Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

F or the first time in his life, Colonel Fitzwilliam was happy to have departed Pemberley. Even though he believed fervently, still, that he had acted in Darcy’s best interests, it had not been easily done.

Darcy was ravaged, full of guilt and grief. He had lost weight, perhaps half a stone; he did not speak, not really, ate little, and slept, apparently, not at all.

All he wanted to hear from me was titbits of Elizabeth Bennet. ‘How did she respond?’ and ‘Does she forgive me?’ and ‘Does she forgive Georgiana?’

Fitzwilliam had choked on the truths he had meant to speak, truths that Darcy was not yet ready to hear. The poor fellow was eaten alive by regrets over Georgiana’s situation as it was, and he clung to a fictional image he held of an Elizabeth who could not possibly exist.

His own self-reproach chased him through Pemberley’s gates, whenever he thought of the chit waiting at the church for a bridegroom who would not show. In the moment, it had seemed protective, what the earl would have expected of him—utter renunciation. Undeniably, however, it had not been well done of him, and although he despised the Bennet girl for entrapping his friend and believed her family to be the worst sort of country mongrels, never had he wished so deeply that he had his own fortune, and could pay them off to restore his battered pride.

All he had been able to say to Darcy was an emphasis on the ill behaviour he had witnessed at the Philipses’ party, imputing it to revelations he had failed to make to the Bennets. The half-truths he had managed would not hold up to more vigorous examination, should Darcy get hold of himself. As for Georgiana, her weakness for the disgusting Wickham was still evident, and it made him sick that he could not see any shred of possibility for her future happiness. Never had he felt such relief as when the letter arrived from town, demanding his presence.

We all require time , he reminded himself. In time, Darcy will be grateful that he does not have to cope with an inferior, impossible bride on top of everything else. I have to believe that.

Darcy peered out of his study window to see his sister sitting alone upon a stone bench near Pemberley’s almost denuded garden. A glance at the sky showed him the heavy, dark clouds of early December, and he wondered how long before rain or sleet or snow might inundate them, rendering the roads to London at times impassable, and more importantly, slowing the mails.

If only I had a John Stevens to predict the weather , he thought, with a stab of pain. There had been time, barely, to receive a reply to his letter, but nothing had yet arrived; he knew that every day it did not, his tension would increase.

Fitzwilliam had been required to return to town, but pressing him again before he left for Elizabeth’s response to his news of postponing their wedding had not provided any comfort.

“How do you suppose she took it? The whole family is an embarrassment. You have had a lucky escape, Darcy. Forget Elizabeth Bennet, and come to your senses, man!”

As if he would or could! She was his affianced bride, and had every claim upon him. He had carefully taken time to compose words of apology, of grief, of abject vulnerability—the colonel would have been appalled to read the half of it. There was a possibility, he knew, that her father might read it first—but he had put some words addressed to Mr Bennet in the beginning, hoping that as a gentleman he would maintain Darcy and Georgiana’s privacy, and permit the wedding to take place as soon as was possible. Every part of him had wanted to leave Georgiana here with Mrs Annesley, return the colonel to town—and from thence, travel alone to Longbourn.

But the girl sitting outside, alone, on a cold winter’s day, still needed him. Her first response to her rescue, unhappily, had been fury. Now, he feared, she had turned the hatred and shame inward—yet another victory for George Wickham.

Darcy took another woollen shawl out to his sister, draping it over her shoulders, fearing the cold and damp was too much—even though she was warmly dressed. Silently, he seated himself beside her. Despite his greatcoat, he felt the chill, but he did not insist upon her return indoors.

“There will be no child,” she said at last.

He turned his head sharply, but she stared out into the distance, not meeting his gaze. He was consumed with overwhelming relief; so should she be, but of course, he had no idea if that was the case. He wanted to ask her, but also feared her answers. She had actually cursed him for removing her from the despicable villain—this, after Wickham disavowed her in the cruellest fashion, blaming her for everything wrong in his life. Georgiana, in turn, had blamed Darcy for ‘ruining’ hers.

“You can say it—I am sure you are happy.”

He sighed. “I find that I can only be as happy as you are. You do not seem in spirits, to me.”

“I do not know what I am. I am happy that the colonel is gone, so I do not have to hear him tell me that now we can pretend nothing ever happened. He said the earl would have taken the child away, regardless—that I would never be allowed to keep it, and that I would be lucky if his lordship did not send me away to a Scottish nunnery.”

Darcy raised his brows; he had not been aware of these threats. “The colonel’s battlefield tactics do not translate well into family life, I think. I promise it would not have been the earl’s decision.”

“What would your decision have been?” She asked him as if she were merely curious, but something told him that she cared a great deal. Well, he had nothing left in him and certainly no firm answers, nothing except the truth—and she could listen or not.

“I have absolutely no idea. I have been too angry at you to think clearly of the future. You wrecked my wedding day over a man who has betrayed me and used me ill dozens of times.”

Her eyes widened, her mouth gaping. “Wedding?”

“It is why I came to London—to fetch you. I found the woman I love, in Hertfordshire, and wanted you to meet her. She agreed to marry me quickly—more quickly, I think, than she thought ideal—so that we could take you home to Pemberley, since you were so unhappy.”

“I-I did not know. It seemed as if I would for years be trapped with her ladyship, and her ideas of which tedious pursuits would be most acceptable and which tedious people would be best to cultivate, and I did not think I could bear it for another minute.”

He forbore pointing out that there were other ways to change one’s living situation besides eloping. He had managed to bite down his fury at the words of deceit she had used to obtain more money from him, to finance said elopement. He even managed to restrain his tongue, when he dearly wanted to ask, ‘Why him? Why, of all people in England, George Wickham?’. If he did, he knew she would only turn inwards, cry, and say nothing at all sensible.

Although the colonel’s words had probably been meant to frighten Georgiana into better behaviour, he may have been correct. The earl might have recommended she be sent away, had there been a child. Neither Darcy nor his cousin had been inclined to inform his lordship of anything except that they had removed her to Pemberley—as was their right as her guardians—but at least a few of the Matlock servants had a tale to tell, if they wished. If the earl heard of this botched elopement, Darcy had no idea how he would respond.

In the absence of these home truths, however, he could not think of much to add. Wickham has fooled far more sophisticated women than Georgiana Darcy , he reminded himself. If she is not so trustworthy as I thought, neither is she the fallen woman society would name her. She is simply…young. Young and foolish.

The one suggestion Fitzwilliam had furnished was paying someone to marry her, and doing so quickly. Now that there was no child, Darcy thankfully no longer need consider whose loyalty he might buy, but the last weeks of frantic consideration had been fraught with anxiety. He took a deep breath to calm himself. It was probably time to get some of his answers.

“Who in the earl’s household brought you Wickham’s letters?”

She did not attempt to prevaricate. “Davis collected them from him. She would go out to meet him every few days.”

Ah, her maid. I would not have paid her off, had I known she was in collusion with the villain. It was strange that Wickham had insisted on abandoning her.

“I think…I think he was…c-consorting with her,” Georgiana blurted suddenly. “She wanted money from him for something. I was not supposed to know. I tried not to know, and I did not, not truly. Maybe I am wrong.”

She looked at him with a pathetic sort of hopefulness in her eyes, as if she yearned for him to disagree with her. In this, he could not oblige .

“Georgiana.” He sighed again. “I know Wickham well. He could not hide his malicious propensities and sordid appetites from a man his own age. I spent years trying to fix his mistakes and undo his harm. If you believe nothing else I tell you, please believe this: George Wickham would ‘consort’ with any female who would allow it, and more than a few who would not. It has nothing to do with love or passion, not for him. For him, it is about conquest, about getting what he wants, when he wants it.”

“Father loved him.” She tried for defiance, but he heard the uncertainty, the misery in her tone.

“Yes. I never wanted him to know how awful a man his godson had become, not when his heart was so weak. Our father thought him good and respectable, and I feared him learning otherwise. I cannot repent that decision. But I told you.”

There was a long pause. “I did not want to believe you.”

“Obviously.”

She twisted her hands together; the nails hidden beneath her gloves, he knew, were bitten to the quick.

“I would tell you I am sorry, but what good would it do? I have already ruined my life and yours. I cannot undo any of it.”

He shook his head. “Your life is hardly ruined—it has barely begun. Once I am satisfied that you are settled at Pemberley, I shall collect Elizabeth and together, we shall begin again.”

“She will despise me. She will believe me a…a slut.” A tear tracked down Georgiana’s cheek, and then another .

It was what Wickham had called her, to her face, preceding Darcy’s punch to his.

“You have two choices; you may adopt Wickham’s opinion or mine. Mine is that you were thoroughly deceived by a pretty-faced rogue, who made promises he had no intention of keeping, and that you have learnt a hard lesson. Wickham is the villain here, and his foul sobriquet belongs to him alone.”

Her voice was small. “I hate myself.”

He took her hand. “Hate him, if hate you must. Perhaps in time you might spare a bit of pity for the young girl he duped. You, however, are no longer that girl—are you?”

“I do not want to be.” She turned her large, expressive eyes, so like his mother’s, upon him. “Must you tell her? E-Elizabeth? Could you not give her an excuse…that I-I was ill? Or…was hit over the head and lost my senses? I promise to be the best sister in the entire world to her, even if she thinks I ought to spend my days entertaining people I do not like and netting purses no one wants and is forever plucking books out of my hands in case reading them turns me into a bluestocking.”

For the first time in ever so long, Darcy wished to smile. “I am not marrying Lady Matlock, my dear. I believe you will find Elizabeth to be just the sort of sister you have always longed for. I have already told her what happened. I had to, in order that she might understand why I would not be in attendance at our wedding.”

“She must hate me for that.”

His smile faded. “If I thought she would ever hate you, I never would have chosen to marry her in the first place. I love you.”

“I do not understand why. I have now made every poor choice a girl could possibly make.”

“Your choices have been poor ones. I hope you learn from them. But whether you do or you do not, I shall always love you. You cannot change it, or ruin it. It just is.”

She regarded him for seemingly endless moments, before easing against him, leaning against his shoulder as she once used to as a little girl; his arm went about her as it had then.

“Will you tell me about her?” Georgiana asked, as the first soft flakes began to fall. “How did you meet Elizabeth?”