“God’s sake! No longer a child, and she wishes to not be a gentlewoman.” Fitzwilliam grabbed a decanter from the card table. He poured himself a stiff tumbler of brandy and swallowed it in a fast jerky motion. His hands trembled the way Darcy had seen several times since he’d returned from his long sojourn in the Peninsula. “You damn fools with your home disputes. I found a blasted husband for her, and now you plan to waste my effort out of a stupid desire to let achildhave her way.”
That was the core of the matter, was it not? Georgianawasstill a child.
Darcy said firmly, “No, Georgiana, you need not marry Mr. Carteret. I will make no further effort to convince you, and the entire effort was mistaken from the first. As our cousin has repeated, you are yet a child, and a child is not fit for the duties of marriage.”
Darcy’s eyes fell to the bulge in his sister’s belly. A child was not fit to raise a child either. But she would have him to help her and care for her.
He would make her happy.
“Damn, Darcy! Damn. You are determined.” Colonel Fitzwilliam spat. He poured brandy into the thick-bottomed cup again. “My God, people are dying out there.” Fitzwilliam waved his hand vaguely in all directions. He drank the amber liquor in a single swallow. “Enjoy your way. Choices, Georgie, Choices. Respectable society will ostracize you, no woman of fashion will speak to you, and that stain will settle on your brother and my family. I cannot care. I'll be killed when I return to the continent, and I am damned tired of wasting what time I have in England on you. Darcy won’t make you marry, and I can find other disreputable woman whose company I will enjoy enormously more. Goodbye, to both of you, and I am damned sure you’ll enjoy the adieu.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam slammed the crystal tumbler so hard it cracked. He frowned at it for a long time. He took the bottle and drank a long swig.
“Richard, do not leave like this— you are not well. You have been like this since you arrived. I have been absorbed in my own worries, and—”
“Damn you, Darcy. I wasted two weeks of the time I have before they throw me back into that furnace finding your slutlike sister a husband, and you could not be…be…deuced to use my effort. Damn you.”
The door slammed as the officer left the room. Darcy sat down and pressed his long fingers against his forehead. He should pursue his cousin. He already missed Colonel Fitzwilliam. But he felt too sick to argue or beg with him — and he was right. Darcy was throwing away the respectability of them all, and of his ancient name, for his sister.
Georgiana looked between him and the door as she continued to cry.
Deep in his soul Darcyknewhe had made the right choice. Georgiana was his ward. She depended upon him. It was his duty to care for her, no matter what.
And he loved her.
Chapter Two
November 1816, Hertfordshire
Little Anne crawled up onto one of the seats of the carriage, and sat on both of her knees while pressing her face up tight against the window to look out. Darcy smiled at the blonde girl, and he kept a hand on her shoulder to steady his niece if the carriage jolted.
“And what do you call that?”
Georgiana pointed out the window to the steeple of a country church. The little girl screwed her face up into an adorable pout, and she turned to Darcy and blinked her eyes adorably and asked with a child’s lisp, “Please, Uncle Will? A hint.”
Darcy laughed. “No, sweet, you must learn to remember words on your own.”
The little girl settled herself on Darcy’s lap and stared out the window with a frown.
Georgiana smiled at them, “It begins with a 's'.”
Eventually they prompted the girl into saying steeple, and a new target was chosen.
As Georgiana played with her daughter, Darcy lost himself in a reverie. The road was rural, but decently maintained. Darcy believed they had just passed through Meryton, the market town closest to Bingley’s estate. There should only be another twenty minutes until they saw his friend again and could rest from the long road.
He hoped Georgiana would be happy here.
This was the first time she would be the guest of another family since Anne was born. Until Mrs. Bingley visited Pemberley with her husband this summer, Georgiana had not been part of a friendly conversation with another gentlewoman for four years.
It had surprised Darcy that Bingley took his wife into such a harbor of vice as Pemberley had become. He openly allowed an unmarried mother to stay resident. Jane Bingley was such a sweet woman that Darcy understood immediately. Her angelic nature was such that nobody could think ill ofher. Mrs. Bingley and Georgiana immediately took to each other, and Georgiana, who Darcy realized then had been gasping for female conversation, soaked up all of the attention the other woman gave her during the Bingleys’ weeks of residence at Pemberley.
Bingley a few months later extended an invitation for Georgiana and Darcy – and of course darling little Anne — to repay their visit and join them at Netherfield. Mrs. Bingley had written the letter of invitation in her neat feminine hand, promising in Bingley’s words deuced fine hunting and excellent opponents at billiards when the weather did not allow them to ride or shoot, while for herself Mrs. Bingley wrote Georgiana would be very welcome, and likely to make friends.
Georgiana had been so lonely, with no other woman to speak to.
A soft drizzle fell from the sky when the carriage turned up the drive to Bingley’s house. The driveway was bordered on both sides by lush evergreen Italian cypresses, and then the carriageway opened up to show a handsome red brick building of two stories and near hundred feet on a side. Heavy white marble columns framed the portico on which Mr. Bingley and his wife stood protected from the rain with several servants.
As soon as a footman opened the door, Darcy stepped out and turned around so Anne might exit by jumping to him. She delightedly shrieked as she jumped. The girl had been wonderful, but she was worn down a little by the two days of constant travel, and she would be happy to be able to run around on solid ground again. Darcy easily caught her and twirled Anne around before he softly lowered her to the ground. Anne laughed and ran to the blonde angelic Mrs. Bingley, who greeted the little girl with a friendly smile.
