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MISS GEORGIANA DARCY reminded Elizabeth of some kind of frightened small animal, perhaps a chipmunk or squirrel, eyes wide, looking about, ready to run at the first sight of danger.

She laughed in a high-pitched nervous way and she looked about the room all the time as if she was worried something was on its way in, something horrid. She smiled at Elizabeth, but her eyes looked frightened.

Elizabeth was worried that something very bad had happened to the girl, and she resolved she would speak to her husband about it when they got home. But just then, she told her sister-in-law that now that they were acquainted, she must call upon her whenever it struck the other girl’s fancy.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Georgiana, looking around as if frightened a blow was coming. “I would not wish to intrude.”

“You wouldn’t be intruding,” said Elizabeth. “After all, we are practically sisters now, are we not?”

“Well, I have not felt as if I should leave,” said Georgiana.

She was running this household, but she did have a companion—not the duplicitous Mrs. Younge, but another woman, this one also a widow.

She had not joined them for dinner, claiming another engagement, but Elizabeth supposed this woman was really an employee, and this was finally a night off for her, to conduct her personal business, whatever it might be. Her name was Mrs. Stiles.

“I shall call upon you, then,” said Elizabeth.

“Truly?” said Georgiana, so much hope in her worried little eyes that it struck Elizabeth like an arrow to her chest.

Elizabeth was angry with her husband when they got home. It didn’t make sense to her, truly it did not. She supposed she could see why he was so angry at Wickham and Georgiana… but if so, why was he so forgiving of her own foibles? Why could he not extend that same grace to his own sister?

“You’re right,” he sighed. “I shall do better. Poor thing. I have left her alone for far too long. I don’t think I realized how isolated she was.”

“You must never miss her birthday again,” said Elizabeth, shaking her head at him.

“It’s just… him,” said Mr. Darcy.

“Why?” she said. “What is it about Mr. Wickham?”

“Why are you taking up for him?” He glared at her.

“I’m not!” She was astonished. “There’s something you’re not telling me about him, isn’t there?”

“No,” said Mr. Darcy.

“Some other reason you’re jealous,” she said. “He did something, something else.”

Mr. Darcy shook his head.

“Another woman,” she said. “You fought over a woman.”

“ No, ” said Mr. Darcy with real venom. “I wish to leave this subject, Mrs. Darcy,” he said with finality.

So, she left the subject, but she was unsettled by it all.

The following day, she went to call on Caroline again, but told Caroline she must cut the visit short because she felt she must go to see Miss Darcy, who had been neglected for too long. She would invite Caroline along, but she could not bring her when she and Miss Darcy had not been introduced.

“I know Miss Darcy,” said Caroline.

“You do?”

“Since we were both younger,” said Caroline. “Our brothers were friends, you realize.”

“Oh, well, then,” said Elizabeth. “Would you like to come with me to see her, then? I have begun to think we must try to make a match for her as well.”

“She’s not even out in society,” said Caroline. “What gossip do you know? Why have you only just now met your husband’s sister? She’s ruined, isn’t she, and he’s hiding it.”

“No,” Elizabeth said, but she thought that conclusion was so close that others might make the same one.

However, she supposed that her appearance was a convenient one.

If people might wonder what had become of the Darcys and suspected anything untoward about Miss Darcy, the fact that Mr. Darcy had recently gotten married in a whirlwind marriage to a wholly inappropriate girl, well, it took all the attention away from Miss Darcy, didn’t it?

She knew her husband hadn’t done it on purpose.

Well, she knew that her husband truly cared for her, that he had married her because he was very much in love.

She did not know if he had been easily swayed to this ill-advised marriage because it had advantages for his sister’s unfortunate situation.

She and Caroline arrived in the mid-afternoon, and Georgiana received them with surprise and barely contained excitement. She seemed only slightly less jumpy that day, but she was clearly pleased.

“Miss Darcy could get used to visitors every day,” said Mrs. Stiles, when she was introduced to Caroline and Elizabeth. “Would you all mind very much if I took my leave of you for just a half an hour? I am happy to stay if you like.”

“No, no, we shall be all right on our own, Mrs. Stiles,” said Georgiana, practically shooing the other woman off.

Once the woman was gone, she confessed, “She is with me constantly, sunrise to sunup. I know that my brother has told her to watch me intently, but we are both exhausted, her and me. She barely gets any time to herself, you know.”

“Why is that?” said Caroline, looking Georgiana over.

“Oh, I thought you knew,” said Miss Darcy. “I thought everyone knew. No?”

“No,” said Elizabeth. “No one knows anything.”

“You are ruined,” said Caroline.

“Well, I don’t think so,” said Georgiana. “He never even so much as kissed me. But he did say it wouldn’t matter if people knew about it.”

“Who?” said Caroline.

Elizabeth protested.

But Georgiana ignored the question and kept speaking.

“I just don’t understand. If no one knows, why have I been so very isolated?

I thought that was why everyone was keeping their distance, why there was no discussion of when I would have my first Season, why I had not heard from my brother in months. No?”

“I am ever so sorry,” said Elizabeth. “Your brother has not given me a satisfactory answer either.” She would have asked Georgiana about Mr. Wickham, but she did not think it was a good idea in the presence of Caroline.

This bothered her, then. Didn’t she trust her best friend?

No, she trusted Caroline, it wasn’t that. It was simply that some things must be kept to one’s family. Elizabeth was a Darcy now. She had a loyalty to her husband and she would not go about speculating on why he had been so awful to his sister in mixed company!

Elizabeth continued, “You say you have considered why there has been no discussion of a Season, so you would be amenable to a Season, you say?”

“We have missed the ball!” cried Georgiana. “It is held at the end of January for Queen Charlotte’s birthday. I cannot be presented at court, so therefore, I cannot debut into society, and I cannot have a Season.”

“That’s not true,” said Caroline immediately. “The Queen hosts regular drawing rooms, but even then, it’s not necessary. You must, of course, realize that neither Mrs. Darcy nor myself have ever been presented to the Queen.”

Georgiana nodded carefully. “Yes, I suppose that is true. Why, I remember hearing that Hortense had not been presented, not until after her marriage to the Earl of Answich.”

“If you want a Season,” said Elizabeth, “I think I can easily convince your brother of undertaking whatever expense there might be.” She sighed heavily, realizing that she had not spent enough time preparing for balls for herself.

She had not had dresses made. But perhaps that wouldn’t matter, in the end.

She could not be sure if her husband had chosen a wildly inappropriate bride for the exact purpose of drawing attention away from his sister’s misfortunes, but she was considering using it as a strategy.

Truthfully, given the way everything had happened, there wasn’t much else available to her in the way of strategies.

“Of course I want a Season,” said Georgiana.

“It is only that you are still very young,” said Elizabeth, “and you might wish to wait until you are seventeen or eighteen—”

“No!” said Georgiana, horrified.

“Positively not,” said Caroline, shaking her head at her.

“Everything is so different here than in the country,” muttered Elizabeth.

“It is not such a to-do for a girl to come out in the country. You simply start coming along when the family is invited to dinners and balls, and that is all. It is more that you are of age and may be included and less of an emphasis on the idea that now you must be married off right away.”

“That’s true in town too,” said Caroline. “But we are scheming this Season for Georgiana precisely because we are trying to marry her off right away, are we not?”

“Yes, I think I do have to get married,” said Georgiana. “Or… well… I thought I did, because of what happened, but then, if no one knows? Do I have to get married right away?”

Elizabeth focused on the young girl. “What sort of man would you like to marry?”

Georgiana chewed on her lower lip. “Well, do you want the answer of what I would truly like or what I think I should settle for now?”

“What you would truly like, of course.”

“I suppose he doesn’t have to be rich,” said Georgiana.

“But he must understand how to conduct himself amongst rich people. I have enough dowry, however, that all would be well, even if he were not rich. So, I suppose that means all I must worry about is that he is kind and good and very in love with me and handsome and… and blond. With curls if at all possible.”

Elizabeth nodded gravely. “All right, well, duly noted.” If she had noticed that Georgiana had described Mr. Wickham, she decided not to say. What had happened between the two of them, anyway?

“It’s not in any order,” said Georgiana. “So, I wouldn’t say that’s how you must sort importance. I don’t know what elements of that are the most important, truly.”

“And if you had not had this incident,” said Elizabeth, “wherein you thought you were ruined, when, ideally, would you have liked to have gotten married?”