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Chapter Nine: Gifts of the Present

Posted on 2011-05-10

March 1826

The study was empty when Darcy arrived at Pemberley from Rosings. The silence and stillness here were not so much a change from the hill where he had so recently sat, watching as Elizabeth faded away into nothing. He'd timed it so that he would jump to a few minutes after his last notation. The time machine was as accurate as ever: his earlier self was already gone by the time he arrived. He was alone again.

Darcy circled his desk and set the machine down, just beside the unfinished letter to his solicitor in London and the box of pistols, their polished wood and brass glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. He stared at the ink on the foolscap for a while, not truly reading it but rather recalling all the emotions and events that had surrounded its genesis, and then, with a determined motion, reached out and crumpled it into a ball, tossing it into the empty grate to be burned later. He had no need for that anymore. Yes, their finances were still in a bad way in this timeline. But if he were successful in his mission, the worries that had plagued him, all the efforts he had gone through to stave off financial disaster -- they would all be unnecessary. With a sigh, he turned to dig through the papers on one side of the desk, searching for the most recent Times. "Mason!" he called, going to the door in quest of the butler, who was almost always at his post in the hall.

When he opened the door, however, he came face-to-face not with a grey-haired, bespectacled man of older years but with a fiery, blonde vision in satin and lace. She was tall, nearly up to his shoulders, her bearing erect, dignified, and proud. Her complexion was pure, her skin white and smooth from her hairline to the very low cut bodice of her fashionable gown. Her hands were on her hips and her eyes flashed as he stepped backwards, surprised. "What, were you hiding from me?" the vision said, poking him in the chest with one long, perfectly manicured finger. "You weren't here when I came in a few seconds ago, and yet suddenly I hear you calling for Mason. What? Are you afraid of your wife, now?"

He could feel his facial muscles set like stone. "You are mistaken, madam."

"Oh, I am certain I am," she said, her lip curling in scorn as she went past him into the room and turned dramatically towards him when she reached the center of the carpet. "And I am absolutely certain that I am mistaken in believing you froze my account at Madame Celeste's in London. Madame has informed me, by letter, no less, that she will not take any more custom from me until she has been assured of payment from you."

"You are not mistaken," he replied, closing the door behind him with a snap. "That is so."

She stared at him for a moment, stunned that he would admit such a thing to her face. "How dare you!" she said, her fingers curling into fists. "How dare you embarrass me like this!"

"I? Embarrass you? Quite the contrary, madam. I told you not more than a month ago that I was going to do it. You simply did not believe me. But if you are truly in need of new gowns, you can always appeal to..." Oh, dear. What was her latest lover's name? It had been so long since he had been here in this time. "...Lord Gregory?"

She laughed, a light, tinkling laugh that he had thought the height of womanly perfection when he first met her. Now it was as nails on slate. "Lord Gregory?" she sneered. "The man doesn't have a feather to fly with. That's why I need you, darling," she said, patting him on the cheek.

He caught her hand and pulled it away from his face. "There have been some changes recently, and I'm afraid that won't be the case in the future, Victoria."

She stared at him in pure shock for a moment before her expression closed and she shook her arm from his grasp and stepped backwards. "I'm afraid I do not have the pleasure of understanding you," she said at last, her voice composed and curious.

"What I mean," he said, coming towards her and then stalking her as she retreated, "is that we are in such a state as to be bordering on penury, madam." The back of her legs hit a chair and she fell into it inelegantly. "And, amazingly, some might say, you are not wholly to blame. But I will be making changes, the first of which is that you will stay here at Pemberley and run the household with a view to economy, and you will not be hosting parties or balls or weekends. You will remain and you will be a dutiful wife."

Her lip curled. "Do you truly think you can affect that?" she said in scorn. "You have tried once before, when we were first married, and I do not recall your finding any success. You soon enough grew tired of playing the tyrant."

Darcy rested his hands on each arm of the chair and leaned in until their noses nearly touched. "This time I will not be here to listen to your complaints," he said. "And my steward and my housekeeper cannot be seduced by you and are both wholly inured to your ways, so they will be able guards this time. You may disport yourself with grooms and tenants as much as you like, if you will lower yourself so far. I do not care in the least anymore that you cannot comport yourself as a lady."

She flushed at the insult. "And where will you be?"

"I will be leaving shortly for London," he replied, straightening and moving to the desk. "I will be researching a way to rid myself of you."

"You cannot," she gasped. When he didn't reply, she flew across the room to him, and grabbed the sleeve of his coat. "You swore you would never divorce me. You would never do such a thing to your family name, you said."

"And I will not," he said calmly.

She stared at him for a moment, and her eyes narrowed. "It is a little late to have the marriage annulled."

"You would fail the virginity test, I believe," he agreed wryly. "And I would not wish to lie about a lack of prowess. No, you are correct: we did consummate, as poorly as the experience went. And no fraud was committed ... at least, none the courts would recognize."

"Then what...?"

"I will leave that to your imagination," he said, smiling for the first time since she came into the room. She stared at him, at that smile, with a mixture of amazement, confusion, and a touch of fear. After a moment, he asked, "What would you have done had I not offered for you, Victoria?"

She looked surprised at his question, spoken as it was in such a calm, conversational tone, but answered it with a shrug despite. "I would have accepted Lord Percy, most likely. He seemed on the verge of a proposal when you came up to scratch."

He had heard this plaint long before, but for the first time he actually listened to it. "Why did you accept me, then?" he asked slowly.

She looked at him, her gaze considering. "You were worth more, certainly, at the time."

"And that was it?"

"What else is a woman to ask for?" Victoria asked. A little of her composure betrayed her just then, and she wrapped her arms around herself and walked away from him a few steps. After a moment, she threw the rest of her words over her shoulder: "What, did you wish for me to tell you I had loved you? I didn't think you were interested in such things. It simply isn't done in our circles."

"Would you have cared if I had been in love with you?" he asked softly.

She turned, surprise plain on her features. "Were you?"

"No. But I sometimes wonder if we might have been able to rub along better than we did, had we maybe had different expectations of each other when we first started this." He watched as her expression closed off again, and she turned her face away. "Would you have been happy with Lord Percy, do you think?"

"He would have kept me in style," she said. "And he certainly has a habit for blind devotion, so I would not have lacked pathetic admiration. Certainly he would have kept me more often amongst London society than I am at present. I've been sorely disappointed in that regard with you. "

"Would you have made him happy?"

Her expression now betrayed her complete doubt in his sanity. "What sort of question is that? Why should that matter in the least? I certainly would have been a better wife than Lady Amelia. The woman doesn't know the first thing about discretion."

Darcy refrained from comment. "So, then, we would have been better off had I never proposed," he concluded.

"As things look now, that is most likely," she replied, examining her fingernails idly. "Especially if I will be imprisoned here while you go off gallivanting about the country. I imagine I would have been much happier in London; and Lord Percy's estate is certainly closer to London, even if it is smaller. And you would have been happier, as well, I've no doubt -- with dirt under your fingernails, filthy peasants around you, and your pathetic sister here beside you. You always did love to dote upon her. At least with her here you'd have some feminine company. I doubt you would have been able to find any other lady to have you. Certainly not if they knew what you really were."

"And what am I?" he asked softly.

"Selfish," she said, her tone becoming harsher and more bitter. "A bitter, egotistical, prideful man. Forever in love with your duty and your family and oblivious to all else. Always in the right. Unwilling to ever admit you might have been wrong. Unwilling to bend a little and forgive. You could never let anything go. Even if I only make a stupid mistake, you could never be a gentleman about it. You could never let me forget it."

Darcy had stood silently as she listed his failings, and even now after she had finished, after the study recovered its waiting air, he didn't speak. He was too shaken by her vitriol and recalling another day on which he had heard similar, and perhaps equally justified words. He hadn't been a gentleman, any more than he had with Elizabeth. He'd made new mistakes, had never corrected the old -- had never had a reason to correct the old.

No, the lack of reason didn't make it right. But he could make it right.

With a sigh, he approached Victoria, who at first shied away from him, and, taking her gently by the shoulders, kissed her forehead. "I know," he said softly. "I was everything you said. We weren't good for each other, Victoria, and I will do my best to set it right."

And with another sad smile, he turned and went to the desk, where he picked up the time machine and his valise. When he turned back to the room, Victoria was gazing in mild curiosity at the contraption under his arm, but he didn't bother to explain. "I trust you will find things to occupy you while I am gone," he said, moving again to the door.

"How long will you be away?"

Darcy turned back to see that Victoria had followed him. Her expression, for a moment, was one of confused vulnerability, but her usual mask of scorn -- if a little less impenetrable than usual -- quickly replaced it. "I do not know," he said honestly. "But you needn't worry about your stay here. It will be completely comfortable, if circumscribed somewhat from your wont. You have nothing to fear from me."

She seemed baffled by his speech, and he paused before going back to her and, taking one of her unresisting hands in his, pressed it gently. "If it is any consolation, I am sorry. This situation was not only of our making, and I do not hold you in contempt for it. I will do my best to make you happy."

He turned to leave and, indeed, was almost at the door when her voice came from behind him, brimming with bitterness. "You could have tried that years ago -- making me happy."

In surprise, he turned back and caught sight of the openly wounded expression on her face. "Could I have?" he asked. "You always rebuffed my attempts. You never seemed to accept anything I gave you."

"You never gave me your respect," Victoria said, and the last word fell like lead between them. When she spoke again into the silence, it was with a broken voice: "That's all I wanted."

He paused before responding, his throat tight with sudden emotion. "Then I am sorry that I wasn't the person who could give it to you," he said. And with that, he left without a backward glance at his for-once silent wife.

After leaving the study, Darcy went to his room to repack his valise. This was quickly done with new, clean clothes and a few other necessities going in the bag, and he returned to the hall to find Mason at his post. The good butler quickly located several back issues of the Times for his master, but Darcy had no sooner unfolded the first when Mason returned to the drawing room to announce that the carriage was waiting out front.

It was to be a long ride to London, and they had barely cleared Pemberley's gatehouse before Darcy had closed his eyes, his head resting back against the velvet squabs, with little more intent than to rest. He had not slept since the early morning at Rosings, and the emotional trial of watching the meeting in the grove and the disappearance of Elizabeth had tired him out both physically and mentally. But despite this exhaustion, he could not stop his mind from its activity. Rather than sweet dreams -- perhaps of his Elizabeth, or of their future -- he spent much of the time thinking over his encounter with his wife, replaying their words and recalling their courtship and the first few years of their marriage.

He had married Miss Victoria Markham in 1813. He had met her at Pemberley in August the year before, the niece of Lord Gingham, who had been invited along with his wife for the house party for the month. The beautiful and eligible Miss Markham had been brought along to catch his eye.

Darcy had always been under pressure to marry from various quarters -- from his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, from his uncle, even from his cousins. Whether or not the bride was to be his cousin Anne de Bourgh was left for the most part to his choice, but there was always duty -- to his family, to his sister, to his name. And Fitzwilliam Darcy always lived up to his duty.

The first time, when Georgiana had married Wickham, he had held the house party to shop for a wife among some of the most eligible debutantes of his peers. He had needed to ensure none of Wickham's children would be in a position to inherit Pemberley -- and what better way than to produce some of his own?

But even after Darcy had saved Georgiana from Wickham, the fact that he had married Victoria in the past had not changed. He had always held the house party, for one reason or another, and Victoria had always been there. It had then become a simple matter of his needs, of the right notes played at the right time. He'd seen her, he'd wanted her, he'd known he'd have to marry at some point.

And after his proposal at Rosings, there was the added incentive of his anger.

He'd been blind, still smarting from his rejection. He'd spent most of the intervening time between April and August sulking in London, with his sister as company, and he could see the worried looks Georgiana had given him. They had irritated him, but they had also reminded him that he could not remain single forever. He'd already had the interest to marry someone specific; it did not take much to push that interest into a more general desire for the married state.

And Victoria Markham was everything a wife was expected to be. She was beautiful, well bred in the way society favors, and well connected. She was witty. She was accomplished, able to sing and play with exquisite grace and genteel passion, could speak several languages, and had read widely, though not to the point of excess. She had a dowry nearly equal to that of his sister's, and could name at least two earls, one viscount, and one duke within three degrees of familial ties.

She was ideal; she was willing; she was not Elizabeth Bennet. And yet, just like Miss Bennet, she'd had a certain something that attracted.

It hadn't taken him long to regret his choice, though, when after a few more encounters over the following year he'd finally made the irrevocable decision of proposing -- this time with absolute certainty of the answer. He and Victoria had only been engaged a few weeks before he began to realize that she wasn't quite what he was looking for. He noticed the flirtations with other men, though she always insisted it was no more than society expected. He noticed her underlying disinterest in staying at Pemberley, though she could speak in raptures over its beauty and desirability. He noticed the impatient falseness of her interactions with Georgiana, though before he'd proposed she had behaved like an older sister to her. He noticed her supreme indifference to the few times he had kissed her, though he'd always hoped it was simply a reflection of her modesty.

But it had been impossible not to notice, on their wedding night, that she wasn't a virgin.

Everything had gone downhill from there. He'd accused her of deceiving him; she responded first by denying the allegation, then, when he persisted, by scorning his performance and shutting him out of her rooms for several weeks. When she accepted him back into her bed, it had been with coldness and a detached determination to do her duty. By the time Georgiana had returned from her stay with her uncle and aunt, expecting to find a happy couple and a happy home, the situation had deteriorated to the point that Darcy was spending most of his days in his study or library, most often with a glass within reach, and Victoria was spending her days and his money on whatever she could find in the shops in every village in the district.

When he finally acceded to Victoria's request to go to London a few months later, the situation only worsened. They spent most of their days apart, so Darcy wasn't aware of his wife's activities until his glance happened to stop, while he was reading the newspaper one day, on a little item speculating on the lack of connubial bliss in the home of a certain newlywed couple. Surely, the item continued, there was no doubt of the bride's preference for a certain married man who was clearly not her husband.

It then came out, in a particularly vociferous argument later that day between those newlyweds in question, that she was expecting -- and, according to the doctor Darcy then brought in, she seemed a bit far along for the dates to match up. But it is always different in every woman, the doctor nervously assured the young and less-than-happy-looking groom, so he might be mistaken about how many months she was pregnant.

Darcy could no longer ignore the influence of such a situation on his sister, and sought out his uncle for advice. With Colonel Fitzwilliam sharing the guardianship, it was an easy matter to arrange for Georgiana to go live with the earl and countess. But the damage had already been done to her and to their fraternal relationship. Victoria, with her scorn of the shy young girl, had whittled away at what little self-confidence Georgiana had retained after her experience at Ramsgate. Darcy, too, had done his own part: when his sister had tried to offer comfort in a moment of well-meaning sympathy, he had snapped at her with all the rage of a bear with a wounded paw. He had been contrite almost immediately, but the blow had hit home, shattering their already fragile bond. Her illusion of a perfect, invincible elder brother was fully gone, and he could do nothing to temper her disappointment. Within the week, she went to live with her uncle and aunt and she and Darcy saw each other again but rarely -- and when they did, it was like two people on either side of a river, both testing the waters but neither inclined to jump in and take a chance against the current.

And so Darcy was left alone with his self-pity and an increasing and increasingly petulant wife. Five bitter months later, Victoria was delivered of a stillborn boy and Darcy was delivered of the concern that he might have to support another man's get. Not that he would have treated the boy any differently than had his patronage been true; in fact, part of him mourned his loss of fatherhood. But the constant presence of a child not of his making would have been one more bit of sand under the collar of his marriage, and that was something he did not regret.

From that point, Darcy did his best to keep his wife under good regulation. She was contained at Pemberley, her pin money restricted, under the watchful eye of his staff. They resumed relations after some time in the effort to produce an heir, but it was a heartless and passionless affair. Neither of them had any interest in the other, and their shared goal, over time, became less and less desired as they continued to be fruitless.

It was a year and a half later when the death knell for their marriage tolled -- the moment in which Darcy realized he simply didn't care anymore. He had gone north for business and when he came back he discovered that his wife had seduced his young steward and had been taking trips into Chesterfield to shop and to meet with her other lover. He had not given Mrs. Reynolds enough power or influence over her; he had not given his steward enough of a warning; he had not remembered to have a new safe with a new combination put in his study.

But he wasn't surprised. Somehow, he had known it was coming. He only felt a surprise that she had waited so long to find solace elsewhere.

From that point on, they dwelt in seemingly separate worlds. Occasionally, he would do his best to curb her spending or behavior, but her temper he preferred to avoid and her cleverness made her adept at finding ways to circumvent him. It was easier instead, he found, to do his best to alleviate rather than confront. But that, in the end, made little difference to the drain on his finances. His distraction, her spending, pure mischance: all contributed to his current financial situation, which was not quite as dire as he had made it out to be to Victoria, but severe enough to cause concern.

But, then, he wondered, what of his marriage to Elizabeth? Again he returned to Wickham's promise that, in that other life, the Darcys had been successful in life and love. Could a happy marriage truly effect such a change? Or was it simply that because they were happy, the change was not important?

And then, the inevitable question: Would he be able to change? He could not truly blame all of the problems in their marriage on Victoria. He was certainly to blame for offering for her, true, but was he not also to blame for his behavior thereafter? He could have persevered; he could have acted with more compassion, less accusation, perhaps, or sought other modes of mediation. It is true that none of it might have made a difference, but at least he would not have been left with the regrets of never trying. And with the knowledge of what he did do, could he trust in the hope of what he would do, should do, if his marriage were to Elizabeth instead? Would the simple difference of a change in bride be enough?

On further thought, however, he realized that it was more than a simple difference. It was everything. He did not love Victoria and never had. It had been a matter of attraction, compounded by monetary and social advantage. But with Elizabeth, the monetary and social aspects were moot; instead, there was the addition of love -- and the respect and esteem wrought by time and his rejected proposal. In Elizabeth, he had found a reason to be a better man. Certainly, he had been changed by the difference in their relationship so far, since he and Elizabeth had changed the past; he could remember, among the mess of memories, little differences over the years of his marriage to Victoria, now that he sought to recall them. He could remember the way in which he had poured himself into Pemberley, had reached out further to his tenants, to his neighbors. These were things he had never done before, to that extent.

When this had all started, when Georgiana had once been married to Wickham and even when he and Wickham had fixed that, but he'd still remained married to Victoria, he had been a hermit. The Darcy that he had been then -- the Darcy the old Wickham had found in the study that afternoon -- hadn't had anything to live for. He'd been alone, full of regrets, full of guilt and shame over how he'd lived his life. He had locked himself at Pemberley and had pitied himself for the way things had turned out. He'd stayed in his library or his study but for business, had occasionally received family as visitors, but nothing more. He'd retreated into himself.

But this time, after his experiences with Elizabeth Bennet, after meeting her and falling in love with her and being torn apart by her, Darcy had become a part of the neighborhood, a part of Pemberley. He had always been a good landlord -- he could not deceive himself on that score. But now -- this Darcy that he was now was something more: he was a good master. He knew his people, he understood his people, and they knew him. He became friends, or at least acquaintances, with the gentry of the neighborhood -- even those who were lower in class than him. He had corrected to some extent, though perhaps not the fullest, her accusations of his ungentlemanlike conduct, even if she should never see the results. He wanted to be a better person, even if he were tied to a woman who perhaps didn't deserve it.

If Elizabeth could achieve such by her rejection, what could she do by her love?

At this moment, they pulled into the first of their many stops on the way to London. Darcy went into the inn for a brief bite to eat as the horses were changed, and when he returned to the carriage, instead of dwelling on his previous concerns, he pulled out the newspapers his butler had found for him. Over the next few hours he pored over them in search of some reference to his old friend Charles Bingley, of where he was staying, of how he might get in contact with him.

As his younger self had told Elizabeth Wickham when she'd come to Pemberley in that other future, Darcy knew naught of Bingley's life after they had last spoken in that coffeehouse some years ago. And even then, they had only spoken for several minutes about the weather and mutual acquaintances. If he were honest, the last he really knew of Bingley was from that summer visit to Pemberley in '12.

Bingley hadn't been happy then. Oh, he had pretended to be his usual self, but just as Darcy had told Elizabeth, there had been a reserve that hadn't been there before. Whether that had ever changed, whether Bingley had found happiness in marriage, Darcy couldn't say. And now that the question was raised, he couldn't be satisfied until he knew. But there was nothing of note in any of the papers Darcy had brought with him from Pemberley, and by the time the carriage drew to a stop at the inn where they would spend their first night's rest, he was thoroughly frustrated. It was as if Bingley had fallen off the face of the earth. Or, at the very least, out of society's eye.

The following day's ride left him in no better a position, without even the distraction of the newspapers. Instead, his mind dwelt again on everything he had been through with Elizabeth and with Victoria. He thought back over his relationship with Bingley and castigated himself for never apologizing, for never seeking to make redress for his poor advice. Why had he never done so? Why had he never told Bingley about Miss Bennet's presence in town or of her sister's avowal of her tender feelings for him?

But that was easily answered: because once it was done, he did not feel he had the right or need to change it.

Back in Hertfordshire, on one of the evenings when the two eldest Bennet sisters were staying at Netherfield, he and Elizabeth had had a conversation about his faults. After so many years, it was difficult to recall with any accuracy their exact words, but he could remember his divulgence of his greatest weakness: his temper, his implacable resentment.

He had been wrong. His temper was only a symptom of his true weakness -- a stubbornness of mind. Most of the time, this aspect of his character was his strength. It was the decisiveness in which he took such pride. It was his firmness on points of honor, his irreproachable code of conduct. It was his stoic manner that allowed him to navigate a world that pounced on any indecision, any inconsistency.

But it was also the stubbornness that had kept him from ever seeking out Elizabeth again. It was that stubbornness that had led to this entire mess.

It was that stubbornness, too, that was going to get him out of it. He would find her; he would ask her forgiveness; he would do his best to ensure that all of his mistakes were atoned for.

This Darcy -- the one he had become under the changing influence of the twists and turns of time and the ups and downs of love and rejection and grief -- he could admit easily that he wasn't a thoroughly new man. He was, in essentials, the same flawed person he always had been. But he understood himself a little better. And that, he hoped, was going to make all the difference in the world.

It was this uplifting thought that carried him through until they arrived in London. It was too late in the evening when they first hit the streets of the busy capital city for him to withdraw more funds from his bank for this next part of his journey, so he prepared to stay the night. He sent out one of his footmen, in the meanwhile, to make some inquiries. When the man returned, however, Darcy was disappointed. The Hurst's home was now in the hands of a different master, Miss Bingley was unheard of, and there was no Bingley staying at the Albany.

The following morning met with as much success, as his inquiries at a brief stop at White's yielded no information. One man thought he recalled Charles Bingley having a house in town somewhere, but couldn't recall where. Another dead end.

Darcy returned home disappointed, but was satisfied to discover that the funds he had requested had arrived. After packing together his things and loading the time machine in the coach, he began the trip to Hertfordshire. The Bingley question would simply have to remain unanswered for now.

As the carriage was on its way out of town, however, they passed by a coffeehouse on a main thoroughfare -- in fact, the very one in which Darcy had last met Charles Bingley. As the coach rolled past slowly in the heavy morning traffic, he caught sight of a familiar profile in the window. Within a heartbeat, Darcy had knocked on the roof and ordered his coachman to stop. As he stepped out, he asked his coachman to circle the block and return in fifteen minutes -- long enough to get the answers to his questions, but not too long if Bingley refused to have anything to do with him.

He crossed the street, dodging carefully the oncoming carriages and mess on the cobblestones, and entered the coffeehouse.

"Charles Bingley!"

The man at the table looked up, surprised to find himself addressed. He caught sight of Darcy standing in the aisle, and his eyes narrowed as though he were trying to place him. Within a moment recognition seemed to come, for he stood and offered his hand, his face breaking into a smile. "Mr. Darcy! As I live and breathe."

"Mister?" Darcy echoed, smiling, shaking Bingley's hand warmly. "It's a pity we've become such distant acquaintances that I'm accorded a 'Mister.'"

Bingley's expression turned regretful. "We were once closer friends. I haven't seen you in ages. Won't you join me?"

"Thank you; I would like that," Darcy said, setting his hat and gloves down and taking the seat opposite his old friend. A waiter came over and took his order, and while he waited for his coffee, he took note of the black armband and the tired expression in Bingley's eyes. "How have you been since last I saw you -- what, six or seven years ago now, isn't it? How is your wife?"

"Dead, actually."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

Bingley shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. "It's been a few years, now. I've been vaguely considering getting married again, but haven't had a chance, even had I been interested. My grandmother died earlier last year, and then my uncle later on. Then Hurst -- you might remember him -- went a few months ago." He gestured to the armband. "It's why I've got this. Have hardly had it off these past three years."

Darcy nodded. "How are Mrs. Hurst and the children?"

"Not taking it well," Bingley said with a sigh. "They became very close-knit after Hurst stopped drinking, oh, about a decade and a half ago now. Didn't expect it of him."

"People surprise us sometimes," Darcy said quietly.

"Very true." Bingley paused in thought, and then said, "I don't know if you knew this, but he always attributed the change to you. Wouldn't ever explain, always had this sly grin when he said it. I imagine maybe it was something you said to him when we were at Netherfield all those years ago, though I couldn't possibly guess what would have put him off that much."

Darcy felt a sly grin curving his own lips and did his best to contain it.

"Mary and little Nathaniel used to talk about you, too. For a while, Mary would ask if you and your parents were coming to visit, and Louisa frequently had to explain that your parents passed away years ago." Bingley shook his head. "Strange family."

They fell silent for lack of words, until Darcy said, "It's been a long time since we've seen each other."

Bingley nodded. "Fell away from the acquaintance, really. I lost contact with a number of people during that time."

"Have you ever been back to Hertfordshire?"

The other man shook his head, setting down his coffee cup. "No. Haven't been back since we left it -- what was that, in '12?"

"1811," Darcy supplied as he accepted his coffee from the waiter.

"Right; that was back in '11. November 26, right after the ball. I gave up that house entirely after that. Mrs. Bingley always kept on me to purchase an estate somewhere, but I never really got over the experience. We had the new London house and the place in Scarborough, so we had somewhere to live. Figured I'd leave estate buying to the next generation of Bingleys, maybe. If there ever is, I suppose."

"Things change, don't they?" Darcy mused.

"Indeed, they do," Bingley agreed. He stared into his coffee cup a few minutes before saying, "I sometimes wonder about Hertfordshire."

"What, about the county?" Darcy asked, knowing full well what his old friend meant.

"No, about the people there," he said. "Only knew them a few months, really, but I sometimes wonder what happened to them. Sir William Lucas, I think it was. Colonel Forster. The Gouldings. The Bennets."

Darcy took a moment before answering. Truly, he knew a great deal about what happened to the latter family -- at least, he did so far as nothing else had changed since he had last been with Elizabeth. At the same time, it no doubt wasn't diplomatic to answer Bingley's curiosity directly. "Probably what happens to most people: some die, some marry, some have children. I think I recall hearing somewhere that Miss Bennet -- the eldest one -- married a merchant here in the city, but I might be wrong now."

"Really? That's a pity. She was ... she seemed the type to ... to do better."

Darcy nodded. "Very handsome. Well-mannered. Not precisely good family..."

"True, but there's not much in that, in the end," Bingley said. "I know my sisters always wanted me to marry well, but ... Listen to me -- I'm growing maudlin in my old age."

"Old age?" Darcy echoed with a laugh. "You're not even in your forties yet. Maybe when you get to my age you can talk about becoming decrepit."

Bingley smiled sideways. "I suppose that's true. I'm just feeling older, is all, I think. The other night at dinner ... well, I suppose it would have to be more than a few months ago, really, my sisters introduced me to a young miss in her first season. She was barely out of the nursery, giddy and excited about everything. I cannot remember being that young."

"If you cannot remember, I'm certain I could remind you."

"I've no doubt you could," Bingley said, shaking his head. "I was a rather foolish young man, was I not?"

"Impetuous, maybe. In need of direction, but, even so, perhaps a little too trusting of others' opinions. I've often wondered if you would have been happier had I not talked you out of marrying Miss Bennet. I think that's where we started to fall apart, too."

Bingley sighed and looked around at the other people sitting at the tables and coming in and out of the shop. "A little heavy of a conversation for a coffeehouse," he said.

Darcy shrugged. "It's the only place we've seen each other since your wedding."

"S'truth," Bingley agreed. He drained his cup and then set it down on the table between them. He studied Darcy for a moment before saying, "You seem to be doing well."

"Better than I have been in years," Darcy said with a smile.

"Is Mrs. Darcy in town?"

Darcy shook his head decidedly, setting down his own cup. "No. She's at Pemberley, and will be for a while. I am, in fact, in town only for a day, myself. I'm heading out directly on business, but I saw you through the window sitting here and wanted to stop in and talk for a while. We haven't seen each other in too long a time."

"We have not," Bingley said. "You should call at the house at the next opportunity when you return from your trip. It's a tad on the large side for just myself, but I haven't decided to rent it out for the season or not. If I do, I will leave you my direction. I might rusticate down Scarborough way ... if I can avoid my sisters long enough to escape town, that is. It seems they've gotten it into their heads to marry me off again."

"Take my advice: run the opposite direction, as fast as you can." Darcy glanced out the window and saw his carriage had returned and was standing idle out front of the shop. "But I should be leaving. My carriage, it appears, awaits."

Bingley glanced out the window, as well, and nodded. They both stood and shook hands, but Bingley held on longer than polite, his expression hesitant. When Darcy looked at him in question, his old friend leaned in and said softly, "Look, Darcy, you asked earlier whether you had done me a disservice by talking me out of offering for Miss Bennet, and I wanted to set your mind at ease. You were right; she didn't care for me. She never responded to any of Caroline's letters and appeared to drop the acquaintance entirely once we were gone. Caroline even said at one point that she had heard Miss Bennet was in town and called on her, but she'd been cold and unwelcoming. As you said, I was rather impulsive back then and aimed toward marriage; I was a bit blind to whether the lady was, too. Your advice was obviously for the best, and I just wanted to let you know. I know you'd understand."

Darcy looked at his friend sadly, but nodded, understanding more than his old friend thought. It wasn't that Miss Bennet wasn't in love with him: it was that his friends and family didn't want him to know that she was. He was not the same Bingley that Darcy remembered. Whether that was a product of his life since his disappointment with Miss Bennet, and whether helping him discover the truth about her would change anything, Darcy didn't know. But he had the power to find out. He had done his friend a disservice by assisting Bingley's sisters in their deception -- and it was just as well he was going about making it right.

Clasping his friend's hand once more and silently promising to make him happy, Darcy turned and made his way out of the shop and to his carriage. Within the hour, they were out of London proper and on their way to Hertfordshire.

This part of the journey was much more comfortable as, after dwelling for a while on Bingley's words again, he turned his thoughts from where he had been to where he was going. There were several possibilities when he arrived in Meryton.

Longbourn could still be in the Bennet family, if the change in the past resulted in Mr. Bennet not dying. Not knowing why or how that gentleman had died previously, Darcy had no idea what the impact of the Wickham marriage had been on the event.

Another possibility was that the Collinses were now at Longbourn. If it were so, Darcy could no doubt play upon his status as Mr. Collins' former patroness' nephew to find answers to his questions. If he couldn't find Elizabeth from there, he would be able, no doubt, to pry information from the regulars at the inn's taproom. It had worked well before.

Either way, he should be able to find Elizabeth; he had no doubt of that. His heart told him he was going to the right place -- and he had learned to follow his heart with a bit more trust. And when he found her, he would gain her cooperation again. He imagined his encounter with Elizabeth Bennet, planned what he would say to her, how she would respond, and how he would convince her to come with him.

Only a few hours later they were already in the area of Meryton, and as they came over a hill Darcy caught sight of a house and, without knowing how he knew, was immediately certain what it was. He knocked on the roof of his carriage, and when it pulled to a stop he opened the door and stepped out, looking down onto the valley below. From here could be seen the majority of the Hertfordshire countryside for several miles around -- but Darcy was only looking in one direction.

This was the first time he had actually seen Longbourn. In all the time he and Elizabeth had been in Meryton and at Netherfield, in all the time his younger self had been at Netherfield with Bingley, he had never set foot there or even caught a glimpse of it. It had been unnecessary. But now -- he had someone to find.

This early in the morning, certainly too early for a call, there was little stirring at the house. Out on the farm, he could see some activity: a shepherd with his flock, a man kneeling in the fields, most likely checking the soil. But at the house, there was nothing.

Darcy was preparing to remount the carriage for them to continue on to the village of Meryton, when a flash of blue and movement caught his eye. A female figure had just exited the house by a side door, wrapping a shawl about her shoulders, and set off with a purposeful walk across the lawn. Darcy would know that stride anywhere. She was still at Longbourn. He didn't question his luck, but set out to capture it.

"George, meet me in the village," he said to his coachman as he pulled the time machine and his bag from the interior. "I wish to take a walk. I know my way from here."

"Yes, sir," the coachman said, tipping his hat. He set off and soon had disappeared down the hill and around the bend to Meryton. Darcy turned back towards Longbourn.

By this time, the woman had crossed the lawn and was now setting off down one of the paths into the woods. Darcy followed, coming down the hill at a fast clip so as not to lose her, but when he reached the path she was nowhere in sight. He took a chance and continued to follow the path, hoping she would follow no minor deviation. He was in luck: she hadn't.

She was sitting on a tree stump when he arrived at the slight clearing at the top of the mount. He stopped his approach when he caught sight of her and remained standing at the edge of the trees, watching her. She was silent and still, clutching her shawl around her shoulders and staring out over the countryside below.

"Miss Bennet," he said gently, hoping not to startle her.

He was unsuccessful. She jumped, scrambling quickly to her feet and backing up when she caught sight of him. It took her only a moment to recognize him, and when she did her face paled and her jaw fell open. "Mr. Darcy?"

He stepped forward and bowed as well he could with a bag in one hand and the time machine under the other arm. "The same," he said.

She looked past him, as if perhaps expecting to see someone else, and then out again over the countryside below, and then back at him. She seemed unsure what she was supposed to say, so he began with pleasantries: "How do you do?"

"I am well," she said, her expression still full of confusion.

"And your parents? Are they in good health?"

She blinked a few times before answering. "They are very well," she said. "They are in good health."

"Your father? He is alive and well?"

"Yes..."

"Your sisters? Are they well, also?"

Here she seemed to hesitate, her brow furrowing, and so he moved to another channel of conversation: "The weather is particularly fine this morning," he said.

"Indeed," she replied.

"Beautiful weather for a morning walk."

Her eyes narrowed further. "Very beautiful."

"I can see you are taking advantage of it," he said. "It is a wonderfully fine day, given the recent rains."

"Very fine," she said, but then blurted out: "Mr. Darcy, why have you come here to speak to me of the weather? I do not see you for more than a decade, and then you come upon me in the woods and ask me about my family and tell me it's a fine day? Of course it's a fine day! I can bloody well see that."

She clasped her hands over her mouth and widened her eyes at her explosive words. Darcy did his best to contain his smile, but failed. When his smile widened and a chuckle escaped him, her eyes narrowed again and she glared, wrapping her shawl closer about her. "Have you come here for a joke?"

He sobered at that. "Have you ever known me to tease?" he asked.

She cocked her head at him. "No, that is very true. But then what is this about? I am perfectly wide awake, so this cannot be a dream."

A thrill went through him, and he couldn't help stepping towards her. "Do you dream of me often, then?"

Her face flushed and she gasped, her hand coming to cover her mouth. Her eyes wide with an expression of alarm, she made as if to skirt past him, but he quickly dropped his bag and reached out to grasp her arm. "Miss Bennet, I am sorry," he said.

"Release me," she said, her jaw tight as she stared obstinately down the path.

"Elizabeth, listen to me."

She turned blazing eyes towards him. "When did I give you leave to address me so familiarly, sir, and what could you possibly have to say to me? How dare you come here after all these years and speak to me like this! How dare you follow me here! How dare you touch me," she said, looking down at his hand on her arm. She gasped, her gaze flying up to meet his. "You married."

His ring. He had forgotten about his ring. Darcy felt his face flushing in embarrassment. He should have thought this through more; he should have planned this out, known what to say instead of impulsively following her and accosting her here, alone in the countryside. Rather than advancing his cause, he probably had just set it back significantly.

He'd been seduced by the familiarity of their previous existence. Instead of isolating in his mind this iteration of her in this time, he'd mentally substituted his Elizabeth -- Mrs. Wickham, as she was -- for this unmarried woman. He knew nothing of this woman beyond what he remembered of the past; she was someone completely different than the person with whom he'd shared joys and sorrows as they'd jumped through time together, even though they shared a similar face and a similar history. But not the same history -- their lives diverged, and he needed to remember that.

"I did," he said, acknowledging her statement. "I am married." She looked away, but before she did he would have sworn he saw the sheen of tears.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, her voice hollow. "And remember before you answer that I am a gentlewoman."

Darcy let that sit in the air for a moment, trying to figure out what exactly she meant by pointing out such an obvious fact. When it came to him, he tightened his grip on her arm unintentionally, and she flinched. He released her, and she brought her arm to her chest, rubbing it as she backed away from him. He followed. "Miss Bennet, I mean no disrespect. I am not here to induce you into any immorality. I simply needed to talk with you."

"About what?" she challenged, throwing the words at him over her shoulder as she set off down the path. "What could we possibly have to say to each other?"

"That I'm sorry?" he said softly, his voice carrying in the stillness of the morning. She stopped and looked at him in surprise. "That I would like to tender an apology for my behavior when last we met? That I would like to make amends for the harm I did you? That I would like, if you would help me, to change our past?

She had been staring at him silently, her expression one of growing wonderment, until his last words, at which she cocked her head in confusion. She smiled without humor as she asked, "Change our past? And how do you propose we do that, Mr. Darcy? We went down separate paths in our lives. We cannot simply erase it all and reconcile."

"What if we could?" he said.

"Would it matter?" she countered. "There is a vast gulf between us, Mr. Darcy. Wider still, as you are married. We have nothing to say to one another -- or nothing that should be said. We can have nothing to do with each other."

"But what if it were not you and I now, but you and I twelve years ago, after we last spoke? What if it were the you and I who last parted at Rosings, across a paling in the grove?"

She flushed angrily, and her voice quivered as she snapped, "What could it possibly serve to bring up these memories, Mr. Darcy? What, did you hear about our situation and come to taunt me with your superiority? Have you come to laugh at the old maid? To mock the spinster who could have accepted your hand if she'd not been so proud? If she'd not believed--" she broke off, her voice cracking under the emotion. He was so stunned by her rancor that he had no answer, and she continued in the silence, her words softer but no less laced with pain: "Why now? Why did you wait so long? If you'd come while the wound was fresh, I might have borne it, but to do so now, when I've become resigned ... this is simply cruel, Mr. Darcy."

"Elizabeth," he said, shocked to the core.

"No," she said, her voice tired. "Let me alone."

And without another word, she walked off down the path. He watched her go, his feet rooted to the ground, his mind frozen. What had he done? Had he hurt her that much? He hadn't thought his letter would pain her to this extent or change her opinion of him so much that his reappearance would cause such distress. But, clearly, somehow he had. And he had to make it right.

She was more than twenty feet away when he stirred from his thoughts enough to realize she was leaving him. And having ruined so much of this encounter, would she even be open to seeing him again? He had to do something to keep her here, talking to him.

"Miss Bennet!" he called. When she didn't turn, he said the first thing that came to his mind: "I have changed the past!"

She stopped in the middle of the path, her head cocked slightly, and then spun to face him. "What?"

In for a penny... "I've gone back in time and changed our past. And I need you to help me finish what I started."

She didn't seem to understand him. Her eyes narrowed, glanced right and then left, then back at him before she closed them and shook her head as though to clear it. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Darcy," she said slowly, the words almost musical in cadence, "I don't believe I quite heard what you said."

He picked his bag off the ground, slung it over his shoulder, and approached her rapidly. She didn't move. "I've come here to ask you to come with me back in time and change our past. I think I've done enough to ruin both our lives, and I now want to do what I can to alter it for the better. But I need you to help me by showing me where you were and what you were doing after we both left Kent. I want you to help me bring about our marriage."

"Are you mad?" she whispered, backing a step away from him. "Is that what this is about? You are spouting nonsense, Mr. Darcy."

"I am not," he insisted. "I went back in time with you -- with what you would have been, had you married George Wickham -- and altered time so that I fell further in love with you, so that we saw each other again in Kent, so that I proposed to you."

She looked doubtful. "You changed it to my rejection? That seems a rather self-loathing thing to do."

"Is there any way I would have had enough incentive to change my proud and arrogant manner otherwise?" he asked seriously.

She was silent for a moment, staring at him thoughtfully. At last, though, she shook her head. "This is a very inventive story, Mr. Darcy, but you made one rather grievous mistake in all of that. I would never have married Mr. Wickham."

"Would you not?" he asked, and she looked away from his gaze. "I can tell you that you did, up to the point that you read the letter I wrote you."

She shook her head resolutely, her jaw clenching. He sighed in frustration. "What can I tell you to convince you?" He paused in thought. "I could describe our walks in Kent."

She lifted one brow in derision. "Of course you could. I could, too. I was there."

"True. What about-- no, you're right. My younger self would have known of those, too." He looked off down the path, wracking his brains for something to use to convince her. Then he thought of it: "Mr. Winterbottom!"

"Mr. Winterbottom?" she echoed, her brow wrinkled. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you remember Mr. Winterbottom?" he asked. When she shook her head, he prompted her with more details: "He and his wife came from Keswick. They stayed at the inn at Meryton for a few months. They were visiting -- his wife had ancestral ties to the Bennets. They went to the October Meryton Assembly where you first met Bingley. I know you saw them there. And at the Gouldings..."

"I do remember a couple named the Winterbottoms, but--"

She broke off speaking as he dropped his bag on the ground, set down the time machine, and knelt in the dirt. He dug around in his valise until he triumphantly pulled out his shaving case. From the little box he pulled out a set of false whiskers and, with more haste than accuracy, affixed them to his face with the help of a tiny mirror. When he finished to his satisfaction, he stood up and held out his arms. "I was Mr. Winterbottom."

Through all of this, Elizabeth had been staring at him in growing horror, and here she stepped back, her hand pressed to her chest. "But ... but you couldn't have been! You were at Netherfield."

"Correction: my younger self was at Netherfield at that time. I, on the other hand, was with you in the village, posing as the Winterbottoms as we did our best to bring you together with him."

"With me?" she echoed, putting her hand now to her head. "How could you have been with me? I don't understand any of this."

"Can I show you?" he asked, his voice gentle but urgent as he held out his hand to her. "Will you trust me enough to take my hand so that I can show you?"

"Show me what?"

"The past."

Chapter Ten: Shades of the Past

Posted on 2011-05-18

August 1812

"Any sign?"

With a shake of her head, Elizabeth resumed her vigil over the vast landscape visible from the window of their third-storey hideout. Darcy returned to the desk and glanced back over his notes, then sat back in his chair and looked across again at the woman at the window. It was good to see her at Pemberley, even if it was in such circumstances. He could only hope their efforts here would make her presence a more permanent one.

From Hertfordshire in 1826, he and Elizabeth Bennet had first jumped to Rosings in 1812. He later realized, as he searched the cottage for something to revive her from her faint, that he probably ought to have explained better what was going to happen when she put her hand in his. It had been so long since his own first jump, and so long since he had first introduced Elizabeth to the experience that he'd forgotten that this Elizabeth wouldn't understand the vaguely queasy sensation or the slight feeling of disorientation when one arrived at one's destination. Even though he was now expecting it every time, he had to admit to that little frisson of panic when everything suddenly changed before his eyes during a jump. That certainly didn't go away.

So why he had not considered whether Elizabeth could cope with it on her first time hop without any sort of warning was beyond him. Cursing himself roundly for his idiocy, he waved under her nose a burnt feather from the mattress in the tiny bedroom and watched as she opened her eyes in complete confusion. He had then done his best to explain everything he knew about time travel to her in more detail -- but that didn't take long, so he then explained what they were doing there, in a cottage at Rosings on the morning after he had proposed to her. That explanation took longer, so they were a bit late when they arrived at the wooded hill overlooking the grove.

They remained this time further in the woods on the hill, standing quietly behind some trees and shrubs. Darcy offered Elizabeth a set of opera glasses he had taken from his London house for her to see more clearly what was going on. Below them in the grove, the younger Darcy had already walked away and only the younger Elizabeth Bennet remained. On the top of the hill, a middle-aged couple sat in the grass, and the Elizabeth beside him grasped his hand and pointed to draw his attention to them. He nodded and patted her hand, and they continued to watch. The letter was read. Elizabeth Wickham disappeared. The elder Darcy, alone on the hill, unashamedly wept.

"You loved me," Elizabeth said softly to Darcy as they turned to walk further into the woods, where they could retrieve their bags and safely jump without being seen.

"I love you every time," Darcy replied. "And every time a little more."

She bit her lip and looked away. "Every time," she echoed after a few moments of silence between them. "If you loved me, why did you never come back to Hertfordshire?"

"Because I was hurt," he said. "And even if I had gotten over my stubbornness so much as to accept that maybe I was wrong, I could not believe that you would ever accept my advances after I'd so thoroughly bungled them the first time."

"Yet you could not have loved me so much," she said. "You married."

He put a hand to her arm and stopped her from walking. "That had nothing to do with love, Elizabeth, and everything to do with duty to my name, duty to my sister, and duty to my family. And I failed utterly, on all three accounts. I was disappointed by your refusal, and a part of me felt that if I couldn't have you, it didn't matter much who I married. Now, of course, I know I should have come back to you and worked to earn your regard. Would you have accepted me?"

"I don't know," she said honestly, the words sounding as though torn from her lips. "I am so confused right now."

"About what?"

She threw her arms outward. "About everything! I know you explained this to me just now, but I do not see how this happened, how we are here, how three of me were here, how we're supposed to do anything about any of this. Are we supposed to talk to me, to my younger self? To your younger self?"

"No," Darcy said firmly. "We are not to engage them in any manner, unless we cannot avoid it. We must stay as invisible as possible. We are here to alter the past; we are not here to become part of it."

"But is that not what you did as Mr. and Mrs. Winterbottom?" Elizabeth asked.

Darcy sighed. "Yes, but we were not ourselves. We also posed as ghosts at Netherfield, and later at Rosings, but, again, both of those times we were not pretending to be Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. We have only become ourselves in emergencies. And when I bungled things thoroughly," he added under his breath.

"I don't understand why we cannot," she said. "Surely it would be simpler to talk to ourselves, to explain what we are doing."

"And leave us to live with the knowledge of a different life? That is what happened to Wickham," he said, and she turned her face away at the name, her jaw clenching. "He had to live with a lifetime of regret, after changing the past to suit his own ends."

"He deserves the regret."

"Elizabeth!" he said, surprised at her vehemence. "He repented. He knew he had done wrong."

"I don't have to forgive him."

He looked at her curiously, hearing something in her voice. "Did you love him that much?"

She turned sharply. "No!" she said, shocked. "I never loved him. Oh, when I first met him I was flattered by his attention; I had thought I might be able to respect him, to esteem him ... but you cured me of any tender feelings I had for him, and I, at the very least, could never again trust him."

"So ... what, then? You cannot forgive him the wrong he did you?" When she turned away again, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, he sighed and then said softly, "We all do wrong to others, Elizabeth. I, myself, have done things I'm not proud of. Long before we changed the past, so that I now have regrets for my treatment of you, I had other behaviors I could not look back on without guilt and shame."

Elizabeth glanced at him from the side, her expression asking him to continue. "My marriage was not a happy one -- in any of its variations," he said, "but it was never an excuse for how I treated my wife. Victoria was not an ideal mate, by any stretch of the imagination, nor was she loyal -- but, then, in a sense neither was I. She deserved my respect as my wife, and instead, because I felt she had betrayed me, I denied it her. She did wrong, but I could have given her the forgiveness due her dignity as a person. Instead I starved her of affection and respect, and when she went elsewhere for it I punished her the more."

"There are few who would blame you, I think," she said.

"I blame myself," he replied. "And in the end that's what matters. The world can dispense its blame how it wills, but when it comes to the true point it is my opinion on the matter that makes the difference. I feel the regret, and I will do anything to make what I have done right. But that means, in part, seeking forgiveness from those I have wronged, from my own conscience. I would seek to redress the wrong I did to you, to Bingley, to your sister Jane. Do you despise me for trying as much as you despise Wickham?"

There was silence for a moment, and he watched as she wiped something from her cheek. "I don't know," she said quietly before turning to look at him, her eyes suspiciously bright. "I feel as though we are playing God."

He shook his head, taking her hands in his and holding them tightly. "We are not playing God," he said. "Not if we are being given the tools by Him to right these wrongs. We are doing no more than the man who, walking down a street, sees a billfold on the ground. He has the choice to pick it up and return it to its owner, to pick it up for his own benefit, or to continue walking past. We are choosing to do what is right: we are returning the past to its rightful place."

"But what of the others' whose lives are being changed?" she said. "Those whose lives are impacted by ours? What about ... what say that the billfold has stolen money in it -- and that by returning it, the man has now helped to hurt others' lives? Should he not have instead given the billfold to the authorities?"

"But were those people's lives not already hurt by the original theft, by Wickham's choice to undo the past?" Darcy said. "What of your sister? What of Bingley? What of my sister? I have thought about this thoroughly, from every angle. I feel certain that we are doing what is right. The other possibility -- that we must be resigned to our current fate, is inconceivable. I am convinced that I have been sent back not only to help us find happiness, but for their sake, as well."

"Happiness," she echoed softly, her gaze on something in the invisible distance. She turned back to him. "I want to help my sisters. How do we help them find their happiness?"

He smiled and lifted her hands to his lips. "By finding our own," he said. "I have confidence that it is through our union, through our coming together, that the rest of the history will fall into place. I cannot believe that we would live in happiness when our closest friends and family did not."

A corner of her mouth quirked upwards and she pressed his hands. "Then let us go to change the past."

Their first stop, on leaving Rosings, was London. Elizabeth had recalled, among other things, that at the close of June she and her aunt and uncle Gardiner had left for a tour of the Lake District, where they had spent nearly two full months before they were called home on family business. But if, she supposed, her uncle were to have business that would keep them in London for some time instead, would they not be able to arrange, perhaps, an opportunity for she and Darcy to meet?

So the business was arranged; Darcy, in the guise of his younger self, had his solicitor arrange for investment by an "undisclosed individual" into Mr. Gardiner's company. The numbers were large enough: Mr. Gardiner himself was confirmed to be present for negotiations. They had to delay their trip to the north.

But instead of the Lake District, Elizabeth discovered, her aunt and uncle had decided upon the brilliant idea of traveling to the Peak District, and specifically to Mrs. Gardiner's home village of Lambton.

This was not to plan, but Darcy and Elizabeth compared notes and realized that, in this iteration, she would be in Lambton during the time Darcy would come to Pemberley. Within five miles of each other! Surely they could find a way to meet!

But what of the large house party? Darcy questioned. As he was host, surely they would have difficulty arranging for him to go to Lambton or elsewhere to see Elizabeth. And with Bingley and his sisters in the party, it was even more imperative that the first encounter happen away from other influences. It would be awkward enough as it was.

A short jump back in time, and it was arranged for Darcy's steward to send a letter to his master regarding some estate business that Darcy was certain would bring him home a day early. This could provide the opportunity, they reasoned.

When they jumped back to their borrowed rooms at Pemberley, now on the morning after the travelers' expected arrival in Lambton, Elizabeth recalled that she had given in to her relatives' persuasion to take a tour of that great house. Of course, Elizabeth had only agreed upon learning that the family was not at home, but no one knew of Darcy's impending arrival. Even the timing was a mystery to all but the younger Darcy.

Thus the day had turned into nothing more than a game of waiting. They had watched the travelers arrive. They had watched them be welcomed into the house. They had even heard them in the hallway. But there had been no sign of Darcy, and the tour was nearly at an end. If he didn't return soon, they would need to find another occasion for their reunion.

"Here you come."

His thoughts scattered at the sound of Elizabeth's voice. Darcy looked to where she still stood at the window, one hand holding back the lace curtain. When he didn't respond, she tore her gaze from her opera glasses and looked in his direction. "Unless I am mistaken, that is you on your horse, is it not?"

He approached and took the glasses she offered and looked through them in the direction she indicated. "It is," he confirmed. "And do we know where the tour is, at present?"

Elizabeth sighed. "I have not the least idea. Should we go in search of them?"

Darcy hesitated, holding the glasses to his chest as he watched the little speck that was him grow larger in the distance. "I don't know if it will do any good," he said. "What could we do? We could hardly show ourselves, and to put ourselves in the way of possibly doing so is to court disaster. I don't know if we can do anything at this point."

"Then what are we doing here?" she asked, frowning.

"I don't know yet," he said. "I don't know."

They watched, together, as Darcy rode past the house on the road to the stables behind. "And there you go," she said, her voice brimming with frustration. "You could easily come into the house, I could leave it, and we could continue none the wiser that either of us were within fifty yards of the other. How can we stand here and do nothing?"

"Because we have no choice," he said. "We have to let it happen."

But nothing happened. Not for five minutes, at least. But then, just as they were going to turn away from the window, four figures appeared down below. One of them Darcy recognized as his head gardener. The others were the Gardiners and Elizabeth.

"Are we leaving, do you think?" Elizabeth asked, but then, with a gasp, grabbed Darcy's arm and pulled him backward, letting the curtain fall. Her younger self had looked up at the house. Her eyes were round as she turned to Darcy. "Did she see us?"

Carefully, Darcy went back to the window, keeping just to one side, and then held the curtain back slightly to see through. Down below, the four people were still standing where they had been only moments before. His gardener was standing slightly apart, farthest from the house, and the youngish couple -- the Gardiners, Elizabeth had explained earlier -- was together looking up at the house still, though the gentleman was gesturing towards the other wing. It was unlikely Darcy would be seen, he thought.

Miss Bennet, however, was standing completely still, a few steps away from her aunt and uncle, staring at something near the house. Darcy put his opera glasses to his eyes for a closer view and noted her heightened color and an expression on her face that spoke of embarrassment and unease. He turned his glasses in the direction she was looking and caught sight, just at the edge of his view, of a very familiar hat and coat.

"We've met," he said softly. He turned to Elizabeth, who had approached the window again cautiously, and handed her the glasses, ceding his place. "You've seen me, and there's not a chance we can avoid each other now."

Elizabeth watched for a moment, her expression concerned. "We do not seem to be very happy to see each other."

"I cannot imagine this moment would be anything less than awkward," Darcy said, leaning back against the wall. She looked over at him, a question in her eyes. "When was it last we saw each other? And in the meantime, our only communication was the letter."

She sighed, turning back to the window. "Ah, yes. The letter."

"Did it change your opinion of me?" he asked, turning and leaning his shoulder against the wall. "I know it pained you. You ... your other self, that is, Elizabeth Wickham said as much when we were at Rosings, and if it pained her it would no doubt pain your younger self all the more. And I had intended it to, I admit. I wrote it with a great deal of bitterness. I never meant it to turn out that way, when Elizabeth and I wrote the beginning of it, but when I set my pen to the paper that night, that little start before me, it seemed to pour out of me. I must have written it several times over, and each time it changed. I wrote it to tell you the truth, but more so to prove you wrong, to pain you by showing you how mistaken you had been. There are some expressions ... when I wrote that letter, I had thought myself completely calm and cool, but I was not. I wanted to make you suffer as much as I did. I am only surprised it did not increase your dislike of me."

"I admit that it was painful to read some of what you wrote," she said slowly, her fingers playing nervously on the windowsill. "But you could not have given me the truth -- even the truth as you saw it -- in a way that would not have pained me. I was so wrong, and I needed your words to show me how my prejudices had blinded me to the truth. I certainly did not love you for forcing me to confront my nature, for opening my eyes to my vanity and pride, but neither did I hate you. When once I had time to reflect on everything you had told me, there was no pain, except for a regret that I could not apologize to you for my accusations and folly."

They were silent for a few moments. Darcy was trying to formulate a response, with no idea what he could say. She had not answered his question. What he really wanted to know, what he would have given anything to learn, was her feelings for him; she had said nothing of that in all this time they had now been together since they met near Longbourn. He had readily admitted that he loved her, but he knew not at all whether she felt the same. She did not hate him, she said; that was something. But was it enough?

Elizabeth cursed a mild oath under her breath, drawing his attention back to the window. "You're walking away," she said. "You're going into the house."

"What?" She moved out of the way for him and he glanced out the window in time to see himself disappear up the stairs to the front door. After a moment, Elizabeth and the Gardiners turned to follow the servant out into the gardens. As she walked away, her movements jerky and unnatural, Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder repeatedly at the house until at last the party disappeared around a bend in the path.

Darcy stepped back, letting the curtain fall. "I must have come in to change, surely -- I could hardly expect to stay in your company as I was. But would I search you out again? I have no idea." With a curse, he slammed his palm against the wall. "I feel so impotent," he said. "There's nothing we can do. You certainly can't be seen, and I can hardly go to my younger self and convince me to seek you out again."

"But surely there must be something... perhaps you might go out there. Stop me, bring me back to the house."

"Me?" he asked, shaking his head. "I cannot appear where I am not. What would happen if my younger self caught sight of me? If others saw two of me? How would we explain that? And even if I escaped without notice, how could you explain coming back to the house? That I had led you? How would my younger self respond to that?"

She sighed. "I had not thought of that. So then what do we do?"

"We let it happen," he said, going to collect the time machine. "We time jump and we find out what happened. If it's something we believe we can go back and change, we do so. If not, we move on."

Elizabeth agreed with this plan, and they were collecting their things to do the jump when the sound of a door opening close by startled them. Footsteps in the next room drew their eyes to the door, and they stared in horror at the connecting door, waiting, but nothing happened. Putting his finger to his lips, Darcy approached the door and put his ear to it. When he didn't hear anything, he knelt down and applied his eye to the keyhole.

At the window facing the drive, a man was standing, buttoning his jacket as he looked out over the landscape. When he finished, he adjusted his cuffs and ran a hand through his hair, then put his hand to the window frame.

"Where did you go, Miss Bennet?" he said, his voice echoing through the empty room.

Darcy felt Elizabeth stiffen beside him, and he glanced over to see she had come to kneel beside him. He ceded his place at the keyhole and sat back on his heels as she in turn pressed her eye to it. The sound of the other man's voice carried still through the wooden door:

"I must be a fool, to even think for one second..." the man in the other room said, trailing off with a sigh. "But she didn't reject me entirely. Maybe it was just surprise, but she didn't turn her back on me. ... I might have a chance. I could ... no, what could I possibly do? She told me what she thought of me. She's made her decision."

There was silence in the other room for some time, and then the sound of a hand slapping against wood. "No. What are the chances? This has to mean something. This is a second chance. This is my second chance. If she doesn't want me, she'll tell me. But she's here; she's on my grounds. It's my turn."

Elizabeth sat back and touched Darcy's shoulder, and he looked a question at her. She gestured to the keyhole, and he took his place at it. In the other room, the younger Darcy had leaned his forehead against the window, one hand gripped tightly on the frame. Suddenly, he stiffened, his head snapping up as he looked through the glass. "They're on the circuit. If I took the path down by the lake... God help me not make an idiot of myself." And with a bark of laughter, the man at the window spun around, and Darcy could see the smile that had spread itself across his countenance. With a spring in his step, his younger and hopeful self strode quickly to the outside door, opened it and went through, closing it carelessly behind him.

There was silence again in the room for some time, before Elizabeth suddenly burst into laughter. Darcy felt a smile crease his own face as he listened to her laugh. "By God," he said in wonder. "We did it. I can't believe we did it -- without doing anything."

Elizabeth turned to him, wiping away the tears that were streaming from the corners of her crinkled eyes. "We're just lucky you didn't decide to come in here for a better vantage point."

"No doubt," Darcy said. He sat back against the door and looked over at Elizabeth, who was smiling at him. "So, shall we perhaps jump to tomorrow? Or shall we assume that things are going swimmingly, and jump farther than that? Two days? Three days?"

"Two days sounds perfectly fine," she said. "What would that be? The sixth?"

"Sounds to me an auspicious day," Darcy said, helping Elizabeth to stand. "Let us see how far our romance has progressed."

When they arrived two days forward around mid-day, Darcy immediately recalled having taken his sister to Lambton to meet Elizabeth and the Gardiners at the inn. Bingley had gone with them, and they had been received cordially and with both civility and enthusiasm on both sides.

"My sister even invited you to dinner tomorrow," Darcy said, writing in his notebook. He looked up from where he leant over the desk and saw that Elizabeth had walked away and was now standing with her back to him, looking out the window over the landscape of Pemberley. "Was that not ideal?"

"Very," she said, her voice drifting listlessly across the room.

"And then, your uncle was to come to Pemberley to fish with us this morning," he said, but then frowned. A wisp of a memory was coming to him -- incomplete, but disturbing nonetheless. He looked at the coordinates on the time machine, and then pulled out his pocket-watch, which was, of course, completely unhelpful, as he hadn't bothered winding it in weeks. "It should be nearing noon," he said doubtfully. "That's what I set the time machine to. And your uncle hasn't arrived yet."

When Elizabeth failed to make a response, Darcy approached her at the window. "Is something wrong?" he asked, but she turned and walked away, across the room again, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. He stared after her for a moment, but then his attention was drawn out the window by a familiar horse and rider that had just cleared the side of the house and was setting off down the drive. "Where am I going?" he mused, answering his own question in the next breath: "Lambton. Elizabeth, why did your uncle not come to Pemberley?"

"He couldn't," she said, sitting down in a comfortable chair and drawing her legs up to her chest. "We weren't there anymore."

Darcy stared at her, not quite comprehending what she was telling him. "Not there anymore?" he echoed. "In Lambton, do you mean? Why? Where were you?"

"On the road back to Longbourn."

"To Longbourn!"

Elizabeth nodded, her eyes closing and a sigh escaping her lips as she rested her forehead on her knees. Darcy watched her a few minutes more, his mind a tumult of questions and emotions, refusing to settle on one thought or another. At last he grasped the one salient point and held to it: Elizabeth had left him.

But why? Why did she leave? Had he been wrong? Had her opinion of him really not changed at all? Had she been only polite in her reception of his attentions, and not encouraging, as he had thought? Had he truly misjudged her feelings so poorly again?

Darcy turned to the window, staring out over the landscape below for many minutes before he at last acknowledged the conclusion his heart had been trying to reject: he had made another error. He had supposed her to feel more than she did, and he hadn't questioned that assumption. He should have asked; he should have sought more information from Elizabeth, he should have faced his fear and asked her to reveal her feelings.

And now it was all over. Now he could recall arriving at the inn, where the innkeeper told him of the Gardiners' departure only several hours before. He remembered going to their rooms, hoping that something had been left for him, and being disappointed. Elizabeth had left without a word.

"You weren't at the inn," he said softly. He turned back to the room, his eyes searching for Elizabeth. She was still on the chair, her legs drawn up to her chest, her head down, her shoulders round and defeated. "You weren't there," he said again, louder, taking a few steps away from the window. "And you left me no note. Did you not have the courage to tell me you were leaving?"

"It wasn't that," she said, her voice muffled.

"Then what? Did you know this was going to happen?" When she nodded her head, he sought to control his rising anger. "If you knew, how could you not have said anything? How could you have let me discover your disappearance like this? I love you."

Her response, quiet as it was, made him pause: "I know," she said, her voice rising in frustration and anger, "I know, I know, I know! I thought -- faith, I don't know what I thought. That things would change. That it wouldn't happen this time." She looked up at him, and he now saw tears fall from her reddened eyes, rolling down her cheeks one after another.

"Why weren't you there?" he asked, coming closer. "Why didn't you stay? Were you running from me?"

"No! Of course I wasn't!"

He put one hand to his brow, trying to remember. "Mr. Gardiner did leave a note of apology at the inn, to be sent to Pemberley. But that was my sole notice from you -- a note from your uncle, saying that he couldn't come, that the three of you had to return to Longbourn. Why did you leave? You could have just told me, if you didn't want my attentions. I would have respected your wishes, Elizabeth."

"It had nothing to do with that," she said desperately, springing from the chair.

"Then why?" he asked, taking her by the arms. "Why did you leave me? I never stopped loving you, but I would have given you up without a word. You didn't have to run away. Did you never think about me? What I would think when you left? Did you ever think about my sister?"

"Not until I'd thought about my own," she said. She pushed herself out of his grasp and walked away, wrapping her arms around herself. "How could you not have known? How could you not have heard?"

"Heard what? What would I have heard?"

"My sister, my youngest sister -- Lydia -- she ran away from Brighton."

"From Brighton?" he echoed, completely confused now. "Why was your sister in Brighton?"

She stared at him, a slightly perplexed expression on her face, and then turned away again. "She was invited. She was friends with the colonel's wife, and she was invited to go with them when the regiment left. She was there some weeks, and she sent letters of the fun she was having, and then ... she ran away."

"Ran away?"

Elizabeth turned and looked at him squarely. "She eloped," she said, the word dropping into the silence like lead. "With Mr. Wickham."

He felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. He staggered back a few steps, his legs catching up against the chair Elizabeth had abandoned, and he collapsed onto it. "She eloped."

"With Mr. Wickham. We never found them," Elizabeth continued, and he struggled to listen as his thoughts began to whirl. "They were traced as far as London. My father searched; my uncle searched; Colonel Forster searched. They were never located, and we were never saved from the ruin. My sister showed up at our aunt and uncle's house several months later, without money and with child. She said that Wickham had abandoned her, that he had left her without a word and she had been thrown out of their lodgings."

"What did your father do?" he asked, his voice hoarse as he buried his head in his hands.

"What could he do?" she said, throwing her hands up. "My father paid to set her up in a place in London. My uncle no doubt helped, as well. And she never felt gratitude for it. She was spoiled and bitter until the end. It was only through my uncle's and aunt's influence that her companion stayed with her, and when she died in childbirth they saw to it that the boy was adopted by a farmer in the country." She sniffled, and he looked up to see she had gone to the window and was staring out over the sun-drenched landscape. "But by that time, it was over for us. The brush of scandal had tainted us, and there was little chance for any of us to overcome such a stigma. Jane, of course, was something more, and when she went to stay with my aunt and uncle later in the year, she managed to catch the eye of a merchant who was good enough to look beyond the reputation of our family."

"Mr. Thornton."

She looked at him in surprise. "You knew? But how--"

He shook his head sadly. "It was what happened before. Your sister has always married him, as long as I have known. Time is resilient -- Wickham told me that when we first started all of this. Things do not change unless they are meant to change. We failed to do it right. We missed something or we are missing something. I have no doubt things happened exactly as you described them -- and they will happen again, if we do not change them."

"So Jane will never marry Mr. Bingley?" Elizabeth asked.

"I cannot say," he said, his voice brimming with frustration. "Wickham didn't tell me anything about that. I only knew about you and me -- how could I even have known to ask him about them? I know nothing but what occurred in my own time. It is possible that when we marry, it will happen differently, but we haven't changed that yet."

They were both silent as they contemplated this. At last, Elizabeth asked, "How do we change it?"

He couldn't answer; he had no solution. He continued to think, trying to figure out what it was that troubled him in her story. "How did Wickham know to seduce your sister?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

But the thoughts that disturbed him would not coalesce in his mind. Feeling the need to dispel some of his frustration through motion, Darcy pushed himself out of the chair and strode across the room. He turned at the window to look back at Elizabeth, who had watched him in confusion. "Why your sister? What had she to offer?"

She closed her eyes as if in pain. "Aside from youth and folly? Nothing. We had little money, certainly not enough to tempt a man of his ... needs. But she had always been a spoiled, selfish child, unwilling to think past her own desires to the consequences on her own reputation and its impact on her family. I have no doubt it was she who suggested the elopement; that she had offered herself on little more than a bit of flirtation."

"Perhaps," he said doubtfully, turning back to the window. He thought for some time more, staring out across the fields of Pemberley. There was something about all of this that bothered him, but he couldn't quite place his finger on it. It was as if ... as if Wickham knew that he, Darcy, was here and changing the past. How else could it be that he was the one to always block his attempts to set things right?

But it couldn't be. It simply wasn't possible. To Wickham, traveling within the ordinary passage of time, there would be no way to know that things had happened differently in another thread of life, that things had changed, that there were other possible outcomes to their everyday choices. It was like looking through a keyhole into a room: Wickham could only ever see that view, that limited glance into the present; it was Darcy, with the time machine, who had the key to open the door and see that there were far more possibilities than that.

And yet ... how could it be coincidence?

"We need to go to Brighton," he said, slapping his hand against the windowsill. He turned and went to the bed to pull his valise from beneath it. He began throwing his things into the bag, but paused when he realized that the silence behind him had only lengthened. Elizabeth was standing where she had been the entire time, her arms wrapped tightly across her chest as she watched him with wide eyes. He went over to her and took her gently by the arms. "Elizabeth, we have to find Wickham's lodgings. There's something wrong here, and I need to know what."

"I don't understand," Elizabeth said. "And I am not moving until you explain it to me."

So he led them to a set of chairs and he began at the beginning again. He explained to her his history, of his life with Victoria. He told her of how Georgiana had married Wickham, how she had been a pawn between them. He described the scene when the older, time-travelling Wickham had first come to him in his study at Pemberley. He told her what Wickham had told him of the other future -- what might have happened had Georgiana not married Wickham. He explained about their persistence in changing the outcome of Wickham's attempted seduction of Georgiana, and described their success. He told her of standing on the quay, watching as the older Wickham disappeared, and being left to change the past alone.

He then recounted going to find Elizabeth Wickham -- from his conversation at the inn with Morris to his encounter with Miss Mary Bennet at the school, and then discovering her circumstances in Somers Town. He explained how they had struggled at first to find a way to stop her from marrying Wickham -- that they had chosen instead to focus on uniting their younger selves, but soon ran into nearly as many obstacles. He told her of their roles as Mr. and Mrs. Winterbottom, of their time as ghosts at Netherfield, of their trips to and from London. He spoke, haltingly, of the night at Rosings where Elizabeth had abandoned him, and of his failed attempt to go it without her.

He related what Elizabeth Wickham had told him, of Wickham's words to her at Somers Town, of her trip to Pemberley and her conversation with Darcy's younger self. He spoke of Wickham's letters and intended visits, which never reached their target.

He then, to round out his story, told her of the letter and of the visit he and Elizabeth Wickham had made to his younger self at Rosings. He spoke softly of his feelings upon seeing her disappear the next morning when the letter was delivered. He then he spoke of his journey from Pemberley to London to Hertfordshire to find her, and of the conversations he'd had with Victoria and with Bingley that cemented his certainty that he was doing the right thing.

And when he had finished, Elizabeth looked up from where she was now sitting in the chair opposite him and shook her head. "I still don't understand. Why are we going to find Mr. Wickham?"

"Because he's involved in this somehow, deeper than we think," Darcy said, leaning forward. "He has to be. I don't know how, but he's been a step ahead of me all this time. Yes, it could be coincidence that he came to Hertfordshire, to where I was -- to where you were. It could be pure chance that he chose you, of all the people he met, to share his story of ill usage -- that he chose you to marry, counting on appealing to me for money, that he knew I was in love with you. It could be that your sister was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time for him to seduce her. Each thing, by itself, could be explained. But all of that together ... I cannot believe it is coincidence. Somehow, I think he knows we're here -- and we've got to find out how. It's the only way we're going to be able to fix this."

"So we're going to Brighton?"

"I think we should," Darcy said. "That might be the best place to do so. He would have all of his things there, and it would be right before he left with your sister. I just want to take a look through his possessions while he isn't there."

"For what?"

He exhaled heavily and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know. But there has to be something. A note, a letter, something that would tell us how much he knows. I don't want to confront him ... not on supposition. I want to be certain."

Her eyes studied him for a while, her expression thoughtful. "Then let us go to Brighton," she said. "Let us be certain."

So together they time-hopped to the usual alley in London, and from the nearby inn they hired a carriage to take them to the seaside town. It was a good day's drive from London, but they left early in the morning and easily arrived by sundown to find an inn to stay the night. The influx of travelers to this part of the coast for the summer left them in no state of suspicion, and the innkeeper welcomed them and their business heartily. Two rooms were easily let, and Elizabeth and Darcy settled in for their vigil.

They were there on the very day Wickham and Lydia were thought to have eloped, and they had throughout the morning and afternoon to make their plans. Wickham would most likely have cleared his rooms before leaving, but too much earlier than that and Darcy was unsure whether he would find anything that might help clear up his concerns. The desperation that no doubt drove Wickham from Brighton would also serve to make him careless -- and Darcy was counting on that carelessness to allow him to find the evidence he needed.

It was a simple matter to discover where Wickham had let rooms outside the camp with a group of other officers instead of camping with the men. He lived alone, too, rather than sharing digs with a fellow militiaman, and had no servant, so once they had confirmed Wickham's presence elsewhere, there would be little concern of being caught. That night would do nicely; their innkeeper's young son for a shilling had reported following the lieutenant to a pub on the other side of town. The coast was clear.

"Do you think I should go with you?" Elizabeth asked as she watched Darcy tie a dark cloth around his neck, replacing the white of his cravat. It was dark outside, and the sounds of carriages and passing revelers drifted in through the open window. With his evening clothes and formal hat, he could blend in nicely, but he also hesitated to attract attention as he slipped through the shadows.

He glanced at her in the mirror and shook his head. "I think you ought to stay here for now. I don't know what I will find there, and it would be risky for both of us to be caught. I could most likely pass as my younger self if Wickham should come home. But finding you there might take some explaining."

"What would he do if he found you?" she asked.

Darcy paused, his fingers stilled on the ends of the cloth. "I do not know," he said.

"And if something went wrong?" she persisted. "What would I do?"

He turned his head to look at her, where she sat on the edge of the bed, taking in the way she was worrying her bottom lip. "If I do not return in -- in two hours, take the time machine. I've shown you how to use it. Come back and tell us that it didn't work. Warn us, and we'll try something else."

"Let me come with you."

Darcy turned back to the mirror and finished his knot, then pulled on his jacket. "No," he said.

"Why not?" she asked, pushing off the bed and coming towards him to grab his arm. "Why will you not let me help you? Why did you come to get me from Hertfordshire at all, if you wished to do this alone?" When he didn't answer, she released his arm and turned away from him. "I understand your concerns," she said. "I really do. But it is ridiculous to have come all this way and then have me sit on the side and watch as you put yourself in danger. I could be of help. We could take a carriage, and I could wait for you. I could have the time machine ready, and we could escape if I saw him approach."

"I don't want the time machine anywhere near him," Darcy said. "I don't trust him."

"Then we could leave it here," she said. "But I would still be there to warn you."

"I don't want you anywhere near him," he said.

"You don't trust me," she said in amazement. "You don't respect my judgment enough to believe I would recognize danger."

"You don't know him as I do."

Elizabeth laughed bitterly. "I think I know him well enough," she said. "He's done enough to my family for me to appreciate what he's capable of."

But on this point, Darcy was firm. He would go, and he would go alone. He left her there at the inn and proceeded through the streets to the lodging house near the camp in which Wickham and a few other officers, he had been informed earlier, were staying.

It was an easy matter to find a way inside, to pass by other boarders on their way out for the night, and to slip up the stairs unnoticed. He came to the second landing and there found the door he sought. He entered the room carefully, closing the door softly and silently behind him. It was a mess, but no more than Darcy could remember Wickham's half of their university lodgings always being. He stepped around a pile of clothing, moving further into the room.

A glance around revealed at first nothing that might have helped to ease Darcy's concerns. But then his gaze settled on the papers stacked haphazardly on what appeared to be a desk, and he made his way in that direction. At first, he did his best to keep the papers in order as he went through them, looking for what he knew not, but then he realized that Wickham would probably not notice any further disorder he created. He began pushing the papers aside more quickly.

But then his hand stopped and his breath went out of him. There on the table, sticking out from beneath a few other papers, was a notebook: the same style of notebook he himself had -- the one Wickham had given him. He pushed aside the papers and pulled the tablet out, flipping it open to the first page.

Numbers ... letters ... and in the same familiar configurations he had been writing over the past few months. Notes about events that had happened, as well as those that had not. His story -- a story that fit exactly with what Wickham had told him in Ramsgate -- and more. There were coordinates of dates and times, too, surrounding Pemberley and London in 1811.

Darcy continued to flip through the tablet, his apprehension mounting, noting the moment that the coordinates stopped being written and instead a series of notes, of plans, began. The handwriting was different, too. Not significantly -- it was in the same style, but more fluid and confident, less hesitant and shaky. It was as if ... as if this notebook had been written by one person, at different times in his life. Darcy would have recognized that hand anywhere.

With a shaking hand, he replaced the notebook on the desk, a cold feeling settling into his stomach as he closed his eyes, trying to puzzle out what this new information could mean. But in the next instant his eyes flew open, his muscles stiffening in defense, as a voice came from behind him:

"Good evening, Darcy. I hope you've brought the time machine."