Chapter 3

Darcy stared at his sister from across the desk’s polished surface. He had been furious this morning, furious at both her and Wickham, but all that had taken place in the hours between reading her letter and this moment had done much to cool his temper. Now he could see only how young and innocent she was, how little able she would have been to resist the arts and allurements of one such as the man whose attentions she had attracted—through no fault of her own. She sat quietly, dignified, but he saw the dark circles beneath her eyes and the whiteness of lips pinched together. His anger, already much weakened by the morning’s earlier confrontations, leached utterly away.

Had he not wondered at the reasons she had grown so distant, so withdrawn? The cause was now apparent. As he had read her ardent pleas for forgiveness, for both herself and for Wickham, he had seen how cleverly the villain had painted their past, whitewashing everything, even subtly blaming him for all of it while appearing apologetic—a particular talent of his. Darcy was extremely fortunate that she had not been turned against him utterly. He had nearly lost her, and except for her last-minute indecision—her true goodness—he would have been unable to prevent her complete unhappiness and ruin. A wash of tenderness and pain nearly overcame him; once again, Wickham left a path of destruction in his uncaring wake. He opened his mouth to speak, having absolutely no idea of what he could possibly say except the awful, ugly truth he had never admitted to anyone else.

“After I read your letter this morning,” Darcy said, “I located and spoke to Wickham.”

Her eyes widened, and he struggled to keep his rage at the confrontation from his expression. The scoundrel had been easily found, once he asked the right questions of the right people. He had been tempted to merely write him, for he knew at heart Wickham’s cowardice. He would scurry away like the rat he was if ordered to do so. But Georgiana’s letter had given him hints of further information to be discovered, and he had decided that he must learn all there was to know.

“I learnt, from him, that he and Isabel Younge were well-known to each other. Their original plan was that she would allow him to court you from Ramsgate. When that failed, and I brought you home instead, he…adjusted the plan.”

Georgiana, plainly taken aback, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. How he despised the pain these revelations would cause! But there were consequences, always consequences, to life’s poorest decisions, no matter one’s naivety.

“I informed him that my solicitors have tied up your settlement in so many knots, it will be many years before the legal tangle can be untwisted. In other words, that you are not so easy a mark as he assumed.”

He saw the indignation, the denial, in the firming of her jaw and pursing of her lips, but still she said nothing.

“He thanked me for the information, indicating he would be departing the area soon for ‘greener pastures’, as he put it. I apologise, but I must ask: Does he possess any letters, anything in writing, that he might use as a blackmail against you?”

“He would never!” she gasped, obviously aghast at the very idea, the words torn from her against her will.

Darcy closed his eyes briefly. “I am sorry, so sorry to say it, but he very much would. What I am about to tell you will occasion you pain, and nothing but the strongest inducement could make me reveal it.” He took a breath, “Our father loved our mother very much, but he made one lapse, one loss of fidelity during his otherwise happy marriage to her. Only once, and, I am certain, born of the terrible grief he endured during her final illnesses. Until that time, I believed George Wickham was my closest friend. Then, with his knowledge of what had occurred, he chose extortion over our friendship, and blackmailed me against revealing it. He took nearly every penny I had for some years.”

“No!” she cried out. “No! No! I do not want to hear any more!”

Her face, now bloodless, revealed her horror.

Darcy stood, walked to the door and then, remembering there was no servant beyond, went to the bell instead. When the housekeeper herself appeared, he asked her for a tray. It was not many minutes before one appeared, with biscuits and Cook’s special plum cake as well as the requested tea. The servants might not know what was happening, but they knew something was afoot, and expressed their silent and generous support in this small way. It was one of the reasons he paid better than any house in the countryside—his own silent means of returning that liberality they so fully extended to him.

He carried the tray to the small table nearest the fireplace; Georgiana had not moved, still hunched in that chair by the desk, as against a blow. Somewhat warily, he returned to her, taking her cold fingers in his hand.

“Come sit by the fire.” He was relieved when she allowed him to lead her to the settee, to push a cup into her hands. For the longest time, she sat and sipped, while he wondered whether he had done right in revealing a horrid truth he had long wished he had never known.

After a time—it could have been thirty minutes, or it could have been half that—she set the cup aside. To his immense relief, she leant against him as she had when she was a young girl, and he placed his arm around her, the only comfort he could offer. She did not cry or rail at him or join the voices of blame shouting from his conscience, only sighing softly.

“Once, long ago, when I was perhaps seven years old, I was sitting in the window seat in the library, playing with my dolls—hidden by draperies,” she said softly. “I overheard Papa lecturing you, in that way he had—kindly, but it was his ‘disappointed’ voice. He was criticising you for wasting your allowance. Even as young as I was, I thought it very out of character for you. But you did not waste it, did you?”

“No.” He gave a humourless chuckle as he recalled the incident. “From the age of eighteen until after his father’s death, I gave Wickham nearly all of my allowance. Unfortunately, there came a time that I had to buy new clothing, because I had grown taller, it seemed, overnight, and the old did not fit. I made the mistake of using the same tailor I had always patronised. It was Papa’s tailor, of course, and instead of being satisfied with my meagre payments on account, he simply presented the bills to our father—who of course had always given me a generous stipend, meant to satisfy his heir’s every want and need.”

“Four, nearly five years he took everything? I do not remember you being called on the carpet after that, although I suppose I would never have heard of it.”

“It never happened again,” he said, squeezing her briefly to him. “I soon discovered a means of earning money. I found a certain talent for trade, of which our father would never have approved. Thankfully, my investments did prosper fairly quickly, and as they did, more came my way.”

Those investments had prospered, it was true—but getting into them had required him to take a loan of what, at the time, had seemed an enormous sum. For six months, he had barely slept over the worry of it.

“But…if you had no money, how did you, um, participate? Did our uncle help?”

Ah. He ought to have known she would see it; his sister was not stupid.

“I felt I could not tell the earl. It was his favourite sister who was betrayed, after all. Father would have been humiliated.”

“Then…how?”