“Where better to regain my health? And in return, I ask that you now take my advice. If you are determined on a tour of rustication, you must take Donaldson with you.”
“Do you imply I am too soft to go alone? You, who have so often boasted that your troops can walk thirty miles or more in a day in bad boots with only dried horse and cheap gin to sustain them? I would think you would encourage me to harden myself in just that way.”
“Listen to me,” he said gravely. “I have just encountered certain realities in Hertfordshire I would prefer to forget. I share the guardianship of your sister, and I do not want to have to tell her that you were clubbed to death in the night for your boots. Lord, Darcy, do you think I would allow you to go at all if I did not suspect you are trying to walk off your feelings for a woman?”
I hated how clearly he had stated the case and took three deliberate breaths lest I reply with a telling degree of awkwardness. “Very well. I shall take Donaldson with me if he will go. Might we now make peace?”
We gladly did, so much so that the next morning, Fitzwilliam freely congratulated me on Georgiana’s progress. “You have done well without me,” he said. “Perhaps you have done more for her alone than you would have done with my interference.”
The circumstance resulting in his fulsome compliment had unfolded earlier that morning when my sister had come down to breakfast. My cousin and I had not yet stood up from the table, and we lingered to keep her company.
After stirring her tea, she turned to me. “Might I pay a call on Mrs Gardiner before we leave town?”
I looked appraisingly at her as I sipped the last of my coffee. “You are out now, Georgie. Here is what you must say: ‘I plan to pay a call on Mrs Gardiner today if you would care to join me.’ If either Mrs Annesley or I have objections, we shall state them, but it would remain your choice to go or not.”
She smiled at me with pinking cheeks. “I plan to pay a call on Mrs Gardiner today if you would care to join me.”
“I would gladly escort you,” I said, “but I would be equally happy to see you strike off on your own, confident of your ability to visit your acquaintance without your guardians for support. Now, it is for you,” I said instructively, “to choose which option you prefer.”
“Do I indeed have so much power?” she asked wonderingly, as if I had told her she could sail alone to India if she wished.
“You do. And lest you fall into the habit of letting everyone around you make your choices, you should practise making more decisions about your time.”
“Very well. I should like to go by myself to see how I do. Well, I would like to take Mrs Annesley with me, for she might like to meet Mrs Gardiner.”
When she had gone, and after Fitzwilliam had congratulated me upon my handling of this trifling matter, he said, “Let us find a map, Darcy. I would like to see where you plan to walk. Should I call for Donaldson?”
CHAPTER 24
That evening, feeling weary as usual, I stood patiently as Carsten removed my coat. With some sense that the page had turned or a freshening breeze had blown through an airless room, I thought of returning home.
“Did I mention I plan to take a walking tour of the Roman walls?”
“You had not, sir. When will you go?”
As he helped me on with my dressing gown, I nattered on about when I would go, what I wished to see, my intention to travel as a rustic, and that Colonel Fitzwilliam’s batman would go with me.
“I see, sir,” he said.
Was he annoyed not to be asked?He was!
“I assume you would also go,” I said tentatively, “though I do not want to place upon you any obligation. I expect to be uncomfortable and?—”
“Of course I should go, Mr Darcy,” he said. “I once walked through the Highlands of Scotland when at university there.”
“Did you? Well done! But with three of us, Carsten, I wonder if we should perhaps consider making use of your mule to carry our provisions?”
“That is an excellent idea, sir. Shall I make arrangements to have him taken up to Pemberley?”
“What of Mrs Hamilton? Would she feel the loss of him?”
“I had hoped she would make use of him, but instead, she treats him like a pet dog from what I understand.”
“Does she write to you?”
“A poor curate who travels that road visits her and writes for her now and again.”
“Then let her know our plans and ask her to give the cart to the curate to use or sell as he sees fit. I shall ask Keller to send a youngster to collect Trusty and see him safely to Pemberley.” I looked at my valet a touch ruefully and said, “Am I being silly about the fate of that humble animal?”
