“But why would my husband have her papers?” Elizabeth wondered out loud.
“Since Mr. Darcy took wardship of the child, I assumed he must have taken custody of her effects as well. Her papers, her correspondence, and her manuscripts. The Apethorpes certainly wouldn’t have claimed them, not after the rift. Would you at least ask?”
“I shall,” Elizabeth said, absently, her voice too even and careful. “Though I cannot promise he will welcome the inquiry. He does not speak much of… of Thomas’s circumstances.”
“No, I imagine not, as it must be dreadfully awkward.” Prue shook her head, sympathy and curiosity warring on her face. “The whole situation, I mean. Lady Amelia refused to marry or return home to her parents, choosing to raise the child alone. And then the accident—the phaeton, you know, how fast she loved to drive. Such a tragedy.”
“A great tragedy,” Elizabeth agreed, because words were required and these were the only ones available.
“What puzzles me—” Prue leaned forward again, her voice dropping to that carrying whisper, “—is why Mr. Darcy took the child at all. Not that it isn’t admirable, but Lady Amelia’s parents are an earl and countess. Lord Apethorpe could have claimed his grandson.”
Georgiana cleared her throat, her teacup clicking on the saucer. “Miss Duntze, perhaps some subjects are better left for another time.”
But Prue, having scented the quarry, could not release it. “I suppose it is only the father being who he is that complicates matters. One understands why the Apethorpes might prefer to distance themselves.”
Elizabeth’s hands found her teacup, her fingers wrapping around the porcelain, as she noted with distant interest that they remained steady.
“The father,” she said. “I wonder…”
“Is George Wickham.” Prue blinked as if it were common knowledge. “He is Mr. Darcy’s half-brother. His father’s natural son, by the steward’s wife. Grew up at Pemberley as old Mr. Darcy’s godson, though the name is Wickham, not Darcy, and the distinction is rather crucial. He is devastatingly handsome, fair-haired, tall, and the most charming man in any room. Had he been legitimate…”
“We do not discuss George in this house.” Georgiana’s voice cut across the room like a blade. She sat rigid, two spots of color burning on her cheeks. “Fitzwilliam does not like it, Prue, and you know that.”
Prue’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “I meant no offense.”
“You gave none. But we do not speak of him. Not here.” Georgiana remained firm, the steel in her voice cutting and clear.
Elizabeth, however, felt the floor vanish beneath her. Her stomach lurched, and her blood slowed to a chill. She reached for the teapot—her hands required employment, for if she did not pour tea, she might betray herself in some irretrievable way: a cry, a retch, or the unforgivable request that Prue repeat the name, just to be certain.
But she had heard correctly; she knew she had.George Wickham.Fair-haired, tall, and the most charming man in any room.
The teapot was heavier than it should be. She poured carefully, watching the amber stream fill Prue’s cup, then her own, then Georgiana’s, though Georgiana had not asked. Thefamiliar motions bought her seconds—precious seconds, while the name ricocheted through her skull and found its target.
This was the same George Wickham who had found her in a passage after one of those Cheapside salons, declaring her the cleverest woman he had met in London. Who had walked with her through the wintry twilight, his voice warm as sweet honey, his smile an open door she had stepped through because she was twenty and no one had ever looked at her like that. And the same man who had kissed her behind the bookseller’s wall and pressed a ring into her palm, whispering promises she had believed.
And all along, he was the half-brother to the man she had married and the father of the child she had just comforted in the garden.
“Forgive me,” Prue was saying, her voice smaller now. “I forget that parish common knowledge is not household conversation. I only meant?—”
“The seed cake.” Elizabeth heard herself speak, marveling at the steadiness of the voice emerging from her throat. “Let us try the seed cake, Miss Duntze, for you brought it all this way.”
She cut a slice and set it on Prue’s plate, then another for herself and Georgiana, because that was the custom: one ate cake with callers, one smiled, one did not allow trembling hands or a betraying face to reveal that the earth had shifted beneath one’s feet. The cake tasted of sawdust and ashes, but she swallowed, chasing it with tea that burned her tongue—a welcome sensation, for it offered something to feel besides the cold creeping through her chest.
Prue’s eyes sharpened, and she looked from Georgiana, still flushed and rigid, to Elizabeth. Her expression shifted into something more assessing, like a bloodhound who had caught a scent.
“I have upset you both,” she said slowly. “I did not mean to, that is, I only thought, since the manuscripts?—”
“The manuscripts.” Elizabeth seized the word like a rope thrown to a drowning woman. “Yes, you mentioned Lady Amelia was writing something. A novel, you said?”
Prue hesitated, clearly torn between pursuing the interesting distress she had stumbled upon and accepting the conversational escape she had been offered. Curiosity warred with manners, and manners lost, just barely if one were being charitable.
“A Gothic romance, they say.” She leaned forward with renewed eagerness. “Terribly lurid. Secret lovers, a crumbling abbey, and a heroine imprisoned by a villainous guardian. Lady Amelia read portions aloud at her salons. Miss Entwhistle can inform us, as she does not have a mother who would not allow her to go. Let me see if I recall. There was something about a locked tower, a mysterious letter, and a hero who arrived on a black horse at midnight.” Her eyes sparkled, the earlier tension already fading. “I would give anything to read the finished manuscript. If it exists. If Mr. Darcy kept it.”
“I shall ask him,” Elizabeth said, and her voice still worked, her hands still held the saucer without trembling, and her fork still crumbled the seedcake into dust. Small mercies, these, and she would count them later.
Georgiana had not recovered as quickly. She sat pale and silent, her cake untouched, and her eyes fixed on some middle distance Elizabeth recognized—the look of someone replaying a conversation and finding themselves at fault.
“Goodness, look at the time.” Prue glanced toward the window, where the sun had climbed higher than morning-call propriety allowed. “Mamma will be frantic. I promised to return before noon, and I have stayed an age, talked far too much, and upset everyone.” She rose in a flurry of skirts and apologies. “Ishall call again when I have learned to govern my tongue, if you will still receive me.”
