Duty and Desire

Hertfordshire,” he ended firmly but softened at his sister’s paled countenance. “It was nothing very shocking, Georgiana, just poor judgment on his part, I assure you. He is well out of it and a wiser man for it.”

“As you say…but poor Mr. Bingley!” Georgiana’s face clouded, and she looked down into her cup. After a few moments of silence between them, wherein Darcy deemed the subject closed, he put down his own cup and, relieving Georgiana of hers, possessed himself of her hands. They lay soft and compliant in his strong, corded ones, and she did not resist as he brought first one and then the other to his lips in tender salute.

“Do not concern yourself, dearest. He is a man grown and can take his knocks. You know his happy nature. He will recover.”

Georgiana returned him a serious regard. “But what of Miss Elizabeth Bennet? Did she correct her opinion of you? How shall I meet her if Mr. Bingley does not return to Hertfordshire or wish to renew the acquaintance?”

Darcy almost dropped her hands in astonishment. “Is this the meaning of your distress? You wish to meet Miss Elizabeth Bennet! Pray…why, Georgiana?”

His sister gently pulled her hands from his grasp and, with his eyes intent upon her, rose from the divan and walked to the old pianoforte at the window. She ran her fingers along its smooth, polished side before turning back to him and his question.

“I told you in my letter that I cannot bear to think that someone you admire does not return your admiration and, indeed, thinks ill of you. I would know whether she admitted her error.” She looked to him for confirmation but, seeing his face, hurried to add, “Oh, not in words, perhaps, but in her regard? Did you part on amiable terms?”

“As a gentleman, I cannot say whether the terms were regarded amiably on Miss Elizabeth’s part. That would be for her to affirm or deny,” Darcy replied carefully, his curiosity at his sister’s interest in Elizabeth overcoming his determination to put away all thoughts of her.

“Were they amiable on your part, then?” The innocent, hopeful look Georgiana cast him gave him to wish he had tried more faithfully to follow her sisterly advice.

“I followed your advice to the best of my poor ability.” He smiled ruefully as he joined her at the instrument. “I was as amiable as I am able to be on a ballroom floor.”

“You danced with her, then?”

Darcy could have groaned. The more he attempted to conceal, the more his sister seemed to learn. At this rate, she would soon be in possession of the entire story. He looked in wonder at her as she stood there before him, her eyes so alive with interest. Her transformation was astonishing — nay — miraculous, and Darcy meant to know exactly how it had taken place. He would start tomorrow. He made a mental note to interview at first light the woman under whose care Georgiana had overcome so grievous a wound.

He shook his head at her, refusing to answer her question, then smiled down into her upturned face. “My dear girl, if you would have a moment-by-moment account, you must provide me greater sustenance than a dish of tea. Now, what have you ordered for this dinner Mrs. Reynolds spoke of? For I warn you, I am that hungry!”

The dimple that cleft his cheek was swiftly matched by its feminine counterpart as Georgiana returned his loving gaze. Softly, she slipped into his arms once more. “Oh, Fitzwilliam, I am ever so glad you are home!”

His arms tightly woven about her, Darcy looked thankfully to Heaven and then, burying his face into her gathered curls, could only find the strength to whisper in reply, “No more than I, dearest. No more than I.”

Chapter 3 The Uses of Adversity

Sitting back in the chair at his study desk, the corner of his lower lip caught between his teeth, Darcy perused once more the letters of reference he held in his hand. Satisfied that he had committed all the particulars of the first to memory, he laid it aside and proceeded to the second as the baroque clock on the mantel struck a half hour past eight. As regular as that timepiece, the door to the study opened, admitting Mr. Reynolds and a footman bearing a tray laden with Darcy’s morning coffee and toast.

“Reynolds.” Darcy looked up from his reading and motioned the footman to lay the tray upon his desk. “A moment of your time.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Darcy. How can I serve you?” The older man signaled the footman to depart and to close the door behind him.

Darcy laid the remaining letters upon his desk and looked up intently at the most senior member of his Pemberley staff. Reynolds’s knowledge of the inner workings of life at Pemberley was comparable to none, and during and after the elder Mr. Darcy’s illness, his unfailing guidance in all things pertaining to the great house had been as necessary to Darcy as Hinchcliffe’s had been in the financial arena. In short, he was a man who held the Darcy name and family almost as dearly as Darcy did himself, and Darcy trusted him implicitly.

“I find that I must place you in a deuced awkward position, Reynolds, but the matter is of such import that I must ask you to bear with it and assist me.”

“Of course, sir!” Reynolds affirmed his willingness, although his face registered some surprise at his master’s preamble.

Darcy looked away from the kindly face, his embarrassment about the request he was to make acute. “Well, there is no delicate way to put this, so I shall be straightforward with you.” He turned, then, back to him. “What can you tell me of Miss Darcy’s companion, Mrs. Annesley?”

“Mrs. Annesley, sir?” Reynolds’s eyebrows shot up. He slowly rocked forward on his toes and back again before answering. “Well, sir…She be a fine woman, sir, quietlike and dignified.”

“And…?” Darcy prodded, as uncomfortable with insisting upon more answers as Reynolds was in giving them.

“And what, sir?”

“The woman has been in residence for four months,” Darcy observed grittily, annoyed with the man’s obtuseness. “There must be more you can tell me of her!”

Reynolds frowned from under his bushy, white brows as he brought his finger to his stock and pulled at it. He took a few more moments to clear his throat. Then, pulling himself up painfully straight, he addressed Darcy in a tone fraught with disapproval. “I don’t hold with gossip, Mr. Darcy, as you should know. Don’t listen to it and don’t pass it.” He squinted down into his young master’s countenance and, seeing the dissatisfaction etched upon it, added carefully, “All I will say is, she don’t give herself airs, and she’s kind to all the staff, from top to bottom, sir.” He fidgeted a little under Darcy’s silent, searching gaze before bursting out, “Miss Darcy is wonderful fond of her.” He looked for a reprieve from any further expectations and, finding none, seemed to wrestle with himself for a few moments before confessing finally, “And I bless her, Mr. Darcy, bless her morning and night for what she’s done for Miss; and there, sir, is the end of it.”

“That will be all then, Reynolds.” Darcy dismissed him, his lips quirking at what was, for his butler, a spirited defense of the lady. Mrs. Annesley had Reynolds’s approval, and there was much in that. Perhaps he could put more credence in the degree of glow issuing from those references that lay before him concerning the lady. He reached over and poured some of the fresh cream into his cup, then filled it to the brim with the fragrant brew before picking up the two letters again and searching out the third. Bringing his coffee to his lips, he blew on it gently as he committed the facts of the third letter to memory. The contents of the letters were not unknown to him. He had read them just as diligently upon their arrival five months before, when he had been frantic for a new, trustworthy companion for Georgiana. But this time he looked for something more revealing of the lady than impeccable qualifications and unexceptional testimonials from past employers. That “something” still eluded him.

He tossed the letters down again and rose with his cup to contemplate the soothing view from the window. Before his passing, this study had been his father’s private preserve, its carved, wood-paneled walls a place of mystery during Darcy’s childhood and a place of judgment during his adolescence. It was an intimate room and had served as the estate’s book room until three-quarters of a century before, when a new, grandly appointed library had been included in his great-grandfather’s plans for Pemberley’s improvements. Now, although the study continued to house treasured tokens of Darcy patriarchs, it served principally as an archive of Darcy’s personal book