Page 64 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

Darcy read it at the breakfast table and laughed out loud. The footman nearly dropped the toast.

By the end of the week he knew every bookseller between Piccadilly and Finsbury Square. He carried the parcels himself, and Parrish was scandalized. Every evening he came home with his palms aching. He laid the books out on the library floor and marked them off the list. The Tillotson was the first thing he found. Nobody else in London wanted it.

It was the first thing in a fortnight that he had liked doing. His hands were busy, and they were busy for her family.

Nobody would sell him a Milton. The booksellers knew the Baskerville quarto at once, and shook their heads. Darcy was not surprised. He owned one himself, and it was on its way to him from Pemberley.

On the fifth a letter came from his cousin. Colonel Fitzwilliam wrote as he talked, briskly and with no wasted words.

Your line about W. reached me. I know Forster a little, and I dined with him on Tuesday. I told him enough. W. leaves Meryton this week on regimental business at Newcastle, and he will not be back before the spring. He leaves a good deal of debt behind him, I am told. Forster will keep him close after that. Give my love to G.

Darcy read it twice and put it away in his pocketbook. His shoulders eased for the first time in a month.

Georgiana found him in the library on the evening of the sixth.

The floor was covered in books by then, in rows before the fire. He sat in the middle of them with the list on one knee. Every line was marked off but one. His father's Milton lay open on the other knee. It had come up from Pemberley that afternoon.

"Mrs. Annesley thinks you have run mad," said Georgiana from the doorway. "She says you have bought half of London."

"Not half. Only Mr. Bennet's grandfather."

She came in between the rows and sat down on the footstool by his chair. She was sixteen now, and taller than she had been at Ramsgate. She still chose footstools.

She ran her finger down the list to the last line. She looked at the book on his knee. "That is Papa's," she said. "You sent for it."

"Yes."

"You used to read it to him at the end, when he could not hold it. I used to sit on the stool and listen." She was quiet a little. Then she said, "Who is Miss Elizabeth?"

Darcy looked up.

"Your letters came in Parrish's hand," said Georgiana. "The first one said Hertfordshire was flat. After that, Miss Elizabeth was in every one of them. Miss Elizabeth cuts my meat. Miss Elizabeth thinks Mr. Cowper very dull in the second book." Her mouth twitched. "You never wrote me so much about anybody."

He told Georgiana the truth, though not everything. He left out the library in the small hours, and the wing chair, and the lamps in the conservatory. They stayed with him at night, and kept him awake in Grosvenor Square, slow and warm.

He told her about the fire, and the lane, and the ball. He told her what he had said among the orange trees.

"It is the least I could do," Georgiana repeated slowly. "Oh, Fitzwilliam. You did not."

"I did."

"No wonder she sent back your coat."

He looked down at the Milton. "I know what I ought to have said. I sit down to write it, and I cannot."

Georgiana watched his face for a long time. She had always been able to read it. Until this autumn she had been the only one who could. "You need her," she said. "And you think that is a weakness."

He laid his hand flat on the open page. "Papa needed everyone, at the end," he said. "He needed me to hold his cup. He needed Parrish to lift him. He hated it. I watched him hate it for a year."

"He did not hate it." Georgiana's voice was very quiet. "He hated being ill. That is not the same thing. He liked you reading to him. He told me so. He said it was the best hour of his day."

Darcy did not move.

"Did you think less of him?" said Georgiana. "Because he needed you to hold the book?"

"No."

"Then why should she think less of you?"