Trying to ignore the feeling of doom in the pit of my stomach, I curled closer around Kitty and closed my eyes. Her hair was soft against my cheek and her body warm through her chemise. It was enough to help me forget Wickham’s threats and Darcy’s silence.
When I awoke the next morning to find I hadn’t been wrenched away from Kitty’s side, I let myself believe it was all going to end happily. Perhaps if Darcy could not accept what I had said, he could at least forget it. Life could go on as normal, with everyone pretending nothing had changed.
Neither Darcy nor Elizabeth made an appearance at breakfast. I couldn’t stomach much. I just about managed to nibble at a crust of bread liberally layered with jam. Kitty ate enough for both of us, either unconcerned by the way our future hung in the balance, or turning to toast and slices of cold ham to comfort her fears.
Once she’d relented in her attempt to eat her parents out of house and home, she disappeared in search of Lydia. Kitty wanted to find out what she knew, to press her for information on why Wickham was in Meryton and how long he planned to stay. She never expressly said it, but I was almost certain she also wanted to know what, if anything, Wickham had told Lydia of the night before.
Preferring to stay far out of the way of any members of the Wickham family, I retired to the study. Not ten minutes after I’d settled down with a book, the door was pushed open to reveal Mary. She sat herself down opposite me, sliding the chessboard into the centre of the desk without needing to ask.
“Did you enjoy last night?” she asked, lining up her pawns.
I thought I could hear a tone of teasing in her voice. Perhaps she imagined it had been an evening of dancing with Kitty, secret brushes of fingers and stolen moments. I would have loved it to have been nothing but that, but I didn’t much feel like admitting to the dismal truth, either.
“Yes,” I said, focusing on how it had been before Wickham’s unwelcome entrance.
I doubted I was all that convincing, but Mary seemedhappy to believe the lie, or at least keen to swap chatter for chess. We were halfway through a game when a knock came at the door. Mary called out for the person to enter, likely assuming that it was Kitty again. Instead, Darcy walked inside.
His hands were behind his back, his posture oddly formal for a familial setting. Mary took one look at his demeanour and slipped out the door before being asked.
“I’ve made some enquiries,” Darcy said, not taking the vacated seat. “Wickham is staying at an inn in town. While I cannot reasonably request him to take his leave without formally declaring a duel with set terms, I can move you somewhere safer.”
“To Pemberley?” I guessed.
I didn’t hate the idea of going home. Kitty might prefer to stay in Longbourn until things settled with her father’s condition, but I knew her feelings now. I could write to her, and she to me, and she could travel north again as soon as she was able. It sounded ideal, especially if it meant I could avoid Wickham.
“No,” Darcy said, stopping my thoughts in their tracks. “Elizabeth will be remaining here, and I with her. Given… recent circumstances, it does not seem prudent to send you anywhere without a guardian.”
It was unclear ifrecent circumstancesmeant my injury in the gardens and my encounter with Wickham, or my admission of my past with Helena and my closeness with Kitty. I clenched my teeth, now much less certain I was going to like this plan.
“I am sending you to Rosings, to stay with our aunt. She has been requesting your presence there for some time, and it seems like the most fitting place for you until I return to Pemberley,” Darcy declared. “George Wickham will not know where to find you, and would not be allowed on the property even if he did. It is where you will be safest.”
He did not leave much room for argument, but I refused to let that dissuade me.
“No,” I protested. “I will be fine at Pemberley. Ruth will be there, and Emma. You trust the staff there, do you not?”
“This is not up for debate, Georgiana. I am in charge of your well-being, and this is my decision. You will stay with your aunt and do as she says for the duration of your time there.”
Lady Catherine de Bourgh might have been my aunt, but she was far from a welcoming figure. Owing to the fact she vehemently disapproved of my brother’s decision to marry “beneath him,” both Darcy and I had enjoyed limited contact with her for the past year.
This felt like a clear message. Darcy wasn’t going to acknowledge what I’d told him, what he had to suspect was going on, but he did expect me to fix it. Lady Catherine wanted nothing more than to see me married, and with me at Rosings, I was sure she would speak of nothing else.
“Please don’t do this,” I all but begged. “You don’t need to.”
“Emma is packing your things. The carriage departs within the hour.”
Darcy turned and left the study without another word,leaving me stunned and broken. I wanted him to listen to me. All I needed was one chance to sit down and explain that I understood this was difficult to comprehend, that it made things complicated, but also that it wasn’t something I could control.
Even if they married me off to a man, I would never be able to love him. It wasn’t fair on me or on the gentleman unlucky enough to be paired with me. Far from a dutiful wife eager to give him plenty of children, he would get a lovesick, distracted ghost of a woman.
If I had only an hour before I was forced to leave, I needed to find Kitty. I refused to repeat the past and leave her with no explanation due to an older sibling’s orders. She needed to know exactly where I was going and why.
I found both Kitty and Lydia in the kitchen. Lydia was perched on the table, eating her way through a bowl of candied almonds. Kitty had been sitting beside her but immediately slid down and took a step towards me when I walked in.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, primed for bad news. Or perhaps the expression on my face gave it away.
“We were actually in the middle of talking,” Lydia said, flicking her eyes between me and the door in a clear suggestion I should walk back out of it.
Kitty ignored her, taking my hand as concern built up in her eyes.
