Page 127 of The Long Road Back to Yesterday

Elizabeth accepted it and examined the title.

“A history of Derbyshire printed in 1700.”

She opened the volume and began looking through the table of contents.

Caroline leaned nearer. “What can you possibly find so engaging in an old history of Derbyshire?”

Elizabeth continued reading down the list of chapters.

Darcy settled beside her. “There is a chapter concerning Arbor Low.”

“Is there?”

He turned the page and pointed to the place where the chapter was listed.

Elizabeth found it and began to read. “It speaks of the summer and winter solstices, sir.”

Darcy bent nearer to look at the page with her.

Across from them, Caroline watched in silence. When Elizabeth raised her eyes, Caroline looked away.

* * *

Dinner passed pleasantly, and the party remained together until late in the evening. After the guests from Ashcroft had departed, Charles noticed Caroline leave the drawing room and followed her.

He found her in the small parlor he had been using for his office while at Pemberley.

“Caroline, you have scarcely spoken for the last two hours. Something has distressed you.”

She stopped near the window. “I thought I would marry him, Charles.”

Bingley was silent.

“For years, I thought I would marry Mr. Darcy. I know he never asked me or promised me anything, but I believed it would happen in time. Our families were intimate. Georgiana liked me. I was always welcome at Pemberley, and Mr. Darcy and I moved in the same society. There seemed no reason I could not become his wife.”

Charles moved to the couch where she sat.

“I thought if I were patient enough, accomplished enough, and near him when we were in company, he would eventually see me as the woman he ought to marry. I tried to interest myself in what interested him. I tried to be everything I thought he would want.”

Caroline looked at her brother.

“I know how foolish that sounds.”

Charles offered his handkerchief. “I do not think you were foolish to love him. I have always known you admired Darcy, but I did not understand that you had built your future around him.”

“I did. I could not imagine a future without him.”

Her voice broke.

Charles took her hand.

“I have watched him with Eliza. He remembers what interests her. He finds books because he knows they will please her. He watches her when she is not looking at him. He brought her into his mother’s parlor and showed her the shelves he emptied for her father’s books.”

Caroline tightened her fingers around his.

“I thought his affection would come in time,” she continued. “He was reserved with everyone, so I told myself his reserve with me meant nothing. I thought that was simply his nature.”

“Caroline, I have known Darcy a long time. I am sorry to say this when you are already distressed, but I do not believe he ever thought of marrying you.”