“Mr Darcy?” she enquired, her tone carefully neutral as she offered him the cup. “Tea?”
With a curt nod, he accepted the cup, his fingers brushing hers for a fleeting instant. The small, conventional act seemed to recall him to some semblance of his engrained courtesies.
It was Wickham, perhaps emboldened by the unexpected offering of refreshment, who finally broke the strained silence.His gaze swept around the opulent room. A sarcastic smile touched his lips. “Well, well,” he drawled, “I must say it is good to be back at Pemberley. It has changed somewhat. Rather more sombre than I remember it. The Blight, I presume? Or merely a reflection of its current master’s habitually cheerful disposition?”
Darcy said coldly, “The improvements to Pemberley, Wickham, are chiefly in those who are no longer found within it.”
Wickham seemed to find courage in confrontation. “Ah Darcy, always so quick to take offence. Some things, it seems, never change.”
“Odd you should say so,” the colonel said, his voice laced with contempt. “You, for instance, remain a disgrace regardless of the coat you wear.”
Wickham’s eyes flashed. “I started as an enlisted soldier. My commission,Colonel,” he bit out, emphasising the title with disdain, “was granted by His Majesty’s officers who clearly saw fit to entrust me with responsibility. I did not purchase it like your father the earl did for you.”
The air crackled, thick with fresh animosity. Both Darcy, whose jaw was tightly clenched as if he were physically biting back a torrent of unspeakable retorts, and Colonel Fitzwilliam, whose face was now flushed with renewed fury, seemed on the verge of a far uglier, perhaps even physical, confrontation. Elizabeth held her breath, bracing for the inevitable explosion.
It was Georgiana, her own face ashen, who averted it. She laid a trembling hand on Wickham’s arm, her touch surprisingly insistent despite her evident fear. “George, please,” she said, her voice fragile, yet carrying an undeniable weight of desperation, “Not now. We came for help. Not to not to provoke them further. Not to dredge up every old wound.”
Wickham looked down at her, and his expression softened with something akin to concern. He managed a wry, if somewhat strained, attempt at a laugh. “Forgive me, my dear. And you — Darcy — Colonel. Old habits they die remarkably hard, it seems, especially here.”
“After we left Scotland, Fitzwilliam,” Georgiana began, the use of his Christian name, his childhood name, striking Elizabeth as a poignant reach for a lost intimacy. Elizabeth, newly sensitive to the slightest shifts in Darcy’s composure, saw his almost imperceptible wince before his features settled once more into their terrifying stillness.
Georgiana continued, oblivious or perhaps too consumed by her own narrative to notice, “We travelled north to Newcastle. George enlisted in the regulars. He wished to make a new start. An honourable life. For both of us. He truly did.” Her eyes pleaded with him, begged him to believe her, to see some good in the man she had so disastrously chosen. Darcy gave her nothing.
“We had a small cottage. He enjoyed his duties. His superiors were pleased with him.” Her voice broke on a sob. “But then…then the Blight worsened so much, so fast. It has destroyed everything. Our cottage was lost in the looting and fires. George’s regiment has been torn apart by death and desertion, and the suffering is immense. His commanding officers, they heard the rumours of you, and Mrs Darcy…of the Concordance. They granted him leave to come here to seek your aid, since the Arcane Office has deserted us. Newcastle is…it is a wasteland now. It is a place of utter despair.”
“And so,” Darcy said flatly, his voice lacking any compassion, “you have come to Pemberley’s door. Crawling back to the home you carelessly abandoned, to seek shelter from a storm of your creation. To beg for money now that your feckless husband has, predictably, failed to provide for you. Is that the true purpose behind this remarkable family reunion?”
Elizabeth stared at him, appalled. The words were not just harsh; they were deliberate and cruel, each one designed to inflict pain. She saw the impact on Georgiana, who crumpled as if under a physical assault, fresh tears instantly blurring her vision.
“I am not surprised that is what you think of us,” Wickham said, his voice surprisingly subdued, “that we could come here, cap in hand, merely to plead for your charity. But no, we have not come for your shelter or for your money. We have come to beg for your help. Not for ourselves, though God knows, we are in desperate need for Georgie’s health. But for Newcastle. For the innocent people who are suffering, who are dying by the day, as their city crumbles into dust around them.”
Darcy scoffed. “You, George Wickham? Begging on behalf of others? The very notion is beyond the bounds of comprehension.”
“Yes, damn you to hell, Darcy! I would beg if you insisted!” Wickham retorted, his polished composure cracking, his voice rising with a sudden, almost uncontrollable passion that seemed to tear at his throat. “Do you think I enjoy this? Do you think I relish this abject humiliation? Do you think I take some perverse pleasure in returning here with Georgiana and humbling myself before you? But I have seen things, Darcy, in Newcastle in the past few weeks, things I would not wish upon my worst enemy, let alone upon innocent women and children whose only crime is to have been born in a blighted land. I have seen children starve, I have seen widows clutch lifeless bodies, I have seen hope die.”
Wickham’s anguished words seemed to momentarily stun Darcy. Elizabeth watched as the scorn on her husband’s features faltered. He looked to be grappling with what he had just heard, against a lifetime of distrust. Was this a new, exquisitely crafted deception?
Wickham’s voice dropped, heavy with a grim finality. “Newcastle is lost unless something changes. The Arcane Office sent mages, and accomplished little. The Blight consumed their efforts. Now they’ve left us to rot. My regiment – what remains of it – decamps within the month. Georgiana and I thought…we heard the rumours of what you and Mrs Darcy achieved in the Peaks. That hope is all we have now. There is nowhere else to turn.”
Elizabeth and Darcy shared a glance, an unspoken and deeply unsettling realisation passing between them. If they were to help Newcastle, if they were to consider attempting to combat a Blight as entrenched, as malevolent as described, it would require the Concordance. It would require them to once more merge their volatile magics, to face the terrifying power they had unleashed at Buxton.
The thought sent a cold shiver of apprehension down Elizabeth’s spine. It was not an easy decision; it was a frightening one, fraught with unimaginable peril, both magical and emotional.
Before either of them could speak, Colonel Fitzwilliam, who had been listening to this extraordinary exchange, exclaimed, “Darcy, you cannot be seriously entertaining this pack of lies. You cannot divert your resources to some distant city on the word of this — this — man.” He gestured scornfully. “He brings nothing but ruin and deceit wherever he has trod. To trust any plea from his lips is madness. Georgiana,” and here his voice softened, “my dear girl, you have been misled by him before. You must see that his motives cannot be pure. He is seeking something for his own advantages whatever guise of altruism he might adopt.”
The colonel’s words, sharp with a protective loyalty that was almost painful to witness, hung heavy in the air. Elizabeth looked at Darcy. His face was a mask of stone. There was noeasy choice here. To help Newcastle, at Wickham’s behest, was to validate a man he despised, to potentially divert precious, dwindling resources from Pemberley’s own desperate needs, and to risk another catastrophic magical failure.
Yet, to refuse…to refuse would be to turn his back on a suffering city, a choice that would be anathema to the deeply engrained sense of duty that defined Darcy. He was not, she knew now, the sort of man who could easily turn away from a plea for help, however unwelcome the petitioner. He was utterly, miserably torn.
Elizabeth knew what she must do.
“Captain Wickham,” she said, with a quiet authority that seemed to take him, and indeed, everyone in the room, by surprise. “You have done your duty. You have brought word of Newcastle’s plight, and you have made your plea. And for that, at least, you have our attention.” She chose her words carefully. “But your presence here, as you must be aware, is a source of considerable difficulty.”
Wickham stared at her, his earlier bravado, his desperate sincerity, now replaced by a look of apprehension. “Mrs Darcy?” he faltered.
“Therefore,” Elizabeth continued, her voice gaining a fraction more firmness, “I believe it would be best if you were to depart Pemberley and return to your regiment in Newcastle. As you have delivered your message, your responsibility in this immediate matter is discharged.”
A shocked silence filled the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam looked from Elizabeth to Darcy, his own anger momentarily forgotten in his astonishment. Georgiana gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Even Darcy seemed taken aback by the cool, almost ruthless, pragmatism of her pronouncement.
