“This is a rather unusual bookmark for a gentleman, Fitzwilliam.” A knowing smile played about her face. “Unless it is also a keepsake, a treasured token from a special lady.” She advanced upon him and took his hand. Upturning it gently, she laid the knot in his palm. “You gaze off into the air or study a room or look out upon the gardens, covered as they are with snow, and it is as if I am not there. Or rather, as if someone else were. The most interesting expressions cross your face then: sometimes wistful, sometimes stern, and sometimes your eyes speak of such loneliness that I cannot bear to behold it.”
He looked down at the bright threads coiled in his palm; then, hardening his heart, he closed his fingers upon them. “Perhaps you are correct, Georgiana, but you should join with me and pray it is not so, for the lady and her family are so decidedly beneath our own that an alliance is unthinkable. It would be an abasement of the Darcy name, whose honor I am forsworn to uphold in all respects, to make her my wife and the mother of the heir of Pemberley.” His voice choked at the image his own words conjured.
“Oh, Fitzwilliam, it cannot be thus!” Georgiana cried, clutching his arm. “Miss Bennet cannot be so lowborn that both your happinesses must be denied.”
“Not both.” Darcy laughed mirthlessly. “The lady does not look on me with much favor, and if she discovers what —” He stopped short. “She has little reason to change her opinion,” he finished. “Do not paint me into a tragic figure, my dear. I would wear the part quite ill.” He bent and kissed Georgiana’s sweet brow.
“But the token, surely that means something,” she exclaimed.
“Stolen, sweetling!” He tucked the knot into his waistcoat pocket. “She forgot it at Netherfield, and I appropriated it,” he confessed. “You see, it is more pathetic than tragic. Or, mayhap, a comedy; I know not which. I must consult Fletcher,” he mused. “He would know.”
Georgiana looked up into his face, her eyes still troubled. “Do you love her?”
“I hardly know,” he said quietly and paused. “I have little experience with that particular breed of emotion.” He drew her down to the divan. “I know what love is in many of its aspects: love of family, love of home, love of honor. But this tie between a man and a woman…” He paused. “I have seen it in its most sublime form in our parents and, occasionally, in other marriages; but it seems the exception. Men and women routinely profess themselves violently in love, only to disavow the same a month later. Was it love? I suspect not! Infatuation, an incitement to passion by a pretty face or a fashionable address, more like.”
“Then,” Georgiana drew the word out, “do you put down Miss Elizabeth merely as a pretty face who has incited —”
“Here now, my girl.” Darcy shifted uncomfortably, flushing at the import of what his very young sister was about to suggest. “I do no such thing, and anything more on the subject would be most indelicate!” He glanced at her and, noting her dissatisfaction with his forestalling of an answer to her question, continued, “At least, I do not think of her in that way ‘merely,’ as you put it.” He returned her triumphant smile. “I admire her wit, her grace, and her compassion as well. I like the manner in which she looks me in the eye and tells me exactly what she is thinking or wishes me to believe that she is thinking. It is difficult to distinguish the two at times.”
“And you miss her; that much I already knew. Yet, you are not ready to call it love?” Georgiana prodded him.
“I dare not and will not,” he replied firmly. “To what purpose?” he answered her small cry of dissent. “I have explained to you all the reasons why, for both Elizabeth and me, such a declaration would be profitless!”
“But would you,” Georgiana persisted, “before God, be well content to cleave only to her?”
Darcy’s eyes widened at her forthright question, but soon the sight of her earnest face was replaced by images of his own weaving, images that he’d tried to put aside but could not.
If her beautiful eyes were to look at him, in truth, in the way he’d imagined…He almost allowed himself to drift with the thought but was brought back to reality when the image before him changed to a very different one.
“Bingley!” he groaned, startling his sister.
“Mr. Bingley?” repeated Georgiana, recalling him to his surroundings. “Does Mr. Bingley love Elizabeth too?”
“No, he does not,” Darcy returned adamantly. “But he does play a material part in this puzzle, which I am not free to divulge.” Anticipating her, he continued, “And no, Elizabeth does not fancy herself in love with him. With
“Fitzwilliam, would you object if I made this a matter of prayer?” Georgiana’s compassionate care for him touched him deeply, and although he could not understand this new turn in her life, he was not immune from the love with which it was expressed.
“No, dearest, no objection at all.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “Mortal men are notoriously ill equipped for managing affairs centered in the heart.” He straightened then and tucked the violin once more beneath his chin before adding, “But I would be remiss if I did not remind you that we do not live in the age of miracles, and it would take no less to sort out this tangle.”
“Richard, by Heaven, it is good to see you!” Darcy grasped his cousin’s hand and pulled him forward into Pemberley’s hall and out of the snow-laden air. “The journey, was it terrible? How is my aunt?”
“Well enough, Fitzwilliam, to answer for herself,” came the reply from behind the Colonel’s voluminous greatcoat. “Yes, it was terrible; journeys this time of year usually are.” Lady Matlock’s austere countenance finally appeared from behind her son’s shoulder. “But that does not mean we are sorry to have come. Christmas at Pemberley is worth whatever trouble the weather can conjure.” Darcy stepped to her, bowed over her hand, and then bestowed a salute upon his aunt’s upturned cheek. “There, my dear,” she returned warmly. “It is wonderful to see you again. Your uncle and I have not seen you this age.” His aunt pulled at the ribbons of her bonnet and gracefully deposited it in the waiting arms of one of the army of servants hurrying to unload the carriages and wagons that had transported the Earl’s family and servants.
“I was in the country, ma’am,” Darcy replied, “visiting the newly acquired estate of a friend.”
“And the hunting was good,” his aunt supplied for him as she pulled off her gloves. “Yes, yes, I have often heard that story.”
“Just so.” Darcy smiled back and turned to greet his uncle. “Welcome, my Lord.”
“Darcy!” The Earl of Matlock and the master of Pemberley exchanged proper bows before his uncle clasped his hand and gave it a firm shake. “Your aunt is correct.” He turned slightly in his wife’s direction. “As you usually are, my dear.” She curtsied in reply to this astonishing admission as His Lordship turned a keen eye back upon his sister’s son. “We have not had the pleasure of seeing you the greater part of this fall. Now, if it is true that good hunting has kept you from us, then as head of the family I shall insist upon the right to know the whereabouts of this paradise.”
“In due time, Pater,” interrupted his younger son. “Brrrr! It is as cold as a witch’s…ah, nose out there! Fitz! Anything inside to warm a fellow’s blood? My brother could use something bracing about now, eh, Alex?”
Lord Alexander Fitzwilliam, Viscount D’Arcy, cast his brother a withering look before making his bow to his cousin. “Pay no attention to him, Darcy. We sent the puppy into the Army, and he still has not learnt to behave as a gentleman.”
“And here I was only looking out for your best interests, Brother!”
“Richard, do not make me the excuse for your bad manners!” D’Arcy glowered back.
“As you can see, Fitzwilliam, your cousins still cannot be in the same carriage for above a half hour without quarreling as they did when they were children.” Lady Matlock turned a severe countenance upon sons who quite towered over her. “But where is Georgiana?”
Darcy offered his arm to his aunt. “She awaits us in the Yellow Salon, ma’am, among the multitude of dishes she deemed appropriate for your welcome.” He looked back over his shoulder to his cousins and uncle adding,
