"It was not kindness," Darcy said. "He wished you to feel afraid."
"I know that now."
"He saw your fear and made use of it."
Georgiana did not respond. Her tears flowed freely now.
"Georgiana." Darcy sat down beside her, close, on the same small settee. "Why did you not write to me?"
She was quiet for a moment. "I did not want you to think me foolish."
She had not written because she had been ashamed. She had been alone with Wickham's words, alone with their mother's history, and alone with a fear she had carried for years without anyone ever thinking to prepare her for it.
She had been only four when Lady Anne died. What she knew of the deafness she knew from household whispers and half-heard conversations. By the time she was old enough to ask questions, Darcy had never known how to begin. And so the knowledge had sat half-formed in her mind until Wickham took it and finished it for her. In the worst possible way.
"You are not foolish," he said, reaching out to lift her chin gently. "And you are not alone in this. You never were. That is my failure. Not yours."
Georgiana lowered her gaze to their joined hands and said nothing. He felt the slight trembling of her fingers beneath his.
"Whatever comes," Darcy continued, "you will not face it as though it were something to be ashamed of. It is not."
"Do you believe that?"
He did not answer immediately. The history of his mother's family was not easily dismissed. His grandmother had lost her hearing. His mother had done the same. Anne de Bourgh's fragile health offered little comfort to anyone inclined to draw conclusions. Not for the first time, he questioned whether Wickham had simply spoken aloud what others preferred to leave unspoken.
Yet it was not that thought which lingered.
His mother's face rose before him, calm and steadfast. He remembered the February of his seventeenth year, when very little time remained to her. She had taken his hand and spoken slowly and carefully, knowing he had taught himself to understand her even when her hearing had failed.
Promise me, she had said.Promise me you will look after her. Whatever she faces. Whatever she becomes. You will not let her face it alone.
He had promised. He had been seventeen and frightened and entirely certain he meant it. He had not, until this afternoon, understood how completely he had failed to keep it. But hismother had not asked him to spare Georgiana from difficulty. She had asked him not to let her face it alone. That, at least, was still within his power.
"Yes," he said. "I do."
Georgiana held his gaze. Then she nodded, very slightly, and leaned her head against his shoulder as she had not done since she was small. He did not move. The afternoon light shifted slowly across the floor. The sea continued its indifferent work beyond the glass.
He would keep the promise. He had made it twice now. Once to his mother. Once today.
He did not yet know how. He knew only that somewhere beyond this room, beyond Ramsgate and its bright uncaring sky, the answer existed.
He simply had not found it yet.
ONE
15thOctober 1811
Meryton Assembly.
Darcy
It was shaping up to be a thoroughly disagreeable evening.
Darcy had arrived in Hertfordshire that very afternoon, somewhat earlier than he had originally intended. Georgiana was with him. She sat nearby, her hands folded neatly in her lap.
She appeared composed. Most observers would have attributed her reserve to shyness.
Darcy knew better.
