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Chapter Twenty

T he ink was still wet. Darcy watched it bead along the bottom of the page, trembling as though even the letter knew better than to go.

Georgiana sat with her back straight, hands folded, a look of practiced calm on her face. The window behind her was grey with clouded glass, but the fire caught in the curve of her cheek like a false warmth.

He folded the paper once, twice, slowly—an act meant to steady himself as much as protect its contents.

“He did not take the offer,” he said.

She nodded once.

“On the grounds,” he added, more sharply than he meant to, “that he did not find it insufficiently interesting. Or perhaps it did not come with an engraved invitation to blackmail.”

Georgiana did not speak.

Darcy set the letter down. “It was more than fair." He had rewritten the terms twice. Once in anger, once in desperation. Neither would have served. And still, Wickham had refused. “A clean settlement, no questions asked, no names mentioned. He would not even return that much dignity to you.”

“It is my fault. I did write them,” Georgiana said quietly.

He turned toward her. “You were fifteen. And not in possession of judgment then or now to face a man like Wickham alone.” He bit off the rest of the sentence and exhaled. “That was not reproach, Georgie.”

Her gaze dropped to her lap. “It sounded very much like one.”

He stepped forward, gentled his voice. “I am angry at him. Not at you.”

“You are angry that I was foolish.”

“I am—” His jaw tightened. “I am angry that he was cruel enough to exploit your naivety.”

They sat in silence a moment longer, the fire snapping behind him. He could hear the coal settle in the grate like the cracking of old ice.

At last, she said, “If you cannot get them back, what will happen?”

“Nothing.” His reply was swift. Too swift.

Georgiana looked up, and in her expression—so similar to his father’s in its careful restraint—he saw the cost of pretending.

He tried again. “He will not use them. I will make certain of it.”

“But how?” she whispered.

Before he could answer, the door opened with no ceremony whatsoever—click, sweep, the muted thump of a cane on carpet—and Lady Matlock entered the room like a force of nature in lace and steel.

“Good,” she announced, without looking at either of them. “You are not weeping. I always find that so tedious before luncheon.”

Georgiana’s eyes widened. Darcy turned slowly, bracing for a storm he had not summoned.

His grandmother fixed her gaze on him. “If you are determined to hover over the girl like a sorrowful shade, at least provide a shawl. You are blocking the fire.”

“I am not—hovering,” he said.

“Poppycock. You look like you are preparing to hurl yourself upon a funeral pyre. Stop it. You are too tall for melodrama.”

“I am attempting to resolve a legal matter.”

“And in the meantime, terrifying your sister into thinking she has summoned the devil by dipping her pen in ink.” She turned to Georgiana. “You. Do you feel ruined?”

Georgiana blinked. “I… do not know.”

“Do you feel capable of facing society with your spine intact?”

A pause. Then, softly, “I am not certain.”

“Then it is fortunate that certainty was never required,” said the dowager, leveling her cane like a sword. “You do not need to feel ready, only to appear so. And I assure you, no one survives the world without learning to bluff.”

She gave the cane a light tap against Darcy’s shin. “Which is more than I can say for your brother, who looks as though he means to fall on a sword rather than let you face a drawing room.”

Darcy opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Georgiana let out a sound that was almost a laugh—thin and startled, but real.

Lady Matlock nodded once, sharp as a general. “That is better. If you cannot summon confidence, summon performance. The rest will follow. He has not won. And neither have you,” she said, jabbing her cane lightly against Darcy’s shin. “Now let the child breathe.”

Darcy opened his mouth. Closed it.

Georgiana let out a very small laugh.

Lady Matlock turned for the door. “Ten minutes, and I expect both of you to look human. There is a salon at three, and I refuse to arrive with a ghost instead of a grandson.”

She swept out as she had entered, her perfume leaving a faint trail of citrus and disapproval.

Darcy stared at the closed door.

“She means well,” Georgiana said gently.

“I know.”

“You are not a ghost.”

He looked at her. “I am trying not to be.”

She nodded, then rose and crossed the room to him. When she reached up, it was not to kiss his cheek, but to smooth his cravat with small, uncertain fingers—an echo of what their mother used to do when neither of them was old enough to refuse comfort.

He did not flinch. But he did not look at her, either.

She said softly, “Wear the grey. It makes you look less like you are going to duel someone.”

He exhaled. “No promises.”

She smiled, faintly, and went to the door closing it behind her.

Darcy stayed where he was. The fire popped once. A draft touched the back of his neck. The letter was still in his hand.

Eventually, he slipped it into his coat and straightened the line of his sleeve.

The problem could not be buried. It could only be disarmed. And there was only one path left to do it.

He did not like the plan. But if dignity could not be reclaimed, it could at least be traded. Quietly. Deliberately. And on his terms.

And it would begin with appearing in public. Again.

This time, with his spine intact.

December 9

T he pamphlet was hideous.

Not in content—though the essay on Greco-Roman landscapes was hardly thrilling—but in presentation. The type was uneven, the binding too tight, and the margin illustrations appeared to have been drawn by someone with a blunt nib and a grudge against symmetry.

Elizabeth turned it over and began scribbling in the blank back corner.

The hills may be imaginary, but the pomp is real. No one has ever spent so many words saying “I liked the rocks.”

“Lizzy,” her aunt called gently from across the room, “are you planning to offend the entire Society for the Preservation of Roman Aesthetics before luncheon, or after?”

“Depends how long they insist on praising columns as metaphors for moral fortitude,” Elizabeth muttered, tucking the pamphlet into her bag with a final, pointed flourish.

Mrs. Gardiner smiled indulgently. “Today’s gathering is meant to be more intimate. No lectures, I promise. Only a few artists and a handful of thinkers. It should make for thoughtful conversation.”

Elizabeth lifted her brows. “Lately, all conversation has been either slippery or staged. I begin to suspect we are all just taking turns performing civility in a badly lit theatre.”

“Then at least wear something that will catch the spotlight.” Her aunt patted the sleeve of her dress approvingly. “That shade suits you.”

It was a deep plum—a choice Elizabeth had made less for fashion than for armor. It felt grounded, difficult to stain, and slightly too rich for her mood.

Jane entered just then, tying the ribbons of her bonnet with slow, deliberate fingers. Her face held that particular stillness Elizabeth had learned to recognize as both grace and grief.

“You are certain you wish to come?” Elizabeth asked softly.

Jane nodded. “It is better than staying in. I need the air.”

Elizabeth did not press. She only reached for her gloves and said, “Then let us be clever and charming and no trouble at all.”

As she picked up her reticule, her fingers brushed the lining.

Still empty.

Her pulse stuttered, like it had been doing every five minutes since the Netherfield Ball.

Of course, she could not have lost the small one, in which the most interesting entry was Cook’s modifications to a famous lemon tart receipt from London. No, no, she had to lose the one she had written in most.

The one that had once contained a seven-pound scandal and several observations about a gentleman’s eyebrows.

She looked up. Smiled. Said nothing.

They were already late, and she had experienced at least three minor heart seizures so far that morning. She was starting to understand exactly what her mother meant when she complained about her nerves.

T he drawing room had been transformed—or so claimed the brochure clutched in the gloved hand of a passing dowager. Elizabeth suspected "transformed" was a generous term. More likely, it had been bullied into submission with velvet rope and strategically arranged pedestals.

A string trio had settled themselves beneath the far window, playing something subdued and vaguely Italian. Tables of lemon cordial and sugared almonds stood beneath borrowed oil paintings.

Elizabeth made a slow circuit of the room, Jane at her side, until she found herself in front of a marble bust perched slightly off-center on a black velvet stand. The card beside it read:

“Possibly Roman. Possibly Local. Circa Uncertain.”

“Like most men of fortune,” she muttered, just loudly enough for Jane to laugh quietly into her handkerchief.

Jane wandered toward the music, and Elizabeth remained, studying the sculpture’s battered profile. The bust had lost its nose, half an ear, and any semblance of neck. What remained was impressively square-jawed and vaguely disappointed in the world.

A voice spoke just beside her.

“Missing parts often inspire more speculation than the whole ever could.”

Elizabeth blinked and turned. Darcy stood at her shoulder, very nearly in her shadow, hands behind his back like he meant to be respectful and had simply forgot what distance looked like.

She tilted her head toward the bust. “Do you think its nose left a letter of explanation?”

“Possibly. But I expect it would only raise more questions.”

She gave him a slow, sidelong glance. “Is this your way of calling me mysterious?”

“No. It is my way of saying you are being very difficult to read lately.”

Elizabeth folded her arms. “Then perhaps you should have learned some languages besides Latin.”

He grunted. “Would it help if I introduced you to someone?”