Georgiana’s maid sat near the fire, hands folded tightly in her lap. Elizabeth crossed to her and spoke in a whisper. “If she wakes, send for me at once. Not Mr. Darcy first, not Mrs. Nicholls, me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, miss.”
“And keep the door closed. No one enters unless it is Mrs. Nicholls, Mr. Darcy, or myself.“
“Yes, miss.”
Elizabeth looked once more at the bed. Georgiana lay curled beneath the blankets, her face too pale, her lashes dark with tears. She looked heartbreakingly young.
Anger rose in Elizabeth then—not the sharp embarrassment of Meryton, nor the wounded anger of Darcy’s silence, but something colder and steadier. This man Wickham—whoever he was—had come into a room full of people and tried to claim a frightened girl as though she were property left in a will. He had smiled while doing it. He had enjoyed her terror.
No.
Whatever paper he held, whatever signature stained it, he would not have Georgiana.
Not while I draw breath.
Elizabeth left the room quietly and moved down the passage toward the stairs. She had no idea what legal arguments awaited in Mr. Bingley’s study. She did not know whether the document was genuine, forged, binding, void, or merely dangerous enough to cause scandal. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty: she would not be kept from the room where decisions were made.
Georgiana had clung to her as a sister.
Elizabeth would go now and act like one.
Chapter 29
Darcy had read the paper three times and hated it more with each reading.
It lay upon Bingley’s study desk beneath the full light of two candles, its creases still marked from Wickham’s coat pocket, its edges slightly worn as though handled often enough to imply familiarity, but not so often as to prove age. The ink had browned. The language was formal. The terms were monstrous.
Georgiana Darcy, upon attaining the age of sixteen, was to be given in marriage to George Wickham.
His father’s signature rested at the bottom with its familiar arrogance.
Darcy stared at it until the letters seemed to shift before his eyes.
Across from him, Richard leaned over the desk, one hand braced upon the polished surface, his face hard in a way Darcy had rarely seen outside a battlefield report. Mr. Philips sat beside them with spectacles low upon his nose, reading with a solicitor’s care that seemed almost indecently calm beside the violence in Darcy’s chest. Bingley had retired from the room for propriety’s sake, so that those involved could speak freely.
Richard straightened first.
“I say we throw it into the fire.”
Darcy did not look up. “No.”
“It would take ten seconds.”
“No.”
Richard’s mouth tightened. “It would give me a great deal of satisfaction.”
“And Wickham has certainly prepared for that very possibility. He would not bring the only copy into a room where he expected opposition. If this paper disappears, another will surface. Then we are not only defending Georgiana against this claim, but explaining why we destroyed evidence.”
Richard’s eyes gleamed with a dangerous humor. “There are other ways to take care of the situation.”
Mr. Philips lifted his head. “If we are beginning a discussion of crime, Colonel, I must ask one of you for a penny. That way I may claim professional privilege before anyone says something that obliges me to become a witness.”
Richard gave him a sharp, startled look, then laughed once.
Darcy did not. “No.”
