. Sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye on Thursday. Do you fancy meeting for a drink this weekend?

Not to come across as needy, but OMG YES!!!!!

Never had I snatched someone’s hand off so quickly, but I reckoned I deserved a drink after the week I’d had. We settled on Sunday afternoon—when my hand would hopefully have stopped throbbing so much—and a bar George had recommended in Mayfair. Satisfied that my weekend was looking up, I went back to doomscrolling and tried not to think about why Darcy had gone back to Pemberley without telling anyone, or why he might have turned his phone off, or whether he really had wanted to kiss me in the hospital. There was no point wasting any time thinking those thoughts, because very soon, Darcy would likely despise me as much as I thought he had the first night he met me.

25

DARCY

We reached Pemberley around midnight. I hadn’t messaged Georgiana or Sam to tell them I was coming, and neither was awake when we arrived. Sam was the only live-in member of staff, so with them both in bed, the house was in total darkness. Once I’d spoken to the grounds security detail and Trent had driven off, I let myself into the kitchen, but I didn’t turn on any lights. I dropped my bag onto the flagstones and stood still, letting the silence of the house wrap itself around me, cocooning me in its embrace, and waited for the familiar peace of being home to wash over me. I wasn’t overly surprised when it didn’t come.

With a resigned sigh, I entered the darkened passageway behind the pantry that bypassed all the living areas and led directly to the thick security door separating our living quarters from the main house. I stepped through to the cool interior of the mansion proper. The air felt older here, more static, as though time had stood still on this side of the door. It wasn’t as dark as the modern part thanks to the lack of curtains on the huge windows, and moonlight illuminated the rooms as I walked through them.

Pemberley was a large Palladian mansion that had stood, in some form or other, on the same spot since the early seventeenth century. My family had owned it from the outset, my sister and I being the fourteenth generation to call it home—though we didn’t live in it in the same way our ancestors had.

Like many large estates, Pemberley had barely survived the post-war slump of the last century. Over the decades since, we’d avoided having to sell up by maximising the potential of the land, becoming a centre of excellence for agricultural innovation. Part of the old servants’ quarters had been transformed into offices for the running of operations, but even so, the rest of it was too large for our small, modern family, and we’d long ago sectioned off one wing of it for our private use. It was a generous and extremely well-appointed section, so we didn’t want for space or comfort, but the majority of Pemberley was now more of a museum than a home.

We’d never opened it to the public—I’d have gone stir-crazy if I couldn’t walk out of my front door without tripping over a tourist—but we did rent it out to corporate clients, film crews, and the odd private and charity event. It wasn’t hugely profitable, but it was a self-sustaining solution, making enough money to maintain the house in its current condition for posterity.

I wouldn’t have it any other way: Pemberley was my favourite place in the world. Over the years, I’d developed the habit of occasionally wandering the empty rooms at night, when everything was deserted and quiet, imagining times gone by. Sometimes I recollected my own childhood, family gatherings with both my parents, some with my grandparents too.

Tonight, my feet had brought me to the portrait gallery, and accordingly my thoughts were cast further back, to the previous generations of Pemberley’s masters. I wondered whether any of them had ever felt as twisted up as I currently did. Probably. Four centuries was plenty of time for a few of them to have their hearts pummelled.