Manufactured out of the side of one of the hills in the grounds, the shell grotto was a place rarely visited by anyone but me. Its entrance was covered by a wall of shrubbery, concealing it from all those unaware it was there. My brother knew of its existence, of course, as did most of the staff, and I had shown Elizabeth a few months after she had married Darcy, but Kitty likely had no idea. Which made it the perfect place to hide from her.
Developing any kind of fondness for Kitty Bennet was out of the question. That kind of thing did not end happily. I had learnt plenty of lessons throughout my life, but I knew that one would stay with me the longest. Rather than linger in her presence and feel the threads that pulled me to her tighten, I picked the densest Latin text from the library and took it to the grotto in the hopes of staying out of sight and keeping my mind occupied.
The grotto was older than I was, so I hadn’t been around for its construction, but I’d been told my mother had made it her project, dedicating years to the design and then the selection and placement of thousands of shells. They swirled from the floor up and across the ceiling, forming complicated patterns with unending intricacy.
The only light source was a circular hole in the roof, disguised from above as a well, that let in a column of sunlight. It bounced off abalone and mother-of-pearl, revealing the true beauty of the hidden cove, but it didn’t provide quite enough light by which to read. With a candle, a book, and a bag full of Ruth’s gingerbread, I was perfectly set for a long afternoon ofseclusion. Anyone who truly needed to find me would know exactly where to look, but those new to Pemberley, including girls with angelic curls and permanent smiles, wouldn’t have the slightest clue where I’d gone.
I was forty pages into my book when I realised I’d been interrupted. Quite how long Emma had been standing there, I wasn’t sure, but when I looked up to reach for another biscuit, I instead found myself clutching my chest to calm my surprise at the sight of a figure in the doorway.
“My apologies,” Emma said, her smile suggesting she wasn’t particularly sorry.
After Darcy had married Elizabeth and I’d moved back to Pemberley for good, I had convinced him I was too old for governesses. There was nothing academic left they were willing to teach me, my education instead continuing in the pages of Pemberley’s books. I had tired of being told I was wilful for requesting to be allowed to practise my Greek rather than my sewing. To my relief, Darcy had hired a lady’s maid upon my return home, and it did not take long for relief to turn to delight as I got to know Emma. Sharp, skilled, and willing to collude in my feeble excuses to get me out of social engagements I couldn’t bear to endure, she was one of my favourite people at Pemberley. Even if she did sneak up on me in silence.
“How did you find me?” I asked her, setting aside my book.
“You were not to be found anywhere else, which meant there was only one place you could be.” She sat down besideme, lit by the flickering glow of the candle. “It has been a while since you have hidden yourself away here. Is everything all right?”
The last time I had spent a full day amongst the shells had been when Darcy brought me back to Pemberley after all but rescuing me from the clutches of a fortune-hunting, power-hungry man who knew enough about me to barter with my freedom. One could hardly consider that an unreasonable seclusion, but Emma had yet to be appointed then. If she had been there to speak to, I likely would have been less keen to hide alone. Telling her a part of what had happened, even a year after the fact, had eased the knot it still tied around my lungs.
“Who says I am hiding?” My visits to the grotto had always been frequent, if admittedly shorter.
“These are provisions for days”—Emma gestured to the bag of gingerbread between us—“and you told no one where you were going. Your brother was getting concerned. So what is it that brought you here?”
The problem with excellent lady’s maids was the potential for their perceptive nature to see far more than you intended them to. I wished I hadn’t put my book down, lamenting my lack of something to hide behind as I felt my cheeks go pink.
“I just needed some peace and quiet,” I explained softly. “I can come back to the house, if my brother needs me for something.”
Emma squeezed my arm. If I was spending extended periods of time in the grotto, it was usually because I wantedto feel closer to my mother. Guilt gnawed at me for allowing Emma to think that was what this was, but I couldn’t explain the truth. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone I cared about looking at me differently.
“Stay,” Emma said. “I’ll tell Mr. Darcy you’re safe and sound. Perhaps make sure you talk to him after dinner? He worries about you. As do I.”
“No, it’s all right, I can—”
“It is fine to take some time to yourself,” she insisted. “If you need it, no one in that house would begrudge you that. Just come back before you forget your way there. And call for me before you go to dinner, because you have been playing with your curls and they look terrible.”
I hadn’t realised I had done it until she pointed it out, but I’d been pulling on the locks of hair that framed my face, stretching out their coils until they hung limply. I tucked them behind my ears to hide the worst of it and assured Emma I would not go to dinner so dishevelled. She left me with a promise she would reassure my brother no harm had come to me and, unlike the governesses I’d had, did not say a word against me picking up my hefty Latin tome again. Her patience was endless, even though I knew she would enjoy working for a normal young lady who needed dressing up for balls and subsequent visits from suitors. I was rather boring in comparison.
I read my way through the wax of an entire candle, lighting a new one with the stub of the first. It was only when my supply of biscuits ran low and my back began to ache fromsitting on the hard, shell-encrusted bench set into the wall that I finally ventured back to the house. Instead of heading straight for my own rooms, I took myself to Darcy’s office and knocked on the half-open door.
“Georgiana,” he said, surprise in his voice as he looked up to see me. “Emma said you wanted some time to yourself. Is everything all right?”
Like he always had, he set down his pen and pushed aside the letter he was writing, ready to listen to anything I had to say. Even when I’d been an endlessly curious child who always had one more question, I had never been denied his time. My multipage letters to him at school had been answered just as lengthily, and to my knowledge he had never once lied to me. If he didn’t know, he said so. If he did know, he told me. He was the only person to truly take me seriously. So perhaps I was the worst sister imaginable for harbouring so significant a secret.
But I’d never read a single happy ending for someone like me. All the privilege and kindness in the world could not win me something that did not exist. I didn’t want to put Darcy in the position of having to be the one to damn me, and it was almost certain he would. I would not be the first woman to be thrown out of Pemberley for this particular indiscretion.
The memory of Frances, one of our chambermaids, being dismissed only days after my father’s death occupied a gaping, painful chasm in my chest. No one had told me why, of course, but the remaining staff could not help but submit to the allure of gossip. At first I heard her referred to as afallen woman, her name spoken sharply like it cut tongues. I assumed she was pregnant, a conclusion that seemed confirmed when the whispers about her cavorting with a servant on a nearby estate were no longer held back. Until, one week after her dismissal, I heard something new: “The other girl has been sent away now, too.”
It was the first I had ever heard ofother girls, and at twelve years old, it sounded a note inside me that strung together a collection of moments like a melody. I had never connected them before, but suddenly I saw the thread between the way I could never imagine having a husband like other girls dreamt; the way I would sketch women over and over but draw men only if asked; and the way I’d developed what I now understood was a childish infatuation with one of the scullery maids, following her around and no doubt entirely getting in the way. It all made sense with those two words, but in the same moment I had been forced to confront the reality that my brother, who had always been my favourite person and was now in control of my life and my fate, had exiled a woman from Pemberley for the same sin now singing in my bones.
So I sat myself in the chair across from his desk, pulling up my legs to tuck them under me, and I pretended everything was fine. I tried to let him forget I’d been acting strange at all, but the conversation quickly turned to a topic I had not wanted to discuss.
“Elizabeth mentioned you had a caller,” my brother said cautiously, well aware it was not a common occasion. “Theson of one of our father’s associates. Are you… interested in the gentleman?”
He was only marginally more comfortable than I was with the matter. I wondered if he was thinking of the last time I’d made a decision regarding romance and marriage, and quite how poorly it had gone. Perhaps he was trying to be particularly careful to avoid another attempted elopement.
“I do not really know him,” I said, being sure my words were true, but diplomatic. “Until his call it had been many years since I had last spent time in his company.”
“Are you planning to start seeking a suitor?” Darcy asked.
