Page 13 of The Rogue’s Widow (Sweet Escapes Collection #3)

“M rs Brown, you called the lady?” Georgiana Darcy dropped heavily on the sofa and looked blankly at the wall. “No, I do not know her. You met her?”

“Twice now. The first time, I thought her manners were peculiar but not alarming. Today, she claimed to happen upon me ‘accidentally,’ but no one ever takes that path unless they know it is a favourite of mine. I suspected that someone told her where I might be found and that she means to ingratiate herself to me.”

“And you said she knew Mr Wickham?”

“I do not like to distress you by asking such a question,” Elizabeth said as she sat by the girl’s side. “I understand you are not… not friends with Mr Wickham, but I am becoming concerned and you are the only one I can ask. When I first met George Wickham, he recommended two ladies to my notice. One was the Mrs Godfrey we met in Lambton, and I am already suspicious of her.”

“So was William,” Georgiana interjected.

“Yes, he said that,” Elizabeth confessed. “What troubles me is the other lady commended by Mr Wickham was this Mrs Brown. I wonder what your brother would have to say about her.”

“What did she look like?”

“Short in stature, green eyes and fair hair. A face that looks mature but lacks any lines of age. And she had a small mole on her left cheek.”

Georgiana shivered and reached for Elizabeth’s hand. “That sounds like her—yes, it does! Mrs Younge, I mean, my old companion. But why would it be she?”

“She must have been friends with George Wickham. I believe it would not be inappropriate this time to fancy what you may, after the fashion of your novels. But if it is true, and it is she, I wonder what reason Mr Wickham had for recommending two such women to me as companions. What could he be seeking?”

Georgiana’s mouth turned down in a severe pout, almost a scowl. “Money. That is all he ever wants, and he thinks you have what should be his. You do not think he would mean to trouble you or your sisters, do you?”

Elizabeth pursed her lips and blinked. “I wish I knew.”

“William will know,” Georgiana assured her friend. “I shall write to him at once.”

“Oh, please do not!” Elizabeth protested, but before the words had died from her lips, she understood their futility. Mr Darcy must be told of her suspicions—to fail to do so would be an abdication of her post and a betrayal of the trust he had placed in her. “That is,” she added slowly, “perhaps… perhaps I ought to write to him.”

“Why you?”

“Because…” Elizabeth felt her chest tighten and forced herself to take a steady breath. “Because if you wrote to him, he would be concerned about your security and peace of mind. That would be inappropriate in this case, would it not?”

“But how are your concerns not my own?” Georgiana objected. “William has always taken an interest in the troubles of others, so why should I not?”

“You forget—” Elizabeth smiled affectionately—“I am hardly without a voice of my own, as I have found occasionally to my regret.”

Dear Sir,

If you have broken the seal of this letter and learned who writes to you without casting the pages into the flames, I congratulate you on your forbearance.

Be assured that Miss Darcy is in good spirits and I have done nothing terribly shocking, save for taking up my pen to write to an unmarried man. Though you know my character well enough to understand that I delight in absurdity and am by no means a suitable counsellor for an impressionable young lady, my purpose in writing to you was neither to offend nor to astonish. However, I am not writing in a professional capacity, which might have been seemly.

I seek your advice on a matter of personal concern, and as you have relayed pertinent information by means of a letter, I shall do the same. Recently, I made the acquaintance of one Mrs Brown, who represented herself to be a farmer’s widow. She was not remarkable in herself, but for some oddities in her manner and the defamatory way in which she spoke of a certain landowner.

This alone should not give pause, for I know quite well that this self-same landowner is a perturbing fellow with a terribly aggravating habit of provoking me to words I frequently regret afterward. No one could feel anything but sympathy for another woman similarly burdened by proximity to this nettlesome individual, but for the fact that Mrs Brown’s acquaintance had been recommended to me by the calumnious lips of one I am obliged to call my lawful brother.

Perhaps it is illogical—indeed, most probably indicative of a suspicious and unbalanced mind—but the association made me uneasy. I hope you will now do your proper duty and terminate my employment when I confess that yesterday I took my qualms directly to Miss Darcy, even while knowing that speaking a particular gentleman’s name would rightly unsettle her. I fear the ensuing conversation did nothing to comfort either of us, for neither she nor any of your servants had ever heard of the good and virtuous “Mrs Brown” of a certain miscreant’s fabrication.

Before you conclude—possibly rightly—that I have cast my reason out with my dignity and am now little more than a flighty widow who forever clutches at her lace and trembles at the slightest hint of intrigue, I pray you recall that you are not the only being in possession of a younger sister. As mine are tripled in number and yet have considerably less discretion than yours, I must be even more vigilant in their associations. When I received a note from my eldest sister not half an hour ago that this well-known rascal made a social call on my family with yet another rum cake, courtesy of this Mrs Brown, I settled it with myself that my discomfort over the matter exceeded my reluctance to write a letter to a gentleman. It is my first such transgression of modesty—what do you think of my effort? Have I sufficiently breeched the bounds of all that is polite and demure?

I shall await your appropriately outraged reply. Shall you desire me to pour ashes over my head and go on bare feet when you demand my removal from your house? Pray, spare me no portion of your just umbrage for my audacity in all these matters, for I shall now pen yet one final, and most shocking (I suppose I did intend to astonish and offend, after all) confession. I find it most entertaining when you are vexed. Surely, that is all the evidence necessary that mine is a thoroughly irreverent character.

I do, however, ask that with your response, you would include some advice. If I have learnt one thing of your character, it is that you always know, or at least appear to know, what is to be done.

Not in the least yours,

EW

D arcy’s very ears were warm when he re-read the letter. Again.

The impertinent tart. Any other man would sack her. It… was an intriguing notion.

He felt a smile tugging at his lips even as his mind began to spin on her suppositions. She would never have written unless at the end of need, and most particularly would never have asked Georgiana’s thoughts on the matter without some deep suspicion troubling her. How it must have stung her pride to ask his advice!

He was at the door of his study before he had even pulled his coat back on. “Parker, tell Mrs Dobbs I will be departing for Derbyshire in the morning, and send word to the coachman as well.”

The footman bowed his “Yes, sir,” and raced to do the master’s bidding. Darcy turned back to his desk, agitated and, oddly, indecisive. Why was he mounting a fast coach back to Derbyshire at the whimsy and insecurity of a mere companion, a woman of hardly any account whatsoever?

The answer rang clearly in his heart, and with it, an equal tremor of regret in his spirit. Because the woman was Elizabeth, that was why.

“G o to Pemberley with you? Whatever for?” Richard cocked his frame back in his chair and made a face at Darcy. “I thought I was not even welcome there.”

“Of course, you are. As you shall always be. I had hoped to mend this breach in our fellowship, and Georgiana has missed you.”

“But you speak of going tomorrow! Even if I understood the haste, I could not. Anne is here, did you not know? She arrived yesterday and is in high dudgeon that she missed seeing you so she might have the pleasure of scolding you all over again. I daren’t go to Pemberley without at least inviting her, for if I do, I will bring upon myself the wrath of both my wife and my mother-in-law. It is a fate more brutal than Boney’s cannon.”

“Then Anne must come as well. Perhaps she might finally exhaust her grievances about me and be content.”

“I cannot merely bring Anne! She and my sister are thick as thieves. I will hear nothing the entire journey but that she has no one to speak to and none to sympathise with her odious plight.” This last, Richard pronounced in a heavily inflected tone.

“Then bring Lady Sophia as well, if it gives Anne pleasure—heaven knows I must be in want of feminine oversight, and between the two of them I ought to be well supplied.”

Richard narrowed his eyes. “Both of them? You cannot be serious. What are you about, Darcy?”

“You look for mystery when there is none. I need a man of your powers, and time is likely of the essence.”

“Of all the…” Richard muttered to himself as he thought, then his countenance brightened in inspiration. “Wickham. Do you need a man to run him through? I would consider it a privilege!”

“That shall not be necessary, but you do know how delicate the matter is.” Darcy sealed his mouth then and waited, observing his cousin’s wary manner.

“I know what you will say next if I do not agree. You will be certain to inform me that it is in my best interest to come, my wife will be better pleased, Lady Catherine will not be likely to follow all the way to Derbyshire, etcetera.”

“Naturally,” Darcy said with a nonchalant wave. “I do not consider only myself.”

Richard nodded slowly. “I will come, so long as I may bring my sword.”

“E lizabeth, look!” Georgiana Darcy dropped her needlework and rushed to the nearest window. “It is Fitzwilliam!” she cried.

Elizabeth came more slowly, her steps weighted by no small measure of dread even as a great cloud of doubt lifted from her thoughts. “He has come sooner even than I expected,” she murmured.

“That is Fitzwilliam’s way. He would not send a letter to tell us of his arrival when he could come as quickly himself. My goodness, look how lathered the horses are!”

They watched together as the team drew to a halt in the drive and a coachman stepped quickly to the door. Then a figure emerged—a long arm, a broad shoulder, an exquisitely meticulous mess of dark curls covered immediately by a grey beaver, and, at last, a face that looked curiously to the window where they stood.

Mr Darcy.

He offered the briefest of smiles, but though Georgiana bounced in pleasure at his recognition, Elizabeth sensed his eyes locking on herself. His expression sobered and lingered… one pulse… two… then Elizabeth felt nearly chilled when he broke the look and turned back to the carriage.

She released a slow, shaken breath. Since when did the sensation of Mr Darcy looking at her make her flush like a schoolgirl? It must surely be her embarrassment over the past, and a just measure of humility due to the present.

But then, another feeling struck her, this one with all the force of lead and the searing pain of fire. Mr Darcy was handing a fine creature down from the carriage behind him—one who beamed and smiled and clung to his arm while she gazed adoringly up at him.

“Cousin Sophia!” Georgiana gasped in pleasure. “And Richard! Oh, and Cousin Anne! Come, Elizabeth, you must meet them!” She dashed away, pausing only at the door to compose herself before entering the main hall.

Elizabeth followed, a vast deal more slowly. She was in the entry, standing at Georgiana’s shoulder as she ought when the party came up the steps, but she managed to successfully avoid his eyes.

Much to her later dismay, it had not been difficult. Mr Darcy had looked at no one but his sister and his guests. Even at the obligatory introductions, he only gestured casually at her while uttering her name as nonchalantly as that of the common servants. His attention was immediately redirected to the ladies, for one of them—the colonel’s wife—began to protest her fatigue and general malaise, fairly commanding her host to secure her a hot bath and private quarters.

Elizabeth drew her lip between her teeth and unconsciously shrank back. The colonel’s sister, Lady Sophia, was alternating between petting Georgiana, crooning over Anne Fitzwilliam, and unnecessarily soothing the ever-unruffled Mr Darcy.

Only Colonel Fitzwilliam caught her eye, and it was with a peculiar interest that caused her to shiver. He tilted his head slightly and his lip twitched, as if he had confirmed some notion to himself. But then, he had not the decency to look away and leave her to her discomfort—no; he bowed and gestured for her to precede him up the stairs behind Georgiana.

The hair stood on the back of her neck all the way up the steps. He was studying her—she sensed it by the way his steps sounded evenly in time with hers and even faint hesitations on her part caused him to halt altogether. It was a sick and heavy feeling, being invisible and conspicuous all at once, but such she was—the fallen gentlewoman, no doubt an object of derision among the noble Fitzwilliams, and perhaps even a figure of intrigue to a man safely married elsewhere.

At her earliest opportunity, she moved towards Georgiana. “Miss Darcy, if you do not require my presence for the next half hour, I should like to retire.”

Georgiana blinked. “Of course, Elizabeth. Are you well? I thought you would wish to speak with Fitzwilliam at once.”

Elizabeth tipped her head across the hall where the gentleman himself was speaking quietly to Lady Sophia. “Later, perhaps, if Mr Darcy is not otherwise occupied. I prefer to rest my head for now.”

The girl’s brow furrowed, but she agreed. “I will have Mrs Reynolds send up some peppermint. Oh, it is so very good though, is it not? Having Fitzwilliam back, I mean. We shall be so merry, and now you needn’t worry about anything!”

Elizabeth offered a thin smile. “Nothing at all.”