I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, the cold seeping through my dress and the music from the ball carrying through the open door behind me. My tears cooled on my cheeks, chased by fresh tracks when I considered the potential of never seeing Kitty again. She had turned my life upside down in a matter of weeks, but when she was beside me I’d never felt off-balance from the change in orientation. With her gone, my blood was pooling in my head, leaving me sick and dizzy.
It was a voice that eventually disrupted my downward spiral.
“Georgiana?” I heard my brother calling, but it felt like the words were passing through water before they reached me. He had to be right beside me, though, as I felt his hand rest on my shoulder. “Ruth told me you were hurt. Do you need a doctor? What on earth happened?” When I couldn’t find the words to answer, he got more and more frantic. “Talk to me, Georgiana!”
Telling him truthfully what had left me in such a state was unthinkable. Unless Elizabeth had already told him as she ushered Kitty away, but there was no bite to my brother’swords, no malice behind his concern. His temperament suggested he had no idea what I had been doing.
Feeling years younger than my age, despite the rouge and the dress, I turned my face into Darcy’s shoulder. Like he always had for a skinned knee or a bruised elbow, he stroked my hair and mumbled something reassuring, but too low to hear in its entirety. Usually it was a promise that everything would be okay, but he could not guarantee me that anymore.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
I shook my head, certain I had drained the last of the fear-induced strength left in my bones. Darcy picked me up like I was a wounded child, one arm behind my back and one below my knees. The motion jostled the cut Kitty had wrapped what felt like a lifetime ago, and I had to bite back a cry of pain.
Darcy carried me up to my room, kicking open the doors in his way. Ordinarily, I would protest at being made to feel so juvenile, but I didn’t have it in me. Darcy didn’t speak, either, his teeth gritted. His arms weren’t shaking under my weight, so it didn’t seem like exertion making him tense.
My bedsheets were the first soft thing I’d felt since Kitty’s skin, and I wilted into them, rubbing my cheek against the fabric in search of comfort.
“Sit up,” Darcy said abruptly. When I flinched, he softened his tone. “I’m sorry. Your knee needs attending to. Does it hurt badly?”
We both looked down at the bloodstained bandages visible through the tears in my gown. I was too numb to feel anything, but Darcy blanched, immediately retreating to ringthe bellpull that would summon Emma. Rather than return to my side, he paced the floor.
“What happened?” he asked, concern lacing the words.
“I fell,” I mumbled, sharing the only part of the truth safe to tell.
“No.” Darcy turned sharply on the ball of his foot to start another line. “This did not happen from tripping on a step. Why were you outside alone in the dark? What happened to your hair?”
Kitty happened. Kitty’s fingers combing through my hair, getting caught in my curls. The memory, so recent but already feeling like it was fading, brought with it a fresh wave of tears.
Darcy’s frustration turned to panic, and he flew across the room, hovering awkwardly.
“Please don’t cry,” he implored. “I am not angry with you. I just need to know who did this. I want to fix this, Georgiana. Please let me.”
He wasn’t going to relent without an explanation, but my brain was swimming with too much to fashion one. I thought through the least damaging version of events, clumsily erasing Kitty from the narrative in the desperate hope I could still save her reputation somehow. Before I got further than how I could have possibly wrapped my knee alone, Emma burst through the door.
Probably expecting to help me dress for bed, excited at the prospect of an evening’s gossip, she froze when she saw Darcy. Confusion clouded her eyes, only for them to widen in horror when she processed the state of me.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, bobbing into the slightest notion of a curtsey before hurrying over to me. “What can I do?”
I grabbed Emma’s hand, keen for the comfort of a familiar figure who wasn’t in control of the fate of the rest of my life. The urge to tell her everything had never been stronger.
“It is nothing,” I managed, but I was fooling no one.
Emma clucked her tongue and dragged over a chair so I could prop my leg up. I winced to force it straight, clutching at the bedsheets. She knelt beside me, tucking one side of my skirts up around my thigh.
“Forgive me,” I said, “for ruining the petticoat,” because I knew she’d been the one to make it and now it was beyond mending.
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Emma said. “Tell me if you can’t bear the pain.”
She picked at the knot Kitty had tied in the fabric until she could loosen it, unwinding it one loop at a time. She had to peel away the sections saturated with sticky blood while I fought to keep my face neutral.
Darcy had resumed his pacing, resolutely keeping his eyes averted from either my bare legs, the sight of blood, or both.
“I need a name, Georgiana,” he said, almost an order. “If it was someone at this ball, they are someone Elizabeth and I considered trustworthy. I need to know who betrayed that trust.” He paused, cocking his head to the side. “James Honeyfield. I saw him dance with you. Did he…”
“No!” I insisted.
As much as I preferred not to be in Mr. Honeyfield’s company, he had done nothing to deserve being thrown to the wolves. I didn’t doubt my brother would fight a duel over my honour if he believed a man responsible for its destruction. I had seen him move heaven and earth to protect me before. When he thought my decision to run away and marry Wickham had been simply the actions of a misled child, he had still done everything in his power to ensure I would not be tainted by my poor judgement.
