Page 29 of Beyond Pride, Past Prejudice

“Mrs Gardiner and her nieces are going to pay us a visit,” Georgiana said, perfectly composed, her eyes resting on her brother as he arranged papers upon his desk.

And although he raised his gaze to meet hers, she could not discern whether he was pleased or displeased, for his rather severe expression revealed nothing.

“How so?” he asked with the same lack of nuance in his voice. With a self-control she had not known herself capable of, Georgiana replied cheerfully, “I invited her when we met at the theatre.”

“You invited her to Pemberley, as I recall, which is quite far from here,” Darcy replied, faintly smiling. He meant to tease her, but even that lightness between them seemed forced that day—more a veil over deeper feelings than a genuine jest.

“If they are planning to visit us in Derbyshire, it is perfectly natural for your friends to call here too,” Georgiana continued, gathering her courage, hoping to draw her brother out of the silence he had carried since returning from Kent.

As Darcy gave no answer, Georgiana, suddenly uneasy, asked in haste, “Did I do wrong? Are you upset?”

“No,” he replied curtly—too curtly for her to discern what he truly felt.

She was still uncertain about this new kind of closeness with him.

Before last summer, she had seen him as a father figure—she the obedient child.

But all had shifted at Ramsgate, when Wickham’s presence had forced her to become suddenly aware of her womanhood, while the words he had spoken to her with had felt like love.

For a moment, she had believed him. Yet the world that man had offered her—one without her beloved brother—had made no sense.

She had escaped from a grave mistake, yet the happiness of her childhood could not be reclaimed.

In its place, she found herself to be Fitzwilliam’s sister—not in name only, as she had previously been, but in a way she had never truly felt until now.

“I do not wish you to be angry with me,” she murmured, suddenly uncertain.

“Enough, Georgiana. I am not angry, and you may invite whomever you wish. This is your home as much as mine.”

“I do not understand you, and you make me feel as though I have done something wrong,” she said with quiet boldness. “I liked the Miss Bennets and would enjoy seeing them again.”

“I agree that Miss Elizabeth is an accomplished young woman, and a friendship with her could be a benefit to you.”

“And Miss Bennet?”

“I do not know her well enough to form an opinion.”

He stopped abruptly, glanced at the clock, kissed Georgiana’s brow lightly, and departed—leaving her puzzled yet strangely relieved. If Fitzwilliam objected to the visit, he had said nothing of it, nor seemed to see it as any danger to her. His reserve must have had another cause.

Miss Elizabeth’s visit mattered greatly to Georgiana.

She had agreed to take part in her cousins’ quiet efforts to draw the two together again, but she wished to be sure that she was doing what was right and that Miss Elizabeth was, indeed, a suitable match for her brother while he had strong feelings for her.

But in truth, she felt she had taken upon herself a task beyond her strength.

No matter how much she wished to feel mature and self-assured, she had too little experience of life, and her timidity served her poorly.

She had resolved to trust in Lady Oakham and the colonel, yet from the very first moment she had seen Miss Elizabeth, she had felt a kindred connection—something rare for her, as her life had been a rather secluded one, where few strangers ever crossed the threshold of her quiet world.

∞∞∞

“Miss Elizabeth and her family are coming to visit Georgiana,” Darcy told the colonel when they met at their club.

“I am glad. Georgiana has too few friends, and Miss Elizabeth is the sort of person I am pleased to see around our ward. Or do you feel otherwise?”

“Do not attempt subtlety with me, I beg you.” Darcy laughed. “My opinion of her has not changed. Only my feelings have.”

“Are you certain they have changed?” the colonel asked without thinking.

Yet Darcy’s expression remained still. Looking at the faintest trace of a smile on his cousin’s face, the colonel began to understand some of Miss Elizabeth’s frustrations; Darcy could be haughty even with his own family—a little too proud.

“Richard, I came to the club for pleasant company. The past is buried, as much as it can be, a few weeks on. But yes, I am on a better path, if that is what you wish to know. I look at what happened now without the anger I felt before. Miss Elizabeth’s visit to Georgiana does not trouble me.

Georgiana invited her, and I am glad she is no longer so timid—that she is beginning to understand her place and her role, among other things.

It is a great step forwards, and if she takes it with Miss Elizabeth, I am pleased. ”

The colonel let out a breath of relief. His subtle cousin was not as sharp as he believed himself to be for though a quiet plan to bring him and Miss Elizabeth together was unfolding around him, he suspected nothing.

And that was for the best. Even the slightest hint might have made him turn away from feelings he so clearly still held despite his vehement denial.

“Yes, Richard,” Darcy said at last, “Miss Elizabeth is present in my thoughts—but not quite in the way you imagine.”

“How do you know what I imagine?” the colonel replied in the same light tone, though masking, for both of them, the truth beneath a joke.

“I suspect you liked her enough not to wish me to forget her. You still have hopes I could look back and decide to try again.”

“You are not a man easily swayed by the opinions of others.”

“I used to believe that too…but now…”

“Now?” asked the colonel, hoping that Darcy might unburden himself further and that he might find an opportunity to show him that a woman like Miss Elizabeth could indeed bring him happiness.

“Now I am ready to hear what you think—”

“To hear?” The colonel smiled. “You mean not to interrupt me and change the subject entirely?”

“Richard,” said Darcy with amused reproach, though he turned serious at once, “you want me to tell you what I feel. Well then, at this very moment, I do not know what I feel. That is to say, not even whether I still love her. She wounded me too deeply.”

“And you wounded her in return.”

“And you believe the two wounds cancel each other out, so both should be obliterated?”

“Something of that sort,” laughed the colonel, who had no wish for Darcy to relive the scene at the Parsonage, only to accept that they had both made mistakes.

“But do you ask yourself whether she might love me?” Darcy enquired, and for the first time that evening, the colonel saw in his eyes something beyond frustration and stubborn pride, a glimmer that could only come from love and suffering.

“She loves you!” the colonel declared with conviction, though he could not be certain. Yet, he hoped that if the two were to meet, they might find clarity in their feelings and temper the combative spirit that so often ruled them both.

To the colonel’s surprise, Darcy said nothing, but his features softened somehow.