a rapprochement. Her opinion of me and my faults, she made quite clear. No, she does not, nor can she ever, love me, my dear.” His voice dropped.
“Dear Brother!” Georgiana’s pity was sweeter than he had ever suspected pity could be.
“I raged against the crushing of my heart and the advent of a joyless future. I blamed her for deceiving me, fate for toying with me, everyone and everything save myself. As you said, we have been brought up to think well of ourselves, perhaps too well. Since my return from Kent, I have meanly thrashed about in my pain without a thought for those who care for my well-being. Last night, despite good counsel, I plunged into dangerous company for no better reasons than an appeal to my pride and the flattery of my person. It took Lord Brougham’s intervention to bring me to my senses, yet I rewarded his trouble with drunkenness. In my pride and conceit I have behaved abominably, foolishly. I stand shamed.” He swallowed hard. “I am not the man I had thought to become, before the memory of our father. Further, I have given you pain, Georgiana, most selfishly,” he concluded, “and I am heartily sorry for it.” He released her hand and waited, steeling himself for whatever should come.
“Brother,” she gasped, putting fingers to her lips to force back the sob in her voice. “Such pain, Fitzwilliam! I knew your anger, your isolation came from hurt of something, but this! To love so and receive…” Emotion caught her up again, preventing her from continuing.
“My pain…” He reached into his coat pocket and brought out his handkerchief to daub at her cheeks. “My pain is not sufficient excuse for my actions even if I had not brought its cause upon myself.”
“What a sorry pair we make.” She looked up at him as he did her his gentle service. “We have, both of us, been given to see ourselves and have responded like children, unwilling to be taught and resentful of our discipline.”
“But
Gently, her head came to rest upon his shoulder, and her hand was shyly laid over his heart. “I know,” she whispered. “But it is a step away from the angry pain you have been suffering so cruelly and alone. Pray, do not continue so, Fitzwilliam!”
Slipping his arms around her, Darcy held her close and placed a kiss upon her curls. “Shall you be my Portia, pleading my case before the bar?” He laid his cheek upon the place he had kissed.
Georgiana sighed as she burrowed deeper into his shoulder. “Not I alone, dear Brother; but yes, ever your Portia.”
What remained of the day, Darcy spent in his study working at his neglected affairs under the benevolent observation of his hound. Trafalgar had forgiven him also, it seemed, appearing unexpectedly at his usual place by the desk when once Darcy had turned his back to the door. Erewile House still lay hushed, but it was no longer silent as the servants brought it to order for that evening’s dinner and guest. From the other side of his door, footsteps softly clicked down the hall, doors opened and closed on the clink of china and silver, and murmured orders were passed along to underlings, all creating an undertone reminiscent of normalcy.
More than once during the early evening, Darcy’s gaze strayed from his papers to his sister’s portrait, and he wondered again at their extraordinary interview. She knew now all that was needful. His character had been laid quite bare, his devastating misadventure into love revealed, and the result had been not an estrangement but rather a new closeness built upon who rather than what they were to each other. Rising from his desk, he looked more carefully at her image and, after his study, determined that she had seen better than he. Lawrence had gotten her entirely wrong. It was a fine painting, no mistaking that, but Georgiana was correct. Although she had put it in quite different terms, he now saw that it had not captured the essential humanity of the remarkable young woman who was his sister. No, he would not insist on a public unveiling, he decided. Let the family come to view it if they wished and the thing be sent on to Pemberley.
A knock at the door brought his head around, and Trafalgar’s came up as the door opened to reveal Witcher’s smiling mien. “Excuse me, Mr. Darcy; Lord Brougham is here to see you, sir.”
Darcy looked past his butler but saw no sign of his supposed visitor. “Lord Brougham, Witcher? And where might he be?” A sound of footsteps signaled the approach of his erstwhile dinner guest, who appeared a trifle breathless at his study door. “Ah, yes. You are correct; it is Brougham. A bit early for dinner, are you not? Or is it late for tea?”
“You were to give me a few moments, Witcher!” Brougham cast the servant a look of exasperation. “It was meant figuratively, man! Never expected you would be precise to a pin!” He turned back to Darcy as the unrepentant butler bowed and closed the door. “The man is inestimable, Fitz, but remarkably obtuse at the most significant moments.”
“Meaning that you have yet to discover a way around him.” Darcy’s laugh was tempered by an acute unease at the arrival of his friend. After a day’s reflection on his foolish actions and sodden confessions, how might Dy regard him now? “Inestimable, indeed! But you are rather early. We did not expect you for another hour.”
“I could wait no longer to satisfy myself as to the condition of your head, old man! Or the rest of you, for that matter. I have no doubt that it has been quite some time since last you had that much to drink.”
Declining to answer, Darcy instead offered him a tight smile and sketched a bow. “Here you see me! Judge for yourself.”
Taking his invitation with irksome literalness, Brougham circled him round in precise imitation of the examination Brummell had given him the night of Lady Melbourne’s soiree. “Rather the worse for wear, my friend,” he concluded, shaking his head. “Dare I ask how you feel?”
“Not as bad as I might thanks to Fletcher’s vile potion, but bad enough to entertain the thought of going Methodist.”
Brougham looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Only that I believe I shall abstain from drink for a time.” He returned his friend’s regard cautiously. “What should you think I meant by it?”
In his typical fashion, Brougham ignored the question in favor of another of his own. “You have explained last night to Miss Darcy?” he asked, strolling over to the bookshelf.
“Yes, yes, I did.” Darcy watched as Dy’s fingers lazily caressed the ranked, leather-clad volumes.
“In detail?” Brougham asked as he perused the titles.
“No, of course not!” he replied. “Georgiana knows only that I fell in with some questionable company and you helped me to see how impolitic it was to remain.” He paused before adding, “I told her about Hertfordshire and then…and then about Kent.”
“Ah.” Brougham pulled out one of the company upon the shelf and gingerly opened it. “She knows about the lady, then, and the rest.” His gaze traveled steadily to and fro across the pages, nor did he lift it to ask, “How did she respond?”
“She forgave me,” Darcy replied simply.
“Well, she would have to now, would she not?” Dy looked up at him briefly and then fell to a study of the book once more. “Religious as she is.”
Darcy stiffened at his tone. What did he mean to imply? “I believe she truly forgave me,” he replied in hauteur, “and from her heart.”
“I see.” Dy looked over at him, his eyebrow crooked in that infuriating way Darcy had known since university, indicating that he saw no such thing, or that the speaker’s words were a pile of rubbish. “Very comforting, that — choosing your truth. Makes life quite tolerable when lived on such terms, does it not? Well, at least for a bit.” He shrugged. “Until one brushes up against another’s truth whose fur does not lie in the same direction.”
“A fine one you are to be lecturing on the nature of truth,” Darcy retorted, stung by his friend’s carelessly leveled skepticism.
“I did read philosophy, old man!” Brougham protested mildly as he turned another page.
“As did I.” Frustration gave way to anger. “But that is not my meaning, and well you know it! This charade of yours, this concealing of a first-rate mind behind the mask of a cork-brained rattle with more hair than wit, has grown exceedingly tiresome! What is the truth there, my fine friend?” Dy looked up from the page at his sharp tone, but his appreciative grin for his friend’s verbal thrust only angered Darcy further. “And last night at Monmouth’s! Posing as a servant, for God’s sake! Closing for innkeepers! And my door.” He suddenly remembered. “The lock! I may have been drunk, but I remember the lock!”
“I had hoped you would have forgotten that.” Brougham shook his head. “Pity you did not!” He set the book
