Elizabeth broke in. “Is this the reason you invited me here to tea? If you thought that I was being kept in my chambers?”
“Well, I knew you had the run of the house again,” said my aunt.
“Which of my servants are reporting to you exactly?” I said. “Never mind it. I shall root this out myself.”
My aunt glared at us both. “I thought that you had done something to convince my nephew to behave the way he is behaving. I could not say, but I know that things have become impossible since your arrival here, Mrs. Darcy.”
I glared back. “So you were going to do what, exactly? Scold her? My wife?”
“Someone needs to take a firm hand with that girl,” said Lady Matlock to me. “You may or may not understand how important it is to maintain the reputation of this family, seeing as you are a Darcy, but we are associated with you, and we are housing your sister—” and here she gestured to Georgiana who had been sitting silently all along— “and if I must solve this problem myself, I shall do it.”
“I’ll thank you, Lady Matlock, to leave my marriage to my wife and myself,” I said coldly. “You may not approve of my choice of wife, but it was not your choice to make. Any insult made to Mrs. Darcy is an insult made to me, however, and I shall not tolerate it.”
“Your wife is begging for insults, however. She cannot walk down a hallway without doing something to offend!”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” I said. “My wife is the most beautifully breathtaking woman in the whole of the country. She is intelligent and witty and quite funny. She is brave and steadfast, even in the face of adversity. You wish to stifle her, but when people speak to her, they see what I see in her, they seethe bright spark of her spirit, and I would not have someone like you attempt to extinguish that!” I got to my feet. “We’re leaving this travesty of a tea, Mrs. Darcy.”
Elizabeth stood up, too. “Well, husband, your word is law.” But she was smiling.
I smiled, too. I glanced at Georgiana. “If you change your mind and would like to stay with me, Georgiana, know that we would welcome you.”
“Yes, we would,” said Elizabeth to my sister. “We have had very little chance to get to know each other, I must say, but I should like to know you. We are sisters now, after all.”
Georgiana nodded at Elizabeth. “True, I suppose we are, and—”
“Miss Darcy,” cut in my aunt.
Georgiana fell silent.
I would have a letter from my sister by the end of the week, indicating that she had decided to come and stay with me for the time being, so long as I could promise I would not pack her up and ship her back to the country.
But just then, it was only Elizabeth and me going back to the carriage, and we sat inside together on the same bench on the way home, and she lay her head on my shoulder and said that no one had ever defended her like that, that no one had ever spoken up for her.
“I was always and forever being scolded, of course,” she said. “Not like my sister Jane, who was so good and so sweet and so, well, perfect. Jane always was kind to me, but she would never speak up in my defense. And my father loves me very well, but he is not the sort to take anything seriously enough to be concerned for me. And anyway, I cannot complain about that, I must say.”
I kissed the top of her head. “I shall not stand for anyone saying a word against you again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next morning, at breakfast, I was struck by something, and so I said it to her. “Have I apologized?”
She was sorting the invitations from the previous morning into various piles, ones we might consider accepting, ones we were definitely going to politely decline, and ones she had not determined about, and she looked up at me. “For taking the last of the chocolate?”
“Oh, dear,” I said, turning round to locate the chocolate pot. “Have I taken the last of it?”
“You have, but not to worry, Mr. Neil went off to fetch some more.” She went back to the invitations.
“Not for the chocolate, for everything.”
“Ah,” she said. “I think so, but I already told you that I am not going to forgive you, so I think that may all be a waste on your part.”
“I see,” I said. “You know, I seem to remember your saying that you did not forgive me, not that you were never going to forgive me. Is there not some hope that perhaps I could earn your forgiveness in the future?”
“No, I do not think so,” she said. “You locked me in my chambers—”
“Now, you weren’t locked in, I simply had a servant on the door to prevent your leaving.”
She glared at me.
