“She looks so fragile.”
“Aye.”
For several moments, neither spoke. Then he asked in a very small voice, “Did Mother see her?”
Mr. Wickham swallowed hard. “She did.”
“Did she… know she was dying?”
The steward was silent so long that Darcy feared he would not answer. He reached for the blanket and passed his thumb over the delicate embroidery. “At the end, I think she did.”
Fitz stared at the sleeping infant. A terrible ache spread through his chest again, pressing so hard it almost hurt to breathe.
“She told me to build walls,” he whispered suddenly.
Mr. Wickham frowned slightly. “What’s that, lad?”
“Mother.” He kept his eyes fixed on the cradle. “She told me the world is kinder to men who appear strong.”
The older man looked at him for a long moment. Then he set the candle down and rested one rough hand gently atop Fitz’s shoulder. “Strength’s a fine thing,” he said quietly. “But there’s a difference between strength and loneliness.”
Fitz did not answer.
The baby had loosened her hold upon his finger now, drifting toward sleep once more. Her tiny breaths came soft and uneven beneath the blankets, utterly unaware that she had entered the world at the cost of her mother’s life.
He wondered suddenly if she would grow up lonely too.
Father did not know how to comfort grief. Of that Fitz was certain now.
And Georgie—
Fitz’s jaw tightened faintly.
Georgie would not understand either. He would joke, laugh, mock sorrow until it shrank into something ugly and shameful.
The nursery felt unbearably quiet.
Slowly, carefully, Fitz reached down and once again smoothed the blanket near the infant’s shoulder, the way he had once seen his mother do while holding a tenant’s newest family member.
The baby stirred faintly at the touch.
“Georgiana,” he whispered.
The name hurt somehow. A final gift from Mother.
Darcy swallowed against the tightness in his throat and bent slightly closer to the cradle.
“I shall take care of you,” he said softly, the words meant only for the sleeping child. “No matter what happens.”
Mr. Wickham looked away then, as though the moment had become too private to witness directly.
Darcy kept his eyes fixed upon the baby. “You and I shall have each other,” he murmured quietly. “So neither of us shall ever be alone again.”
The infant sighed in her sleep, one tiny hand curling against the blanket.
And standing there in the dim nursery with grief hollowing out his chest, Fitzwilliam Darcy made the first vow of his life that truly mattered.
No one would ever hurt Georgiana if he could prevent it.
