CHAPTER NINETEEN
As they approached the great front doors of Pemberley, a footman swung the doors inward to reveal Brooks waiting in the hall, his usually composed expression etched with anxiety. His gaze flickered from his master to Elizabeth, then darted nervously towards the interior of the hall, as if anticipating an imminent explosion. There was a distinct air of guilty apprehension about him that did not escape Darcy’s notice.
Darcy paused on the threshold, his gaze pinning Brooks to the spot even as he handed over his hat and gloves to the waiting footman. “Brooks,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet, each syllable imbued with his displeasure, “You have admitted visitors, I understand.” It was not a question.
“Mr Darcy — yes, sir, I did,” Brooks stammered, his gaze dropping to the polished marble floor. His hands were trembling slightly. “The visitors arrived some short while ago. The lady, sir, she appeared most unwell.”
Elizabeth saw the expression of genuine worry written on his features; it was more than just a servant’s concern for an ailing stranger. Yes, she realised, he had clearly recognised Georgiana.
“Indeed,” Darcy replied coolly. “And their names, Brooks? The names you omitted to provide to Mrs Darcy?”
Brooks swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin throat. “Sir, I…they were…Master George, sir, and Miss Georgiana.”
Her heart went out to him. She looked at the old butler, his face drawn with distress, and imagined for a fleeting, terrible moment, Mr Hill, their own aging servant at Longbourn, who had known her since infancy, being forced to turn her away from her childhood home in an hour of desperate need.
She reached out, her fingers resting lightly on Darcy’s sleeve, an imploring plea for clemency. Beneath her touch, the rigid line of his arm softened just a fraction before he spoke.
“We will discuss this later, at length,” Darcy said ominously. “For now, direct me to where you have seen fit to install these unexpected guests.”
Visibly chastened, and with a look of relief that this immediate confrontation was, for the moment, deferred, Brooks bowed. “They are in the main sitting room, sir. Colonel Fitzwilliam is with them.” He then stepped aside, his movement stiff with engrained decorum, as Darcy, with Elizabeth at his side, swept past him.
As Darcy and Elizabeth entered the main sitting room, the scene that greeted them was one of hostility. Colonel Fitzwilliam, his arms crossed, stood like a sentinel near the door, glowering at the unwelcome occupants of the settee.
Elizabeth had to grant him a measure of credit; Wickham, it appeared, still possessed all his limbs, this success attributed,likely, to the colonel’s considerable restraint rather than any lack of murderous inclination.
Georgiana, looking even more fragile and ill than before, leaned heavily against Wickham, her eyes red-rimmed as if she had been weeping recently and for a very long time.
Now that the shock of his arrival had passed, Elizabeth had the opportunity to observe Wickham more carefully. He was an undeniably handsome man, even in his current state of travel-stained, road-weary disarray. His dark hair fell with a certain artful carelessness. His military coat, though creased, dusty, and not of the most fashionable cut, fit his frame well. And despite the circumstances, there was an insolent swagger to his posture, a lingering, unrepentant trace of the charming scoundrel.
With Darcy’s entrance, the room grew instantly colder. He strode to the mantelpiece, his presence drawing the heat from the air. The fire itself reacted, the flames dipping and sputtering as if in direct, cowed response to his glacial presence.
Darcy’s gaze fixed with intensity on his old adversary. The colonel continued to glower. Georgiana looked like she might faint from sheer terror as her hand clutched Wickham’s. And Wickham, for all his outward show of protective concern for Georgiana, seemed to shrink under the weight of Darcy’s silent ire.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, broken only by the weak hiss and crackle of the fire. Elizabeth, feeling the tension as a physical pressure, knew something must be done to break this dreadful impasse. Drawing on a composure she hadn’t known she possessed, she calmly pulled the bell for a servant.
When a young, nervous-looking maid appeared, Elizabeth requested, “Tea, if you please, Mary. And some refreshments, fruit and pastries. Our guests have clearly had a long journey.”
Darcy shot Elizabeth a look of incredulous disbelief, his eyebrows arching at her extending of hospitality to such clearlyunwelcome guests. But he said nothing, his lips thinning into a line.
She met his silent censure with an internal shrug. Tea was the only manoeuvre that did not involve shouting, tears, or an ill-advised magical conflagration in their sitting room.
More silence descended as they awaited the tea, the tension in the room ratcheting ever tighter.
When Mary returned with the refreshments, Elizabeth took charge, her hands surprisingly steady as she poured the fragrant tea into the delicate porcelain cups.
“How do you take your tea, Mrs Wickham?”
“Just a little milk, thank you,” Georgiana whispered.
“Of course,” Elizabeth said, her voice gentle, kind, deliberately ignoring Darcy’s continued silence as she handed her the prepared cup.
Georgiana looked up at her. “Th-thank you, Mrs Darcy. You are very kind.”
Elizabeth then prepared a cup for Wickham. “And yourself, Captain Wickham?”
“With two lumps of sugar and a splash of milk,” he said, with a trace of arrogance in his tone, though his gaze still darted nervously towards Darcy.
Finally, Elizabeth turned her attention to the last two cups. Without needing to ask, she added a precise measure of milk and no sugar. She then carried them across the room, offering one first to Colonel Fitzwilliam, then to Darcy.
