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SUMMONED!

The carriage clattered over the cobblestones of Ramsgate Town Centre.

To the casual on-looker, the carriage seemed to be empty.

However, in the shadows, two men glared at each other from opposite corners of the carriage.

They had, at turns, been guiltily wondering how things could have gotten so out of hand and blaming each other for the present situation that had brought them to this point.

“I do not know why you resigned your commission, Fitzwilliam! A man ought to be useful and able to provide for his own,”

Fitzwilliam Darcy accused his cousin suddenly.

Colonel Christopher Fitzwilliam glared at his cousin, speaking in a clipped tone he snapped, “You know full well, Fitz, why I chose to resign my commission. It is for the same reason we are stuck in this bloody carriage! We should have been on the road a week ago when that blackguard first wrote to you, requesting Georgiana’s hand in marriage. One of us has to watch out for my little cousin — and since you have been too busy living the high life , then I must be the one to watch over her. She cannot be trusted to a companion.”

“We do not know if it is Georgie who is untrustworthy or Mrs Younge. At least Wickham did the decent thing of asking for our permission. I did not expect him to behave in such a decent manner. He always appeared to be rather loose in his morals,”

Darcy mused.

“I still think him loose in morality. I will never fully trust him, again,”

Fitzwilliam growled. “And I do not trust Georgie either! I’ve seen too many of her age seduce a man without even blinking - I swear that is all those schools teach the girls.”

Darcy did not want to admit that his cousin was right.

He had barely seen his little sister in the last five years.

He could not.

It was too painful.

To look at his sister was to see his mother — the kind and loving Lady Anne.

The doctors had warned his father that another pregnancy could kill Lady Anne, but two years later his mother had died trying to give birth to another son.

After a fourteen-hour labour, mother and son had died.

Mother and son were buried side by side in the family crypt.

The late Mr Darcy never forgave himself and five years ago took his own life.

Thus the twenty-two-year-old boy, Fitzwilliam Darcy, had become the Master of the Pemberley estates and joint guardian of his sister Georgiana.

In rare moments, Darcy acknowledged that at twenty-two he had thought his ten-year-old sister to be a nuisance.

The truth was that he had wanted to live his own life and had not wanted to be bothered with her.

He thought that if he took her with him while visiting friends and acquaintances, she would prevent him from finding a wife.

He scoffed at himself.

That implication had always come from the likes of his best friend’s youngest sister, Caroline Bingley.

Darcy loathed the woman, but gave her credence enough to believe that Georgiana would be a millstone around his neck.

He loved his sister but did not want her to interfere with his life.

So when she had been pulled from school earlier this year, he and his cousin had placed her into the charge of a companion.

Darcy huffed before he answered his cousin.

“A good companion should be able to keep a single young girl under control. Georgie is timid enough around us.”

“She is around you, you mean. She is positively frightened of you! Not so me! She sees me as the soft touch, easily manipulated,”

Fitzwilliam scoffed.

“That is because you would let her get away with anything! All she has to do is bat her pretty little eyelashes in your direction and you let her have her way. We have to shut down this little game of hers. She is too young to marry the first man that comes along. She certainly does not know what love is,”

Darcy grumpily objected.

“And you do? You have barely looked at any woman! You are like some monk locked up in a monastery!”

Fitzwilliam teased his cousin.

“And you are like a tom cat on the prowl. If it wears a skirt, you will sleep with it,”

Darcy countered. “There is nothing wrong with waiting for the right woman.”

“Ah, but is it a woman that you are looking for?”

Darcy growled but did not answer.

If anyone other than his cousin had even suggested such a thing Darcy would have punched them.

Both men knew that Fitzwilliam was simply teasing his cousin.

However, it was a painful conversation.

Darcy did not love often, but when he did fall in love – he loved deeply.

Darcy wanted to be sure of the woman he fell in love with and married.

He had seen far too many marriages of convenience or for social gain that had ended in misery and disaster for the parties involved.

He looked over at his cousin.

The banter had a serious edge to it.

Fitzwilliam was an honourable man, but he was a man of his day.

He had little use for such a ‘ romantic ’ notion of love.

Fitzwilliam had seen far too many men die on the battlefields pining over a woman they left behind or who they would never get to make ‘an honest woman’.

Life had become a cheap commodity to Fitzwilliam.

So, if the opportunity was there to bed a woman – Fitzwilliam did.

It was the way of things.

To Fitzwilliam, fortune was the most important thing to look for in a woman.

Ignoring his cousin, Darcy pulled out the last three letters he had received from his sister and read them over again.

There was something amiss about this situation, but he was unsure of what it was.

Was Wickham taking advantage of an innocent young girl? Was Mrs Young inept or worse encouraging vice? Or was it, as one letter had alleged, that Georgiana herself was behaving like a common flirt? Darcy did not know.

He and his cousin would need to find out the truth behind this situation – and fast.