— Pride and Prejudice

Less than a year into the marriage that made her mistress of one of England’s finest houses, Elizabeth Darcy knew she still had much to learn about the place she now called home. Of one thing, however, she was certain.

A ghost haunted Pemberley.

She was not a ghost in the traditional sense. She did not moan, or shriek, or rattle chains. She did not cause rooms to grow cold, objects to fall, or fires to sputter. She did not manifest at midnight to pace on creaking floorboards, visiting in death the rooms she had occupied in life.

Yet the continued presence of Lady Anne Fitzwilliam Darcy was as real and pervasive as that of any spectre. And far more difficult to exorcise. Though her corporeal form had been laid to rest nearly twenty years earlier, she inhabited the estate as if it were still hers, casting a shadow so long that her daughter-in-law wondered whether she would ever escape it.

Elizabeth had known coming into her marriage that she entered a family and a house with a long, respected history. She had embraced that history, and her new place in it, as she had embraced her husband and the life he had offered her when they wed. She had thought she was prepared for her new role as mistress of Pemberley. She had not realized that the previous occupant had not yet vacated it.

“You are — you are certain, ma’am?”

Elizabeth left the corner of the small parlor and crossed to a spot nearer the center of the room. “Yes,” she assured the housekeeper. “Quite certain. I would like the desk moved over here, facing the window.”

“Of course. I will summon the footmen directly.” Despite her statement, Mrs. Reynolds made no move. The white-haired housekeeper lingered in the doorway of Elizabeth’s morning room, worrying her lower lip, apparently wishing to say more but holding back out of deference to her employer.