Her churn of topics was boggling this early in the morning. “I have hardly spoken with his lordship.”
“He knows there is another great wyfe. He suspects it is you or Mary. When he knows the truth, he will ask you.”
I imagined Lord Wellington accusing me of being a great wyfe. “Ask me what?”
“If you will wield the dagger. He hopes to find it, then have a wyfe command Fènnù to destroy the French army. He asked me yesterday, before he left.” She had settled at the keyboard again—she seemed unable to stay away—and she banged a showy minor chord, the sort overused in amateur theater. “His frown was most grave. He warned that the dagger might kill me.”
I looked at this slim beauty, who two years younger I would have called a girl. Her eyes were thoughtful but not frightened. “How could you answer such a question?”
“I said I did not yet know.” Georgiana rolled her eyes comically. “Fitz and Lizzy and Mary… they are always certain what is right. They would answer ‘no’ and cite a thousand reasons. But do their reasons mean I must let darkness consume the people I love?”
I remembered gazing into Fènnù’s eyes outside the museum. “I do not think Fènnù should be commanded by anyone. Her mind is ill. It is unfair.”
Georgiana played a heroic chord. “I likeyourreason.” She tucked a black lock of hair behind her ear. “Will you and Fitz meet this morning?”
Yet another topic. “Mr. Darcy wishes to assist me with ‘methods’ that helped his mother. Your mother, I mean.”
Georgiana grinned affectionately. “He asked my opinion before he spoke to you. He was nervous about discussing Mamma.” Not for the first time, I wondered what family history had unsettled him, and she added, “When you stand like that, with your feelings hidden, you are so like her. Not how youlook—your hair is gold, while there seems a rule that Darcys have dark hair. But your feelings are pent up in the lines of your body, like a dancer before the music begins and they are free to leap and swirl. Mamma tried to hide her feelings, too. But feelings always break free.”
Georgiana’s fingers had wandered into the composition she played before. The one written for her. The intensity and novelty of the harmonies summoned that long-ago night on a frozen ship when Mr. Knightley described a gifted composer. “That is Mary Bennet’s music!”
Georgiana nodded, pleased. “I knew you would realize. She wrote this about her and me. You are the first person for whom I have played it, so you are the first person to know that I love her.” Her shoulders lifted in a musing shrug. “Well, perhaps not. I think Fitz has guessed. Still, it is different to say it.” She played a shimmering chord. “I do not think love is proven until you tell someone. So, now I have.”
“Oh,” I said, inadequately, wondering what she had just shared. I had scoffed when Mr. Knightley claimed Mary was jealous of my friendship with Georgiana, but since then I had witnessed their charming intimacies. Had they been a man and a woman, I would have long since declared them wildly infatuated.
Still, it was not unusual for two ladies to set up a household of convenience, and some couples were rumored to be more. The Ladies of Llangollen were a famous pair, but they had money, which made all the difference. Money freed a woman’s life in a hundred ways; freedom of love was one. But even for a wealthy Darcy, a non-traditional romance was dangerous. The Society for the Suppression of Vice pursued what they called “husband-wives,” and the results were violent.
Georgiana’s fingers explored melodies. She was five years my junior, but she seemed vastly more confident of love than me.
“You are right,” I said, “Telling someone is a test. A proof.” I watched her wrists sweep graceful arpeggios the length of the keyboard. “I shall keep it in confidence. But Mr. Knightley has guessed.”
Georgiana smiled. “He would. He knows Mary so well.”
“I have never been in love,” I said softly. I must not be. It would be too cruel.
Georgiana’s music halted. When the overtones faded, she spoke, her head lowered as if addressing the keys. “Mr. Knightley is a good friend, and a great romantic. You make me fear he will be hurt.”
I had said that I was not in love.
There was only one circumstance where an absence of love caused hurt. But Mr. Knightley could not be in love with me. HeknewI would not marry. Was this a caution? A rebuke? Had I encouraged him?
Mr. Knightley had seemed safe. A gentleman without a living could not marry. Then again, he could marry for money. But no man would knowingly forgo the prestige of binding.
Encounters played in my mind, teeming with repressed feelings and resentment, or painful explanations and regret. But even that part of love—heartbreak—was lost to me. Mr. Knightley was leaving.
37
THE CELLAR
LIZZY
I had never seena London intersection deserted in mid-morning. Even the cries of the fleeing Londoners were distant.
Mary dropped stiffly from the saddle ladder to the cobblestones beside me. She worked her neck with a grunt and squinted at the intersection signs. “I thought we would land at Chathford House.”
“Then everyone would see Yuánchi arrive at a Darcy residence. This is nearer our goal.” My own legs were complaining, but I could hardly stretch on a public street. “The faster we are there, the more advantage of surprise.”
On our fifth pass over the city, crossing a disreputable slum of warehouses and tanners, I felt the oily dark corruption of a dosed wyfe. We had landed a quarter mile away.
