“I can imagine well you did not.”
“Why are you here? What changed?Why?”
Darcy blinked. He smiled. “You are like always —myfrankness is not alone.”
“Why?”
“I no longer hold such a high value upon the pride of the Darcy family.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “It is also quite useless to pretend I can control my sister, when I cannot.”
“Really?” Elizabeth’s voice sounded thin in her ears. “Does this not reduce you as a gentleman?”
“Lizzy, you promised!” Georgiana exclaimed, pushing Elizabeth’s arm.
“What did she promise?” Darcy tilted his head and yawned again, and shook himself and rubbed his eyes. “I apologize, I have been on the road for many hours. I am in no fit state for an important conversation, though I wish I were.”
“She promised,” Georgiana said, “to listen to what you said, if you were to apologize.”
“Ah.” Darcy looked at Elizabeth with his candlelit eyes. He had a serious expression. But he softened as she looked at him. Elizabeth felt a terror in her stomach — what if hewasn’tgoing to offer for her again.
Elizabeth said with a squeak, “Are you really here only to bless Georgiana’s marriage…at last.”
Darcy tilted his head. He looked at her as though he’d not heard the question. Then he shook his head. “I ought to return to Darcy house soon — you had been vague on when the wedding would occur. ‘When business was settled?’ That is not a date, Georgie. Not at all.”
“I apologize.” The young woman blushed. “But we did not know for sure. We discovered yesterday that we can have it be the day after tomorrow, even sooner than planned.”
“I am glad I shall be there. Lizzy, Ididhave a burning extra motive. One of greatest import, which drove me from Pemberley as fast as I could order my carriage prepared.”
She looked at him. Both annoyed and with her heart fluttering.
“I had a desperate hope to avoid my aunt, who has encamped herself at Pemberley. I think at worst it will be at least another day before she can catch me in London.”
“Aunt Catty! — Richard told me that she was to attend you.”
“He did not warn me.” Darcy grinned. “Georgie — might you come to stay at Darcy house, one last time as only my sister and under my roof? Our Aunt Catty cannot cross the threshold when you are present.”
After a laugh. Georgiana scrutinized Darcy. “You do not — are you really accommodated to the marriage?”
“Give credit to Aunt Catty.” Darcy chuckled. “Was it you or Richard who gave herthatname?”
“Richard.”
“She repeated to me, almost down to the very words, the argument I made to explain why you ought not marry Mr. Peake. The question of honor, and the family history and — oh all that nonsense about the blood of kings and everything else. Hearing my own words in her voice…” Darcy shrugged. “I was uncertain inside from the first. But her words had a salutary effect. I only hoped I might reach here before the wedding.”
“Heavens!” Georgiana whistled after her uncharacteristic outburst. “To think I must be grateful to Lady Catherine.”
Darcy laughed, and then yawned again. And with one more searching look at Elizabeth he and Georgiana woke her maid to have a change of clothes packed. They called for a hackney cab — Darcy had sent his exhausted carriage driver home immediately — to convey them to the Darcy’s residence in a fashionable square in the aristocratic section of London near St. James Palace.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The morning Georgiana was to wed dawned with a fog that, as they said in London, was thick as pea soup. Darcy’s cousin, Bingley and Mrs. Bingley had all joined him at Darcy’s townhouse along with Georgiana, and during the day yesterday the house buzzed and boomed with comings and goings.
Since Georgiana was to marry a Cit, the omen of the weather was good: London was welcoming her without changing its habits.
Darcy was still thrown by his long carriage journey, and rather than waking before everyone else, he entered the baths at the same time Bingley did, while Richard had already lounged in a large tub, with the hot water being periodically refilled by the attending servant for some time. The three men, old friends now, splashed water at each other, made a mess of the floor, their valets, two of the three dressing robes brought out, and everyone’s dignity.
With their hair toweled off and combed by their valets, and stuffed into fine coats, the gentlemen descended in a dignified manner from the bath to the breakfast room for coffee and light food before the wedding.
Georgiana was still dressing with Jane attending her, so the three men stood around, holding their cups of coffee. Darcy smelled the scent from his. The scent was divine, and he knew fine coffee, though he drank tea more often.
