“I am—” His jaw tightened. “I am angry that he was cruel enough to exploit your naivety.”
They sat in silence a moment longer, the fire snapping behind him. He could hear the coal settle in the grate like the cracking of old ice.
At last, she said, “If you cannot get them back, what will happen?”
“Nothing.” His reply was swift. Too swift.
Georgiana looked up, and in her expression—so similar to his father’s in its careful restraint—he saw the cost of pretending.
He tried again. “He will not use them. I will make certain of it.”
“But how?” she whispered.
Before he could answer, the door opened with no ceremony whatsoever—click, sweep, the muted thump of a cane on carpet—and Lady Matlock entered the room like a force of nature in lace and steel.
“Good,” she announced, without looking at either of them. “You are not weeping. I always find that so tedious before luncheon.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened. Darcy turned slowly, bracing for a storm he had not summoned.
His grandmother fixed her gaze on him. “If you are determined to hover over the girl like a sorrowful shade, at least provide a shawl. You are blocking the fire.”
“I am not—hovering,” he said.
“Poppycock. You look like you are preparing to hurl yourself upon a funeral pyre. Stop it. You are too tall for melodrama.”
“I am attempting to resolve a legal matter.”
“And in the meantime, terrifying your sister into thinking she has summoned the devil by dipping her pen in ink.” She turned to Georgiana. “You. Do you feel ruined?”
Georgiana blinked. “I… do not know.”
“Do you feel capable of facing society with your spine intact?”
A pause. Then, softly, “I am not certain.”
“Then it is fortunate that certainty was never required,” said the dowager, leveling her cane like a sword. “You do not need to feel ready, only to appear so. And I assure you, no one survives the world without learning to bluff.”
She gave the cane a light tap against Darcy’s shin. “Which is more than I can say for your brother, who looks as though he means to fall on a sword rather than let you face a drawing room.”
Darcy opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Georgiana let out a sound that was almost a laugh—thin and startled, but real.
Lady Matlock nodded once, sharp as a general. “That is better. If you cannot summon confidence, summon performance. The rest will follow. He has not won. And neither have you,” she said,jabbing her cane lightly against Darcy’s shin. “Now let the child breathe.”
Darcy opened his mouth. Closed it.
Georgiana let out a very small laugh.
Lady Matlock turned for the door. “Ten minutes, and I expect both of you to look human. There is a salon at three, and I refuse to arrive with a ghost instead of a grandson.”
She swept out as she had entered, her perfume leaving a faint trail of citrus and disapproval.
Darcy stared at the closed door.
“She means well,” Georgiana said gently.
“I know.”
