“Lizzy.” Jane shot me the look—thestop itlook, deployed since we were children, as ineffective now as it was then. “Do not listen to my sister, Miss Darcy. She thinks that kindness requires justification.”
“I believe kindness needs no justification,” Georgiana said softly. “I only wonder, at times, how one might discern between genuine kindness and… strategic benevolence.”
The kitchen went still. Cook’s spoon paused, and Jane’s smile wavered.
“And that,” said Mama, recovering with the smoothness of a woman who had been navigating conversational landmines since birth, “is a question I asked at your age. The answer I found was this: kindness that disappears when it is no longer useful was never kindness. It was an investment.” She offered Georgiana another biscuit. “Jane’s kindness is quite inconvenient. Once her good regard is given, her kindness does not fade, and she does not revisit it. Indeed, it has caused her no small measure of heartache, for she bestows it even upon the undeserving, and seems utterly incapable of doing otherwise.”
The words landed softly, yet I suspected they struck a deeper chord in Georgiana, a girl who had received Caroline Bingley’s brand of kindness and sensed, perhaps, that it came with unspoken conditions.
Georgiana glanced at me, and I gave her a nod, because I recognized the look. Jane had worn it in the autumn, when she was eighteen, when a certain gentleman from Steventon had written her poetry and then married the brewer’s daughter with twice her dowry. Hearts that have been deceived do not accept kindness without checking its pockets. It would explain Darcy’s vigilant watch on his sister. Whatever had happened to Georgiana, he hadresponded the only way he knew: by locking every door and hiring a guard. That I was the guard was its own delicious irony, given that he had chosen me for my intelligence and then was appalled when I dared to employ it.
The thunder of hoofbeats, or what sounded like them, heralded my two youngest sisters’ charge into the kitchen.
“Lizzy!” The kitchen door burst open, and Lydia flew in, followed by Kitty. “Lizzy, you are home! Mama said you might never come home again because you were living with Mr. Darcy, which is not what I would do in your situation, because I would?—”
“Lydia.” Mama admonished. “We have a guest.”
Lydia halted so abruptly that Kitty, her loyal shadow, collided with her back.
“Oh! And so we do.” Lydia’s eyes widened. “You are Miss Darcy. I know all about you. Lizzy wrote, saying you play the pianoforte beautifully and that you threw flour at her face, which is the best thing I have ever heard.”
“I thank you,” Georgiana managed. “The flour was not entirely intentional.”
“The best things never are.” Lydia dropped into the chair beside her with the graceless enthusiasm of a puppy mounting a sofa. “You simply must tell me everything. Is Mr. Bingley as talkative at home as he is at an assembly? Does his sister really wear that much lace? Does your brother truly read every morning for an hour? How can his eyes endure the strain?”
“Lydia, one question at a time,” I said, but I was watching Georgiana, who seemed delighted at Lydia’s impulsive questions. I wondered if anyone had ever exhibited as much interest in her rather than using conversation as a tactical advantage to gain entrance into her circles.
Kitty edged in behind Lydia and settled in the window seat. “Where is your cat, Lizzy? She used to be your constant shadow.”
“Cinnamon,” I said, “has developed a preference for the night owl over the day’scompanion.”
Only Georgiana laughed—a quick, surprised thing, bitten off, but loud enough that Jane looked at me with raised eyebrows and Mama’s intelligent expression showed she had noted and would recalibrate her character dossier—the one she tracks for each acquaintance as diligently as Darcy at the ledgers.
“She does not enjoy botanical walks,” I added.
“How odd,” said Kitty. “She used to follow you to Meryton and back.”
“Cats don’t follow like spaniels. Cinnamon has forged new allegiances, and I’ve resigned myself to her fickleness.”
Meanwhile, Lydia bent as if retrieving a crumb from the floor, her attention captivated by Georgiana’s attire. “Miss Darcy, your dress is exquisite. Did Lizzy’s adventures leave any mud on your petticoats? Oh, but your hems—they’re so beautifully stitched!”
“Lydia!” I again chided my impetuous sister to no avail.
“What? I am paying her a compliment. Surely one should be praised for beautiful things, and Miss Darcy’s hem is exquisite. Did you do the embroidery yourself, Miss Darcy? I should be delighted to learn from you.”
Lydia, who had never shown any interest in meticulous needlework, was, I noted, gracing Miss Darcy with her artless curiosity, and from the looks of it, delighting her.
“It was… my governess taught me the pattern,” she managed. “It is a French technique.”
“French!” Lydia clapped her hands. “Kitty, it is French. We must learn French embroidery. Mary, did you hear? French.”
“I heard.” Mary’s voice carried from the doorway where she had stepped through silently.
“Elizabeth.” She acknowledged me with a nod, then turned to Georgiana with the frank, appraising look that made Mary simultaneously the most uncomfortable and honest of my sisters. “You are Miss Darcy. Elizabeth wrote that you play Haydn.”
“Yes. I have been studying the sonatas.” The reserve had returned with this new addition.
“Which one?”
