“I am hideous,” she whispered. “Too hideous for any man to love me.”
This had become a favorite refrain ever since Wickham’s parting remarks so many months ago. Darcy wished he’d had the presence of mind to shove a fist in Wickham’s face before he could utter that poison. A split lip would have made him think twice about speaking.
“You are lovely,” Darcy countered aloud, tamping down his anger at Wickham.
“You have to say that. You are my brother.”
“He is also very honest, as you well know,” Mrs. Annesley said, coming to stand at Darcy’s shoulder. “You are a lovely young woman.”
“I am repulsive,” Georgiana sobbed, and dropped her face to the tabletop, her forehead slapping down hard enough to make Darcy wince.
“Georgiana,” Darcy struggled to keep misery and frustration from his voice, for they’d played out this scene on too many evenings over the past year. “Please call your maid back in and ready for dinner.”
A keening wail left her, somewhat muted by the tabletop.
Darcy looked at Mrs. Annesley.
She shrugged, her visage as squeezed with sorrow as Darcy’s heart.
“Something different,” Darcy muttered, racking his brain.
He could pick Georgiana up. Carry her down to dinner. Hopefully she would not fight him, for she was tall, and had been fit. He didn’t fancy carrying her down the staircase if she struggled. They’d both end up with broken necks.
At least then he would not need to endure any more of his sister’s misery, Wickham’s torment, or Bingley’s strange letters.
Bingley. Netherfield Park. That was the answer.
“We are leaving with the dawn,” Darcy stated.
Mrs. Annesley turned a surprised look on him but, more importantly, Georgiana’s head came up. Her forehead pink from such rough contact with her dressing table, the remainder of her face, even her bloodless lips, stood out as sheet white. Except for her eyes. Her blue irises swam in red.
“Mrs. Annesley will assist your maid in packing for you,” Darcy continued.
“Leaving?” Georgiana croaked out.
“Yes. At dawn.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I do not want to go.”
“I did not ask for your opinion or approval,” he said flatly. “Be ready at dawn.” Darcy strode from the room.
Behind him, a whispered babble rose, his sister and Mrs. Annesley.
Anger welled in Darcy, made sharp, volatile, and unfocused by month after month of worry. Was taking Georgiana to Hertfordshire the right thing to do? Simply by being in the company of others, they risked some inkling of his sister’s shameful behavior getting out. Someone could guess what Georgiana had done. Someone like Miss Bingley. She was shrewd.
She was also ambitious. She would not risk Darcy’s ire. Both she and her sister, Mrs. Hurst, were so eager to throw off the shadow cast by their family’s ties to trade that they would do anything Darcy asked. As would Bingley, though out of amiability, and Hurst, but simply out of indifference.
Darcy shook his head as long strides carried him down the hallway. It almost did not matter at this point. What Georgiana had now was no life at all, and not worth protecting. True, were her shame revealed, she would be equally alone, but he could hardly believe things would be worse for her.
And he must try something to break her from her misery. Something to end this torment. New surroundings were the best option he’d come to.
And they must go to Bingley, in Hertfordshire. How fortunate that Bingley had taken a residence outside a village so obscure, no one of consequence would ever visit. Darcy had not even known the place—Meryton, he thought it was called—existed. Even if their hosts learned of Georgiana’s folly, no one else in the area mattered enough to consider. Meryton may as well be the moon insofar as the ton was concerned.
As he neared the door to his chamber, footfalls pattered down the hallway after him. “Mr. Darcy,” Mrs. Annesley called.
Turning, he waited for her to reach him.
“Mr. Darcy,” she repeated as she drew to a halt. “May I inquire as to your intended destination, so I may ensure Miss Darcy is properly packed?”
