Georgiana nodded, and did not ask further.
The two sat there together for a while. Elizabeth realized she truly liked Georgiana. She was a sweet and kind person, shy but not at all proud.
“You know… youthful attachments, like what you feel towards Mr. Wickham… they are often not wise.”
“I know,” Georgiana said, sadly.
“I… I do not want to advise you on this, but just let me say that… I do not think Wickham is the sort of man who would make you happy. You feel deeply, and have serious thoughts,and while his surface is sparkling and delightful, I do not think that Mr. Wickham has much depth to him.” Then Elizabeth paused and added, “Of course I did not have a long enough acquaintance with him to judge fairly.”
They were both quiet. Elizabeth was surprised to realize that she now believedthisabout Wickham. She also had become quite certain that there was some absolutely essential missing part of the story he’d told her about his inheritance.
After a minute, Georgiana said, “I know he isn’t! I know he isn’t! Not like you. But… I can’t…”
And she started crying, and Elizabeth held her while she did.
Chapter Ten
On the morning of the second day of 1812, Darcy awoke well before Elizabeth, who had been tired the entire previous day as a result of them both having danced together for hours at the ball they’d held after the bells rang in the new year. He kissed her softly on the forehead, and she stirred and started to push herself up on her arm, looking at him in the dimness, with the dawn barely peeking around the curtains.
He now kissed her on the mouth, and with a smile said, “Return to sleep, Elizabeth.”
She yawned, nodded, stretched in an enticing way, and then buried her face in the pillow that Darcy had been using. It made him smile with a great tenderness.
Darcy quickly returned to his room where he donned his slippers and his embroidered heavy banyan robe, he then softly stepped out and across the halls to his study.
The view of his park, stretching out beneath the window, was fabulous.
He leaned back in his seat and just stared at it for twenty minutes without much thought. He had a need to have some privacy for his own thoughts, as the past week had been full of conversation. He enjoyed such with his relations, but it was draining to need to be always present, always performing for others, to always need to beDarcy, and never allowed to be simply himself.
The New Year’s ball was sufficient to remove one worry he’d had.
Whatever reception Elizabeth would receive in town, she had enchanted his neighbors.
And her husband.
For a pleasurable minute Darcy pulled up how she’d looked, the dark hair, her curls, the dress she’d worn, one that he had never seen before. The way that her bosom bounced during the faster dances, her delighted smile, and the way that she’d seemed to be wholly at home amongst the crowd, smiling, making the other women laugh and feel at home, the way she’d been… simply a good hostess.
Lord Ravenswood had told him, shaking his hand in a private word as he departed, “Darcy, you chose well. She presides over this room as though she was born to do so. A great many of us were shocked to hear of your marriage, but I think we all see now that you knew what you were about.”
“I begin to think,” Darcy said with more honesty than Ravenswood likely realized, “that I did.”
That night, despite how late the hour was, as soon as they could depart and leave Viscount Hartwood to shoo off the last few of the guests, the two of them had worked off each other’s clothes and fallen into Elizabeth’s bed with a delightful need.
She’d kept looking at him through the whole night in such a way.
And all the other matters progressed as well as he could hope.
Elizabeth and Georgiana had become dear friends: They practiced at the piano for an hour or two each day, and eagerly played duets together each night. They now were Lizzy and Georgie to each other, and Georgiana joined Elizabeth on most of her long morning walks.
Lady Susan and Lady Matlock sometimes also joined the two for part of the walk, turning in at a convenient place to return to the estate, but neither of them enjoyed the cold. Further, they were more horsewomen than walkers, while Elizabeth insisted that if she was not to be stuffed into a carriage, she wished to stay on the ground.
Darcy found himself filled with satisfaction and happiness.
She was perfect at her role.
He’d had the pleasure of seeing Elizabeth be greeted genially by the wives of his neighbors, and hearing compliments to her passed on through the medium of their husbands. And this promised to improve her comfort and happiness, as those feminine friendships which women found vital to their wellbeing were in the process of formation.
While the relationship between Elizabeth and his family was not without tension, they were more polite, and more friendly to Elizabeth than he had feared.
