Page 21 of Tempted (Heart to Heart Collection #2)

Chapter 21

Pemberley

“Y ou saw nothing.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms and cocked her head at Georgiana Darcy. “I am not blind.”

“But you saw nothing ,” hissed the girl. “Do I make myself clear, or are you truly so thick that you would insist on claiming a lie?”

“I do not work for you, Miss Darcy,” Elizabeth snapped back. “I speak as I find, and I found something quite shocking today.”

“You do not dare. You would not!” Georgiana cried. “You are my guest! Do you not understand how it works? You have no rights here!”

Elizabeth tapped the toe of her shoe on the hard floor. “What are you keeping from your brother? Who is this secret lover of yours? I cannot believe Mr Darcy would approve.”

“Approve? Of course, he would not! Why should I bother otherwise? I don’t know why I should even explain to you.” Georgiana made as if to push past Elizabeth and leave the room.

“Because if you do not, I will speak to the earl and he will speak to your brother.”

Georgiana turned back with a sneer. “As if my cousin would believe a word you said.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Do you want to take a chance on that? Miss Darcy, I have three younger sisters, and between them all, they have exhibited every vice and trickery you could possibly devise on your own. You can trust me when I say I am in no humour to give consequence to illicit love affairs.”

Georgiana rolled her eyes. “It is your fault. If it had not been for you, I would already be in Paris with my friends. They had to leave without me, and only Mr Wickham remains.”

She crossed the room as if floating on glass, in a manner oddly reminiscent of the countess she held in such disdain, then turned to stare back at Elizabeth with her chin thrust out. “I am leaving for the continent next week. My brother promised me a tour with my friend Isabella Younge, but because of you , he made me stay. Now he has gone off, and I do not mean to miss the best part of the season. I shall be in Paris by the time he returns to London.”

“Doing what and with whom?” Elizabeth demanded. “Boarded up in some dismal rooming house with that faithless rascal I saw?”

Georgiana’s nostrils flared, but her cheeks remained a perfect shade of alabaster. “What would you know of men? You, who had never met anything but dolts and idiots before you ensnared my cousin—you do not even know what a gentleman is!”

“I know what he is not . He is not a thief, stealing into gardens and clipping the roses while the master is away.”

Georgiana snorted. “You are a poet now? If you must know, no, my brother and Mr Wickham are not friends.”

“And that makes it more appealing to you?”

“If he were my brother’s friend, he would have informed on me. Everyone around me answers to William—everyone! Even you, who probably never did a proper thing in your life!”

Elizabeth lifted one brow. “Then why tell me your intentions? I have already said I would speak to the earl.”

“Reginald? Do not make me laugh. By the time he thinks of which horse to saddle to come speak to me, I will be long gone.”

“That will be on your own head, I suppose.”

“Not if I leave without proper preparations, a safe place to go, and travelling funds secured. I mean to go, Elizabeth, and I can do it with sufficient planning, or I can leave in the middle of the night if you force me to.”

“You’re a fool.” Elizabeth shook her head sadly. “A delusional fool, thinking that leaving your family and your dear ones behind will give you happiness. I can assure you, it is the very farthest thing from it.”

“Then why don’t you go back? I will even buy your ticket!”

Elizabeth gave a rueful laugh. “I would if I could. Believe me when I say you will regret doing this thing. You will only grieve those who love you, and you take risks with your safety and your reputation that you cannot begin to comprehend. Go, if you wish. If you mean to be that foolhardy, then you are correct—I cannot stop you, but think what you leave behind. The kind of brother who will search the globe for you. A home where you are adored and given every means to secure your heart’s desire. One who would be your friend, if you would let her.”

Georgiana’s expression had grown suspicious. “But what of love? Where is the room for that in this perfect little dream world you have arranged for me?”

Elizabeth’s lips switched into a sorrowful smile. “Love is never what you pursue—it pursues you. It finds you out when you are not searching for it. I hope one day it finds you.”

Georgiana was silent for a moment, staring at the floor. “Tell Mrs Reynolds I will not be down for dinner,” she announced at last.

“You are not trying to run out tonight, are you?”

Georgiana stopped as she was leaving the room and looked over her shoulder at Elizabeth. “No. I just want to be alone.”

Cape Town, South Africa

T he next ship to leave port was not scheduled to depart for two more days. Dejected in spirit and weary in body, Darcy trudged to his former lodgings and secured the company of a smuggled bottle of brandy. Jabu offered to find better entertainment for him, or at least better food, but Darcy dismissed him with a half-hearted shake of the head and a gold crown for his trouble.

He poured two glasses in his room, leaving one untouched while he spent the evening drinking to his cousin’s memory. So much of life and youth and being—all wasted now, poured out and burned away under that desert sun. Darcy sipped his brandy and allowed his eyes to glaze, recalling better times. Winter evenings by the fire, now gossamer things that faded with the touch of memory; long days of boyhood escapades, refracted into the hazy mirage of ‘what was,’ and the dreams of young men, now scorched to cinder and ash.

Darcy’s throat strangled with feeling he refused to shed, preferring to cling tight to the ache. The world had lost—oh hang the world! He had lost a good man. A brother, and the very best of friends.

And what of that bright-eyed woman who bore his cousin’s name? “Comfort the widow,” the general had said. Bah! Comfort a woman who had lost her heart’s treasure at the whim of the Empire? More callous words had never crossed a man’s lips. Darcy pressed his aching eyes into his fingers and mourned for what could never be, and for losses greater than his own.

How he and his cousin had once spoken of their dotage, with the laughing assurance of young men who presume that “tomorrow” was promised them! How many times had they fancied their children and grandchildren playing on the very grounds upon which they themselves had capered and frolicked? Richard had spoken, at least in jest, of the day when some lad would bear his image and engage in his same crimes. The soldier he became was a more practical man, who never spoke of marriage or having a son, but perhaps in his last months Richard had sensed something of his own mortality. Perhaps, that was why Elizabeth .

He plunged a hand into the depths of his breast pocket and drew out that portrait of her, taken at Matlock. He had meant to give this to his cousin, if he found him. A bit of cheer for a weary soldier. After all, who could not find their own heart restored in looking upon her face? She was fire and wit and grace personified—moreover, she was strong enough, dauntless enough, to push back the angry tides of fortune and give comfort and rest to the forsaken. And now, she herself was the one left alone.

Darcy sighed and stuffed the stopper back into the brandy bottle. In his darker moments, he could grieve that no hazel-eyed youth would run Pemberley’s halls in coming years, but perhaps… perhaps Providence had seen fit not to darken her future with the shadows of the past. Perhaps it was not too late for her to find happiness, and perhaps that was to be the epitaph Darcy would carve out for his cousin—he loved a good woman, and she went on to live a good life.

She had it in her. Oh, yes, if anyone ever did, Elizabeth had it in her to live again, to build something new. Though it had been better than a month since that scandalous round of billiards with her, Darcy still shivered each time those mischievous words tickled his ears; her threat not to give him any quarter, and her promise to do all in her power to succeed, even if it was only a game. To cheat death, if need be, to win at life.

She would laugh, she would falter, and she would struggle to her feet once more. And yes, God willing and with his own help, she would find love again with someone else.

Early on the morning before he sailed, Jabu appeared outside his room with a wooden crate in rough condition. “This for you,” he said. “I talked to a man at the War Office, he says they are going to send this back to England, but I say it is for you and he gives it.”

“What is it?” But no reply was necessary, for the answer was obvious. Richard’s possessions. Darcy spied a letter addressed in his own hand, an eagle feather no doubt recovered from the Wyoming countryside, and another letter from the old earl—Richard's father—just before his death. Darcy held the letter up and wondered if Richard even knew his father had died before he met him in person in the hereafter.

There were medals, too. His cousin was a valiant man, but apparently humble as well, because his family did not know of these. A few personal items—a fork and a spoon, a spare tunic, a framed miniature of his mother… and then there was another letter.

Darcy turned it over to inspect the hand and address. Dated last June. Richard had opened it, possibly the last thing he read before taking that fateful assignment. Darcy fingered the letter with aching curiosity, but then he put it aside. It was not addressed to him.

“Jabu,” he said, “would you be so good as to take this to the ship with my trunk? Stay a moment.” He took the letters out, for they were too precious to pack away in the musty hold of the ship and consigned the rest of the crate into Jabu’s keeping. “Thank you, my friend, and farewell.”

The young man nodded, his smile wide and bright. “ Hamba kahle , Mr Darcy.”

Pemberley

I t had been three days since Elizabeth’s confrontation with Georgiana Darcy, and so far, the young heiress had been curtailing her activities to close routes near the house—nearly always within Elizabeth’s sight and hearing. It was as if she were chaperoning herself in some defiant twist of logic—perhaps trying to prove to Elizabeth that she could and would behave with wisdom and propriety, so long as it was on her own terms. Neither had moved to resume their afternoon music lessons—in fact, they hardly spoke at all, but when they were in the same room, Elizabeth’s curious glances were always met with an obstinate stare.

“Very well,” Elizabeth had huffed to herself one morning, after a particularly uncomfortable episode in the breakfast room. “Let her think I will say and do nothing. Let her believe she truly is her own mistress and act accordingly. I shall take what precautions I see fit.”

Jane knew nothing of it—in fact, Jane hardly knew anything at all, except that Mr Bingley’s eyes were the exact colour of the Derbyshire sky on a cloudy morning, and that she got gooseflesh every time he said her name in that rich North-British accent. And he brought her a flower from Mr Darcy’s hothouse every morning. Elizabeth watched it all in reluctant amusement and no little pleasure—Jane was as good as lost, and Mr Bingley possibly more so. When she saw them together was the only time Elizabeth doubted her resolve to lay bare all the truth, and possibly destroy the fragile network of good relations they had begun to establish.

The countess called that afternoon, bringing with her the dowager instead of Miss de Bourgh this time. The ageing noblewoman, who had seemed so menacing upon the first meeting and so reluctant for that meeting to take place, had warmed remarkably towards Elizabeth in the last weeks. The countess herself marvelled privately to Elizabeth once that the woman “took years just to look me in the eyes when she spoke to me, rather than over my head. She likes you very well, indeed.”

“But why?” Elizabeth had asked. “I was not at all polite to her. In fact, I was irritated enough that now I look back and think I was rather disrespectful.”

“You were not seeking to flatter her, and she liked that at once. She thought at first, you were a fraud. You cannot blame the woman for that, for her own husband was a kind of fraud, and so are most of her friends.”

Elizabeth’s only reply had been a tight nod.

The dowager settled herself near the fire and requested for Elizabeth to sit beside her, with Jane on her left in the chaise. “Where is my niece?” she asked, almost as an afterthought.

Elizabeth caught Jane’s eye—Jane, who, in her innocence and love-tinted euphoria, had still not discovered the recent tension there. “I believe she was feeling unwell this morning,” Elizabeth suggested. “I am certain she will come down if she is able.”

“I should hope so,” the dowager sniffed. “The girl has been far too retiring of late. She could do with a bit of sociability with her elders. I shall have a word with Darcy when he returns.”

Elizabeth offered a nervous smile. This would properly be her opportunity to speak of her misgivings, her concerns. Who could be more suitable than Georgiana Darcy’s own relations to know of her reckless intentions? But she also believed in her heart that the girl’s real scheme was not to ruin herself, but to cause a fray in the family. What better way to rip and tear than to force Elizabeth to inform on her, thus lining up the various relatives in factions? What a pretty disaster the childish heiress would have wrought! Better, perhaps, to continue with her own measures, which were by no means impotent.

“How is Billy getting on, my lady?” Jane asked the countess after tea had been served. “We hear so little from him while he is engaged in his duties.”

The Dowager snorted, but the countess merely nibbled at her scone. “He is well enough,” she declared, “but he could do with a bit of… supervision. My little boy is enormously fond of him, but I have oftener to search him up myself when it is time for lessons.”

Elizabeth’s cheeks heated. “I am sure he means no offence.”

“Oh, I do not think your Mr Collins is capable of intending to offend, but he is a bit distractible. And that brings me to why we came today, Elizabeth. I think he would do better with his cousins nearby.”

The dowager frowned and clicked her tongue. “Why not simply say what you wish? ‘Tis a thin pretence, for one does not bring on the family of a tutor when the tutor himself fails to perform.”

The countess laughed—a bold, carefree sound that Elizabeth had grown fond of. “Of course not! You are correct, for it was really an excuse. So, if you please, I have been very transparent and even a bit manipulative, therefore you cannot refuse my request. Elizabeth and Jane, we would be much obliged if you would consider removing to Matlock. It is only the proper thing, after all. What is Darcy to you? It was Richard to whom you claim a connection, therefore it ought to be his family with whom you reside.”

Elizabeth and Jane traded glances. Mr Darcy’s prediction had come true, and her heart fluttered with the joy of acceptance, of belonging at last. But then, what of Georgiana Darcy? And, judging by the doubt in Jane’s eyes, her sister was concerned for her budding courtship with Mr Bingley.

“My dear Elizabeth, you really ought to answer more quickly,” the countess sniffed.

“Of course,” she stammered. “Yes, we would be most honoured, and it was very kind of you to think of asking us.”

“It is not kindness at all, girl,” the dowager answered. “You married my son, and it is my duty to look after you.”

Elizabeth hesitated. “Then, thank you all the same.”

“Excellent!” Lady Matlock exclaimed. “We shall make the arrangements this very afternoon.”