Did he have no anxiety about how she would be perceived? “You will be quizzed about Georgiana, but it will be nothing to what I could endure.” This alliance had all the advantages, as far as the fashionable world was concerned, on her side. She would be thought mercenary orwith upstart pretensions. “They could say I married you for your money.”
Darcy gave her a long look. “I know you did not set out to trap me, but some will say you did—likely my own family, I warn you. My aunt Lady Catherine wanted me to marry her daughter, and it will not be a pleasant reunion with her.”
“Regardless of her disappointment, I should prepare myself to be judged and found wanting by most of your circle?”
“Not most. Many friends will be happy so long as I appear to be so, regardless of how imprudent our marriage seems.”
“But all of this lives or dies on how well I am received, how I behave, how respectable I seem.” It was a distressing burden, but she saw in Darcy’s eyes he regretted the necessity of it.
“Truly, I do not think it will be difficult. I have complete faith in you.”
Her reputation and success in her husband’s world would in great measure depend on both how she behaved in town and how she was perceived. It filled her with no small amount of anxiety. “I will have every eye on me, Darcy.”
“The weight of public opinion will not entirely be on you. We will both be on display.” She wondered if he believed that or only said it to make her feel better. Perhaps he had no idea how heavily the burden of reputation and public opinion fell on a woman. “The appearance of our equal affections could be enough to sway people’s minds. And when there is nothing scandalous to talk of about us, people’s attention will move on.”
They would both have to pretend to be enthusiastic about the match. Although they were reconciled and not bitter, that was not the same as pretending to have married for love rather than from a failed attempt to save Darcy’s sister. Still, perhaps she could do this. Her stomach twisted at the fear of not being a credit to him, but she could act with good breeding and civility, and be charming to all manner of people. Darcy watched her and she gave him a mostly confident smile.
“I can act with all the dignity I need to for the sake of your good name.”
“Our good name,” he corrected.
He was right, and that he saw it that way was a comfort. “And I suppose we ought to be seen as though we have nothing to be ashamed of. We can perpetuate the myth we fell in love and ran off together.”
“There is one other thing to consider about going to town. It is not impossible that we encounter my sister once Wickham gets them back to England. We ought to be decided how to deal with her.”
“She is your family, and we treat her as such.”
Darcy gave a solemn shake of his head. “If she forsakes him, I will endure the consequences in society for providing for a woman who abandoned her husband. But I do not approve of her gambling, scheming husband, and we cannot acknowledge her, even when she asks us for money.”
“You think Wickham will send her for it?”
He nodded. “And the moment I give in, he will keep her in penury in the hopes that I will give him more that he can spend on every manner of vice and pleasure.”
Although she knew that handing him thirty thousand pounds was a sure way to ruin, was it so awful to pass alongsomemoney to Georgiana? Of course, she had no money of her own to give her, and if Darcy refused, there was little she could do.
“You can write to your family and tell them you will be in town,” he said in a brighter voice, like he wanted to cheer her. “Perhaps your mother and sisters can visit on their way home from Ramsgate?”
She held his gaze for a long moment. That would be the worst thing for their reputations so soon after their shocking marriage. But it was generous of him to offer. “Was that a painful sentence to utter?”
“No,” he said instantly. “But perhaps on that occasion you will permit me a little more time to hide in my library?”
She gave him a smile. “My aunt and uncle live in Cheapside. I think you will like them a great deal. They are travelling now but will return to town next month. My uncle is a gentlemanlike man and my aunt is an elegant woman.” She saw that such an idea surprised him, but he endeavoured to look as though he believed such a thing possible.
Perhaps in time he would actuallybeless proud and haughty and not justwishto be so.
“I will need to see them,” she insisted. “If my afternoon calls and evening parties will be filled with people who judge me before knowing me or find me wanting because I have no fortune, then I will need real friends.”
He took quick steps to her side, saying, “I will let no one treat you with disrespect or anger.”
“It will still be lonely.”
“I will be with you.”
Why was she out of breath? Having a husband she could rely on should not make her breath come in quick pants. “Is that a common obligation that presses on the conscience of a married man? To be a companion and comforter to his wife?”
“Having never been married before, I could not say. It should be. Even if it is not common, it makes sense to me, assuming the wife in question wishes for the same.”
Really, it did not differ from what they spoke of the other day, in choosing to be friends, in not blaming one another for the ordeal. Hearing Darcy say that he would allow no one to disrespect her, that he would keep her company, that he would be a caring father should not cause these flutterings and warm feelings in her chest.
