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What a shame, their walk will be ruined!
Georgiana watched from the comfort of her room as the rain began to fall, lightly at first but then more and more heavily. She could not help but feel a tiny glimmer of satisfaction that her friends’ outing would now be spoiled and was just imagining Elizabeth landing in a particularly muddy puddle on their return journey when a knock at the door startled her out of her reverie.
“Yes?”
“It’s me.” Lydia Bennet pushed the door to Georgiana’s room open but did not enter, instead hovering uncomfortably at the threshold. “I wondered if we might speak.”
Georgiana sniffed.
“We might. Have you something to say?”
Her dismissive tone would have frozen women older and braver than Lydia Bennet but for some reason, she stood her ground, indeed she claimed more, taking a swift step into the room towards Georgiana.
“I know you are not happy with me, but I wish to explain my part.”
“Your part.” Georgiana folded her arms across her front and stared at Lydia. “You mean you have some excuse for claiming to help and then trying to steal George away from me? Very well, I wish to hear it.”
“Steal?” Lydia’s mouth fell open. “I didn’t - I couldn’t -”
“My cousin told me of the letter he wrote to you.” Georgiana paused. “George plans to rescue you from Pemberley and flee north.” She smiled, unkindly. “You will wed at Gretna Green, no doubt, and then live in happiness all the rest of your days, never minding whose dreams you trampled to get there.”
“Georgiana -”
“I trusted you! I had finally thought to have a friend, that somebody, at last, would be on my side and be able to help me. Yet all the while you sought to insert yourself in my place and steal away the only man I have ever loved. Why did you offer to help me? Did George ever receive a single one of my notes?” She flushed. “Or did you read them all yourself? I am sure you and Elizabeth had a good laugh over them. Poor, pathetic Georgiana...”
“No, that’s not what happened!” Lydia’s voice took on a pleading note which only served to infuriate Georgiana more.
“I do not know why I should listen to a word you have to say. You have proved yourself to be quite adept at falsehood before now.” Georgiana turned away, thinking that to show Lydia her back would be enough to put an end to the conversation. She had not reckoned on a young lady who had spent the entirety of her life fighting with sisters. Lydia, despairing of speech when her opponent was so opposed to hearing her instead resorted to what had always won in rows with Kitty. She leaned over, grabbed a handful of Georgiana’s blonde curls and pulled.
“Ouch!” Georgiana squealed, turning to fere herself and lashing out with a slap that connected painfully with Lydia’s right cheek.
In the next instant, both girls were tangled in a chaotic pile on the floor and neither one heard footsteps rapidly climbing the stairs and approaching the room until a sharp voice reverberated around the room.
“Georgiana?”
She had only heard the shock and dismay in her brother’s voice once before and to hear it again was enough to shock her into stillness.
“Lydia?” Richard was behind his cousin, a little breathless, but his expression mirrored Darcy’s, and they were both poised in readiness to part the two young ladies. There was no need for physical intervention, however, for she and Lydia scrambled apart and back to their feet. “Are you hurt?”
Georgiana scowled at her cousin, whose concern seemed to be all for Lydia and not for her.
She started this! All of it! She is to blame, she -
“Perhaps you can escort Lydia back downstairs to join everyone else in the parlour,” Darcy said, in a low voice. He turned to Georgiana. “I think we should speak alone.”
“I do not see why.” Georgiana lifted her chin, striving to sound superior. She might have had more success were her curls not coming down in clumps around her head, and if her dress was not creased and crooked from her unexpected tumbling with Lydia Bennet.
“Nonetheless.” Darcy waited patiently while Richard escorted a mouse-like Lydia from the room and then closed the door behind them. He gestured towards the bed but Georgiana was in no mood to be directed, and promptly stalked in the opposite direction to an empty chair she sank into. She passed a window as she did so, catching sight of her reflection and wincing. She reached a hand up and carefully unpinned her few remaining curls, allowing her hair to fall loose to her shoulders as if she had always intended it to be worn like this.
Her brother shifted his weight from foot to foot before at last perching on the edge of her bed and surveying her with concern.
“Georgiana...”
“William.” She met his gaze with a steely stare of her own but found she could only hold their shared silence for a moment. “I do not see why I am being held to account when Lydia is just as responsible for our fight as I am. More so! She pulled my hair!”
“And you hit her for it,” Darcy reminded her. “I saw the mark on her face and do not imagine she did that to herself.”
Georgiana opened her mouth to suggest that that was precisely what had happened, her mind hurriedly piecing together a story where Lydia planned to frame poor, defenceless Georgiana for the most grievous of crimes but her brother seemed to sense this was coming and held up a hand to stop it.
“Georgiana. I will no more believe Lydia caused her own injuries than I will believe Lizzy pushed you from your horse.”
Georgiana’s mouth fell open but she recovered herself quickly.
“I never said she pushed me -”
“She certainly did not orchestrate for any accident to befall you.” Darcy’s voice was firm and he let out a low sigh. “Just as she did not mean to poison me with a meal you advised her to choose.”
Georgiana felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment and hoped her brother would put the colour down to exertion.
“She has been telling tales -”
“She certainly has not. Poor Cook asked to see me, quite desolated to think that her mistake might have caused me real harm. It was upon consulting the servants I came to hear that Lizzy had consulted you and you - my sister! - had advised a very concoction of meals designed to visit sickness upon me.” He smiled, sadly. “Do you despise me so much?”
“No.” Georgiana straightened a seam on her dress, not trusting herself to look at her brother. “Yes. Maybe.” She lifted her head but kept her gaze averted. “I wished you to know just one hour of the suffering you have caused me.”
Darcy looked taken aback, but this time Georgiana welcomed his silence. It is about time he held his peace long enough to listen to me!
“You have shut me away here with nothing and nobody for months on end. You forced George to abandon me and then charged our servants to be my prison guards. They would not even let me write to him, and then when I did manage to get word, that snake of a Lydia -”
“Lydia knew of your association?” This was enough to make Darcy rise from his seat and cross the room to his sister. “What do you know of Lydia and Wickham’s friendship? Speak, Georgiana. What has your role been in this?”
“My role?” Georgiana laughed, bitterly. “I have been forsaken entirely! Lydia offered to write to George on my behalf and yet all along she has been seeking to supplant me in his affections. From what I overheard between you and Richard it sounds as if she has been successful. Well, I wish them every happiness. It seems everyone else in England is permitted to be happy and in love except for me!”
“George Wickham was not in love with you,” Darcy said, quietly. “No more is he in love with Lydia. He cares only for chaos and for profit.” He frowned, consulting his pocket watch as if to declare the matter ended. “No doubt he has some scheme afoot that will bring about both.” Closing the lid of his watch with a click he looked down at his sister, smoothing her loose curls back from her face. She flinched away from him and he dropped his hand to his side with a low sigh. “What has become of us, Georgie? We were friends once, weren’t we? Can’t we be that again?”
Georgiana looked up at him, reading true disappointment in his pained smile and for a moment she felt herself relent. How easy it would be to confess her heartbreak, to repent of her actions against Lydia, against Elizabeth, against her brother himself and ask for forgiveness. We might begin again. I might - Her heart hardened.
“Oughtn’t you to see to your guests? I have no doubt Lydia Bennet is telling all sorts of horror stories about me and how wicked I am. Or perhaps you no longer care what your friends think of me.”
“Our friends,” Darcy said, quietly. He looked at her a moment longer before shaking his head and walking slowly to the door. Opening it, he paused and turned back to his sister. “They are our friends, Georgiana, or they would be if only you would let them.”
***
RICHARD STEERED LYDIA into a quiet room along the corridor so that she might have a moment to herself before joining her sisters in the parlour. He hesitated, wondering if he ought to go and fetch one of them to be a chaperone and comfort but Lydia, sensing he was poised to leave, grabbed him by the elbow.
“Do not leave!” she commanded. “Let us wait just a moment before we go on.”
Richard nodded obediently and watched as she made her way to a wall-mounted mirror, standing on her tiptoes to squint at her reflection. She winced, probing the sharp red mark on her face and Richard pulled out a clean handkerchief, dipping a corner of it into the water of a flower vase and folding it carefully before passing it to Lydia.
“Here.”
She frowned at him.
“Hold it against the mark. It will help to ease the stinging. You are lucky it was only a slap. I have suffered far worse in brawls before now.”
Lydia did as he suggested, rocking back on her heels so she was no longer looking at the mirror.
“This was not a brawl! It was a...disagreement.”
“Indeed!” Richard leaned against the open doorframe. “And what were you disagreeing about?”
Lydia bit her lip.
“I can’t tell you.”
Richard’s eyebrows raised and he rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Can’t tell me or do not wish to?”
Lydia turned to look at him, wincing at the pain the sudden movement caused. She removed the handkerchief and handed it back to him with a sheepish smile.
“I oughtn’t to.”
Richard nodded slowly.
“And as I have seen, you always do precisely what propriety dictates.”
Lydia swallowed a groan.
“You are infuriating!”
“Thank you. It is one of my many admirable qualities. Well, Madame Propriety, are you fit to see your family again or would you like to hide out in here a little while longer?”
“Yes.” Lydia straightened a few of her curls, pushing hairpins more securely into place where her scuffle with Georgiana had loosened them. She made no move to leave the room, so Richard stepped inside, leaving the door cautiously open, and selecting one of two ancient wicker chairs to perch on. Lydia had not been watching him but she seemed to sense his movement for she mirrored it, sitting opposite him and letting out a long, low sigh.
“Georgiana does not like me.”
Richard opened his mouth for a denial but one look from Lydia silenced him.
“Even before today. Ever since I got here. She is no admirer of mine and certainly not of Elizabeth’s.” She smiled bitterly. “At first that made us uneasy allies. I was almost as eager to see my sister miserable as she was. Almost.”
Richard allowed this confession to land before responding with a gentle shrug.
“Sisters argue and do not always wish one another well.” He smiled. “At least, I am told as much, possessing no sisters of my own.”
“You are welcome to have one of mine,” Lydia said, with a sardonic smile. “But I digress. Anyway, I was ill-tempered with Lizzy for bringing me all the way here and for - as I saw it - separating me from someone who had been a friend. When I discovered that he had previously been engaged to Georgiana I thought I would do all I could to reunite them. I am a proponent of true love, even though I have never yet seen it.”
“Wickham told you they were engaged?”
Lydia straightened, evidently surprised by the familiarity and contempt in Richard’s voice.
“They certainly were not in love, whatever Georgiana was led to believe.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I do not know what lies Wickham told you about them, or about himself, or what future he has spun for you, but I can assure you they are a fabrication, in part if not in full.” His heart beat rapidly in his chest but he spoke in a low, urgent tone, thinking that the worst might be got over if learned about quickly. Better to tell the truth now than to be gentle and open to the possibility of misunderstanding. “Wickham is a devil.”
Lydia’s eyebrows rose and to Richard’s surprise she let out a merry, musical laugh.
“Do not hold back, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Speak plainly, so that I may understand you.”
This was enough to make Richard smile, despite the gravity of their conversation.
“I sound too harsh to you, I suppose, my opinions too cruel of a man who has only ever appeared handsome and charming and amiable to you. That is Wickham’s blessing as much as it is a curse to the rest of us. He can be charming but he is the worst of men. And I dare not see another young lady that I care for ruin herself for him.”
His words tumbled out almost without him meaning to and he bit back anything more, conscious that he had already betrayed himself. He stood, marching towards the door.
“We ought not to linger here any longer. Come, Miss Lydia, let’s return to the parlour and see if your family have left any refreshments for the rest of us. The fire is warm and everyone is in a good mood, despite our walk being cut short.” He stood to attention, framed by the doorway, and offered Lydia his arm. She was slow in rising, tiptoeing towards him with her eyes fixed on his and he was forced to acknowledge that he had not been quick enough to successfully distract her from his thoughtless confession. Another young lady I care for. A lady I care for. You. I care for you.
She smiled and he found himself incapable of doing anything but smiling back, and together they walked slowly down towards the parlour, not speaking, yet saying a hundred different things with every step they took in unison.