Once he'd made sure she stood on solid ground, William withdrew his hands, sinking them deep into his pockets.
Liz tested her footing. "I'm sorry. I don't usually have a problem standing upright."
"The ground around the lake can be pretty treacherous at this time of year," he said, his voice betraying none of the shock that Liz had felt from their touch. "We should move somewhere a little safer."
Giving the lake a wide berth, he led her around the side of the house and through a shaded walk. Liz recognised the rose garden with the small fountain she'd first spotted from the breakfast room window. The gravelled paths radiated out in all directions. As they walked down one of the paths, William began to speak about the gardens, describing how his mother had designed some of the sections. By the time they'd reached the end of the path he sounded like a walking guide-book, seeming to know who had planted each tree or bush, and when.
As they rounded the corner, they came to a brick wall, eight or nine feet high, with a solid wooden gate set into it.
Liz smiled. "Oh, how lovely! A herb garden!"
William's head whipped around to look at her, his right hand frozen on the latch. "How did you know it was the herb garden?"
Pausing, Liz sniffed the air. "Easy. I can smell the lavender."
A frown creased his forehead as he pushed the gate wide, signalling for her to precede him.
As she entered the walled garden, her steps faltered. Low box hedging marked out the different varieties of herb and it all looked just as she imagined it would. However, the season was late and the dead blooms of the lavender plants now waved in the breeze like skeletal fingers. "That's odd. I could have sworn I smelled lavender in the wind."
William shrugged. "Maybe you did."
He was offering her an excuse, and she knew it. Just like she had known beyond a doubt that the walled garden had contained herbs. She laughed, but it sounded false to her ears. "Who knows? Maybe I visited here in a former life."
"That's always a possibility. It could have been recognition that drew you to the Bancroft print. Bancroft was sketching here at the time this garden was being planted ... but perhaps you remembered that."
"Remember? No, of course not. I was joking. How could I remember something that happened almost two hundred years ago?" She waited for a reply, but instead of answering William walked away from her, deeper into the garden.
Liz paused, wondering whether she would be welcome if she followed him. A niggling doubt in the back of her mind made her worry that she'd done something—or said something—to upset him, but for the life of her she couldn't think what.
Instead of following him, Liz took a different route; one she could see eventually joined with the path William had taken. As she walked, she watched him from the corner of her eye.
Occasionally he would bend and straighten a label, or break off a dead stem. Then he stopped in the middle of the garden, his shoulders sagging as he looked down, his shoe scuffing against the gravel.
Seeing him like that, Liz felt an overwhelming urge to comfort him. She quickened her pace and moved closer. "William? Is everything okay?"
He straightened his shoulders, as though he'd forgotten he wasn't alone. "Sorry. This place...it brings back too many memories." Looking up, he held her gaze. "This was my wife's favourite part of the garden."
Feeling a lump growing in her throat, Liz tore her eyes away. His wife? Of course he was married. Why hadn't she thought of that before? A man as good looking as he was had to be married.
Then she replayed his words, noting the past tense, and wondered if they were divorced. No, William wasn't divorced but widowed. She was sure now. His expression and body language spoke of sorrow and loss. Although his wife could have left him, Liz found herself hoping it had been a more permanent separation.
When she'd recovered enough to look at him again, she realised he was watching her, waiting to see how she would react to his admission.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, meaning every word.
He shrugged again, brushing off her sympathy. "We were only together briefly. It was hard for me to deal with at first, but these things are supposed to get easier with time." His short-lived smile had a bitter edge to it.
It certainly explained why he might hide from society. Stepping closer, she was not surprised when he offered her the support of his arm. It seemed an unconscious gesture on his part, as though he sought only the comfort of another human being.
They continued down the path and Liz saw they were making for a bench, set back within the border. When they reached it, both sat down.
They remained seated for a while, neither feeling any urge to speak. It didn't seem necessary. Liz spent most of the time gazing across the garden to the dark trees of the parkland beyond, wondering what it might be like to be the wife of the man who owned it all.
What sort of woman had he married? Was she beautiful? Rich? Liz wondered if he still loved her. Given his reaction to the garden, she feared that was indeed the case. It made his isolation here all the easier to understand.
When Liz glanced back to William she was surprised to meet his eyes. She'd been so deep in thought, she had no idea how long he'd been staring at her.
After a few seconds, he turned away. "I've just remembered there's something I need to do this afternoon. Will you be okay returning to the house on your own?"
"Yes, of course." Liz ignored the stab of disappointment she felt inside. She'd already developed a preference for his company. Perhaps it was merely because the alternative was being alone. That was something she should be used to by now, but things seemed different here.
He smiled as he stood, but she could tell his heart wasn't really in it. "I'll see you tomorrow." He walked down the path, his hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets and his attention focused on the gravel ahead. Just before he passed from view, he glanced back. William was too far away for Liz to clearly see the expression on his face, but he appeared troubled.
That night, after a lonely dinner delivered to her room, Liz soaked in the bath before curling up under the bedcovers. She wondered where William Bingley was at this moment, imagining him sitting by the fire in the salon, with a book in one hand and a brandy in the other.
Her reaction to William's touch this afternoon had surprised her. She hadn't even known him a day, yet she felt inexplicably drawn to him. An image of his face formed in her mind, and she recalled the sensation of his hands around her waist.
Liz sighed. In reality, William Bingley was nothing more than the pleasant subject of an unattainable daydream. The last thing she wanted was to spoil her research project by developing a crush on the owner.
The secretary's words of the previous evening returned with crystal clarity: "If you are here looking for a rich husband then you might as well go home now."
Liz had not come to Pemberley looking for a husband. She'd come here to do a job and she would do it, as professionally as possible. There was no reason for her to be anything but friends with Mr. Bingley. No reason for Mrs Ellis to protect her employer.
He was quite safe from her.
Opening her book, she turned up the corner of the page, where Mrs Fairfax attempted to explain her master's nature to Jane Eyre.
"I don't know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you: you cannot always be sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly understand him, in short—at least, I don't: but it is no consequence, he is a very good master."
Liz felt the housekeeper's description seemed to fit the Master of Pemberley almost as well as the Master of Thornfield. He could move from light-hearted to melancholy in the time it took to spin a coin.
She pulled the covers closer around her body, as she struggled to concentrate as Jane continued the tour of her new home. The words swam in and out of focus, and her eyelids weighed heavily. Moments later she drifted into unconsciousness.
* * * * *
Light from the full moon cast silver-edged shadows across the parquet as Darcy paced the gallery, his thoughts directed towards the young woman sleeping only a few rooms away.
He had loved Elizabeth's long brown hair, particularly the feel of it as it slid through his fingers. Would Liz's spiky crop feel the same?
Darcy had often wondered if, when the event he'd been waiting for finally came to pass, he would find Elizabeth's twin. This strange young woman was no carbon copy. They were far too disparate. And yet, since Liz had arrived at Pemberley, he'd begun to recognise certain similarities in her movements.
Without conscious thought he moved down the long room and through the doors, pausing outside her bedroom. He closed his eyes, imagining her lying in bed, her blonde hair surrounding her head like a halo. He hovered by the door, debating with himself whether to enter. He would only stay a moment. She would never know he'd been there.
No. Even after many lifetimes, he could not disregard his upbringing.
She had been at Pemberley barely twenty-four hours and yet he no longer doubted Liz was the one he had been waiting for. The barrier separating them had gone, smashed like a pane of glass. A chain that had long been broken was now reforged, the links made stronger than ever. All the love he had once felt for Elizabeth now had a new target in this waif of a girl.
When she'd walked into Pemberley she had been nothing to him, just one more stranger in an ever-changing world of strangers. But now? He'd seen something recognisable inside her. He knew her but she didn't know him ... yet.
But could she love him? Or had his long years of waiting been in vain?