And she smiled again, dazzling and faultless, because that was all she could do.
#
“Lady Catherine de Bourgh,”the footman announced.
Darcy was already on his feet.
He met her at the threshold with a bow, precise but not warm. “Aunt Catherine.”
“You are receiving me, then. I half-expected to be turned away at the door.” She stepped past him into the drawing room without waiting for invitation, Anne trailing behind like an afterthought.
Darcy followed, closing the door himself. “You are always welcome.”
“Not always wanted, though, I think.”
He said nothing. The fire crackled in the grate.
“I have just come from your uncle,” she said, tugging off her gloves in sharp jerks. “He is in a state. You may congratulate yourself. It is not every day a man’s temper outruns his gout.”
“About?”
She let the gloves fall into a chair. “The girl, of course. Who else? Georgiana’s name is being bandied about in all the wrong places. Drawing rooms. Card tables. One of Lady Haversham’s poetry circles, if you can believe it.”
Anne said nothing. She had not looked up once.
Darcy shifted his stance. The fire was roaring, but his hands were cold.
Anne followed in silence, moving like a ghost behind her mother—no greeting, no glance, just the quiet burden of someone used to being ignored.
Lady Catherine did not sit. She stalked to the edge of the rug and stood there, daring the furniture to flinch. “He is most distressed.”
“I do not doubt it.”
Her eyes flared, as if his calm was a mockery to her. “Your uncle is contemplating taking the management of her in hand himself—and about time, I say.”
Darcy turned. Not with haste, not with drama. Just enough to register that he had heard something outrageous and was giving the speaker one final opportunity to amend it.
“She is not a horse to be sent to another stable upon a whim.” He said it coolly. Too coolly. Because he had just done that—handed his future off like a parcel, carefully wrapped, thoroughly unloved.
“A horse! A horse knows his place!” Lady Catherine snapped. “She is a girl of sixteen with a reputation already teetering—and once it tips, Fitzwilliam, it will not right itself. You were meant to prevent this.”
“And I have,” Darcy said tightly.
“Have you? Your uncle believes otherwise. It rather looks like you have beenplayingat guardianship instead of practicing it.”
Darcy’s fingers curled against his palm. “Georgiana’s reputation isnotruined, nor even tainted. Do not throw that word around as if it means nothing.”
“It means everything!” she shot back. “To us. To the family. And to every man who might have once considered her a sensible match.”
“This is all mere hearsay.”
“Hearsay it may be,” Lady Catherine said, “but it is being repeated in drawing rooms that matter. And I say this not to chastise, but to advise. You have delayed long enough, and now the path is clear: secure your position, and you secure hers. A proper alliance would settle the matter swiftly. Anne, you know, is prepared for the responsibility.”
“I have already taken steps to secure Georgiana’s position,” he said, keeping his hands clasped behind his back. “I am engaged,” he said too quickly. Too loudly. As if speaking it louder might make it feel more true.
A flicker of silence followed. Then Lady Catherine’s mouth trembled, her brows arched in absolute disbelief.
“Engaged? To whom?” she demanded.
