PROLOGUE
Darcy House
1 Arlington Street, London
December 1811
Dearest Anne,
I am heartily sorry to hear your mother has been called away. I know she has been intimate friends with Mrs Fortescue for an age. How sad that lady should be so unwell! Let us hope she recovers swiftly, and you are not required to remain alone overlong.
I thank you for your kind invitation. Regrettably, we cannot join you at Rosings at the present time. Brother has only recently returned from Hertfordshire, and we are both much occupied with Mr Bingley and his sisters. Besides, no matter how dearly Miss Bingley wishes her brother and I would form an attachment,heclearly wishes to be at Netherfield still. And sincemybrother evidently took such pleasure in the society there, I cannot think it will be long before they both return. I hope to join them if they do. I know, however, you must have many other friends on whom you may call for company, thus I shall not feel too wretched for depriving you of mine.
On the subject of Hertfordshire society, I am afraid you have quite mistaken what I wrote in my last letter in regard to Miss Elizabeth Bennet. I do not believe my brother found her at all vexing. When I relayed to you that they had argued, I phrased it ill. Rather, they debated, and as you know, my brother enjoys that activity far too well. Indeed, I do not believe I have ever heard him speak so favourably of any lady.
You will understand my surprise to hear your rector has expressed such severe censure of her—and she his own cousin! Do you know the nature of his grievance? I understand Miss Bennet is exceptionally quick-witted. Perhaps Mr Collins construed it as impertinence. I assure you, however, it does not seem likely. My brother described her as compassionate, intelligent, and perceptive. I really do not think she can be as objectionable as Mr Collins has implied. Pray, do not continue to think ill of Miss Bennet, for I should be miserable if my careless words gave you a poor impression of an acquaintance my brother holds in such high esteem, and whom I dearly hope you and I shall both one day meet.
I pray Lady Catherine returns home very soon. Do write again to tell me how you get on with your new ponies when they arrive.
Yours &c.
Miss Georgiana Darcy
Anne de Bourgh folded the letter with such energy that she tore the page. She gestured at a footman. “Have my phaeton brought around.” Then, she gestured at her companion. “Come, Mrs Jenkinson. We are to pay a call on Mr Collins at the parsonage.”
Then, she gestured to the heavens. This was not to be borne! Yet, if her cousin would not put an end to it, it fell to her to act.
1
It was a dull, unforgiving day—the sort that eroded one’s spirits. The leaden sky clutched selfishly to all but the most miserly scattering of sunlight, leaving barely enough to differentiate day from night. The remnants of the previous day’s snowfall had been shoved into heaps of blackened slush at each side of Arlington Street. A wintry chill stifled the aromas of the freshly served breakfast, leaving the room smelling no better than the damp newspaper that had been brought up with the post.
Darcy’s head throbbed with the legacy of an evening that ought to have cheered him but had only deepened the objectionable melancholy he could not dispel, and the heavens were doing their damnedest to parody. He sipped his coffee and glowered down upon the street, daring the world to give him a reason to be cheerful. He felt singularly inclined for a battle.
Behind him, his sister opened a letter with an obvious and vain effort to make as little noise as possible. He rued his surly responses to her several attempts at conversation, but he was in no humour for tittle-tattle. Knowing it was neither the triviality of Georgiana’s discourse nor the aching of his head, the temperature of the room nor the colour of the blasted sky that was responsible for his persistent dejection, only inflamed his rancour.
There came a soft exclamation from behind him, one he thought likely he had not been meant to hear. He twisted his head slightly, listening for further signs of distress, but Georgiana was silent. Unaccountably wary, Darcy turned away from the window to regard her. She was all agitation, the fingertips of one hand pressed to her lips and her head shaking as she read.
“What is it?” he enquired brusquely, his last vestiges of civility stolen by the horrible certainty that her answer would somehow pertain to Wickham.
Georgiana winced, glancing at him but briefly before returning her eyes to her letter. “It is Anne.”
“Anne?” he replied, thrown by the unexpected answer. “Annede Bourgh?” When his sister nodded, he pressed, “What of her? Is she unwell?”
Georgiana hesitated, inhaled, and at last raised her eyes to properly meet his gaze. “She has gone to Hertfordshire.”
For a moment, Darcy thought Georgiana had saidHertfordshire, and he reviled not only the preposterous lurch his heart gave at the mention of the word, but the very fact that his mind had contrived to hear it in yet another conversation. He was grown inordinately weary of his every passing thought being trespassed upon by his preoccupation with that place. Anne never left Kent. He had evidently misheard.
“I am sorry, Brother.”
He felt another unpleasant lurch, and now his headache was reasserting its presence with a more determined pounding. “For what?”
“For having caused you yet more trouble. It was unconsciously done. I had no intention of misleading Anne with what I wrote. Indeed, I had not the smallest idea of my words being ever felt in such a way. I simply did not wish to go to Rosings.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. Pray explain to me what has happened.”
The dregs of last night’s overindulgence roiled in Darcy’s stomach when he beheld the turn his sister’s countenance then took. It was precisely the expression she had worn that past summer as she admitted her design to elope with George Wickham—the pitiful mix of a child’s fear of reproof and a young woman’s self-reproach. When she swallowed and held out the letter for him to take, he did so reluctantly, privately railing at the world for taking him so literally in his challenge of a fight.
Georgiana,
