Chapter 1
It was the same old story, just in a new place.
Darcy had not bothered to change his habit, for all of Bingley’s well-meaning wittering. The man was kind, charitable, andutterlydeluded. Did Bingley really think that moving into a new house would make things better? That a ‘change of scenery’ would take back the horrors of the last year? Darcy would have scoffed in the man’s face, but Bingley was one of the few things in his life that still had colour, and he couldn’t bear to make him fade. Everything else was grey, slow and heavy.
That was why he had agreed to come here. What was the house called: Netherton? Netherfield? It didn’t matter. It was an elegant house in a pleasant estate, far from anyone who knew him, and so provincial that you could go for days without hearing a carriage rattling by.
It made no demands, as Pemberley did. Darcy knew he could do as he pleased here. The world would not end. But he could not compare it to Pemberley. He could notthinkof Pemberley. It hurt too much.
Darcy fell into the same habits he had followed since the last time Georgiana had met his eyes.
He slept long past dawn and woke up slowly, waiting for the night before to stab at his eyes and make his stomach roil. Sometimes he stayed abed, but usually he arose and pulled on his clothes. (The servants washed them, but he would not have noticed if they were the same as the night before. He would not have cared. The expensive fabrics were just as unpleasant as the rest of his existence, and he had no nose for clean soap or heady cologne).
Liquor. That is what he could smell. It burst through his depression, crude and violent, forcing his throat to burn and his head to spin.
His habit in London had been to imbibe instead of breaking his fast. Bingley had outplayed him there, ordering the Netherfield servants to store the liquor in the kitchen and not have it lying about the rooms. Darcy drank less here than he had in London, but sobriety had not caught him yet. There was always a servant to be bribed.
But Darcy respected Bingley too much to break his rule while under his roof. This was his new habit: to carry a satchel with him until he was in the countryside beyond the estate. Rain or sun, he would find a tree to sit under where he could not see or hear another living creature. Then he would unpack his bag and take out a book, paper and ink and, yes, a bottle.
It was not a life. It was nowhere near living. But it was as close as he deserved, and Darcy was happy to punish himself.
The book would be read until the letters blurred. The bottle would be drained, sip by burning sip. The only thing he never touched was the paper. One day, he vowed, he would finally write his letter, and then his purgatory would be over.
It was not going to be today. The sun was out, but there was a thick mist upon the fields which made the air clammy and unpleasant. The pages of his book curled in the damp. Darcy was content to let his own body fall to ruin, but books were another matter. He carefully closed it, smoothing out the creases, and folded it into his satchel. Then, sighing, he rested his head against the tree trunk and closed his eyes.
Georgiana. Of course, it was Georgiana’s face that bloomed in the red pulse of his eyelids. Her hair, once blonde, was now dark with sweat. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut, and her skin was deathly white. Her lips were chapped, scabbed over where she had bitten into them in her agony.
Sweet Georgiana, his sister, who had needed him so desperately.
Dear Georgiana, his innocent ward who had been led astray.
Stupid Georgiana, who had locked herself away before she swallowed that damnable filth.
Broken little Georgiana, lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling like a lake staring back at the moon. Tiny, fragile, and empty.
Wickham had done it to her. But Darcy had done it, too. In his ignorance and his blindness, he had not been able to prevent it. Wickham had broken her heart, and Georgiana had tried to stop it the only way she knew how.
Her brother had been able to stopthat, at least. He broke Georgiana’s door down at her screams, made her vomit, sent for the doctor and held her so tightly that even the angels could not have pried her from his arms.
She lived. Tiny, fragile, and empty. Poor little sister, staring at the moon.
Darcy struggled to force his eyes open. This half drunk, half sleeping delirium was the worst of it. He wanted oblivion, not an agonising reminder. The heavy dream lifted, and he lurched giddily forwards to rest his head in his hands.
The fog was thicker now, but the sun was trying to break through. It made the swirling haze orange and pink, almost suffocating in its humid beauty. Darcy groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. No. Georgiana was still there, waiting for him to sleep so he could watch her sweet smile crackle away. He opened his eyes again and stared into the mist.
And there, outlined in the visible rays, he saw an angel.
Chapter 2
Elizabeth hesitated.
Her first impulse was to turn around, or even to run away. The man by the tree was clearly drunk, and his dishevelled appearance and waxy skin told her that he had been that way for quite some time. His eyes were unsteady, barely focused, and his hands moved clumsily against the ground.
But she could not move.
It was not the strange expression on his pale face which made her pause. It was the thought that a man lying by a tree might be a man who was hurt. If he had broken his leg or hit his head, and she did not help him, then he could be alone out here all night.
“Shall I find someone for you?” she asked, her voice sounding high and thin. The man kept staring at her, and she tried again: “Are you in pain, sir?”
