“You fret too much,” Wickham told him repeatedly whenever finances arose. “What use is wealth if one cannot enjoy it?”
Fitz never answered aloud.
But privately he thought of Pemberley accounts. Tenant families. Stewardship. Obligation.
Things Wickham had never truly understood because he had never been required to bear them.
Still, despite everything, something in Fitz kept reaching for his father's approval, the way a man reaches for a door he already knows is locked, and he turned a blind eye every time his father’s valet de place stayed behind to settle the bills.
George Darcy had never once told his son he was proud of him—not plainly, not in words Fitz could keep—yet he had educated Wickham alongside him, laughed at his jokes, forgiven in him what he never forgave in Fitz.
Fitz understood exactly what that meant. He had understood it for years.
And still some small, humiliating part of him went on believing that if he studied harder, argued better, proved himself steadier than Wickham in every particular, his father might finally notice the difference.
It was easier to keep trying, than to admit that no version of himself had ever been the one his father wanted.
Their travels carried them onward through Austria and the German states. In Vienna, Wickham danced attendance upon noblewomen while Fitz attended lectures regarding Roman military campaigns along the Danube frontier. In Scandinavia, Fitz became fascinated by ancient burial mounds while Wickham complained constantly about the cold and the absence of attractive society.
Only Georgiana’s letters remained constant.
They waited for him in nearly every major city.
Thick childish handwriting at first.
Then gradually neater.
Dearest Brother,one began from Pemberley,Mrs. Reynolds says I must not feed cake to the dogs anymore because it makes them sick, though I think they appear very pleased whilst eating it.
Another included a tiny, pressed flower folded carefully inside.
I found this near the western stream and wished you to see it.
Fitz carried that flower for nearly six months tucked inside his pocketbook, only discarding it when it had entirely dissolved into dust.
At night, while Wickham vanished into gambling hells or private parties, Fitz often sat alone beside unfamiliar fires reading Georgiana’s letters again and again until homesickness settled heavily in his chest.
He missed her terribly.
Missed Pemberley.
Missed even the Derbyshire air.
But he comforted himself with the knowledge that Mrs. Reynolds remained there. Faithful, sensible Mrs. Reynolds: the woman who had raised Georgiana from infancy.
As long as Georgiana remained safely at Pemberley, Fitz could endure almost anything.
Even Wickham.
Chapter 3
November 1803—Pemberley, Derbyshire
Pemberley felt smaller when Fitz returned from the Continent.
Not physically smaller, of course. The great stone house remained as imposing as ever against the Derbyshire hills, its long galleries and elegant proportions untouched by his absence. The woods still swept darkly across the western slopes, and the river continued winding silver-bright through the valley below.
Wickham had not travelled the last leg with him. A letter had found them both at Dover, recalling Wickham to London on his father's business, and he had gone off toward the capital in high spirits, promising to visit Pemberley "directly, or very nearly directly."
