Page 55 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

Elizabeth read it once. She did not need to read it again.

She was not angry this time. She had been angry over the door and good-morrow, a burning, furious anger. This was something else. This was cold, and sick, and very quiet, like standing at the edge of a well at night and hearing something fall a long way down.

"The Post will have it," said Darcy. His voice was hoarse. "In the morning. Coker sold them a copy at six. It is too late."

"Thursday," said Elizabeth. "The Drawing Room is on Thursday."

"Yes."

"She has had her gown fitted four times." She heard her own voice crack. "She practised her curtsey in the hall on Saturday for an hour. She made Pearce be the Queen."

Nobody said anything.

Elizabeth looked down at the damp strip of paper in her hands. Then scarcely fifteen. Somebody had sat down at a desk, with good paper and a steady hand, and written that about a girl who cried when her brother came into the room, because she thought he still despised her. Somebody who had known exactly how much it would hurt. Somebody who had waited until three days before the Drawing Room to do it, so that the girl would have time to hope first.

"How could anybody know this?" said Richard. It burst out of him. "The Kentish coast. Fifteen. The North. Only we three know it. And Wickham. And that Younge woman, wherever she is."

"And whoever Wickham has told," said Darcy.

"Or whoever Georgiana has told," said Elizabeth, very low.

They both looked at her.

"She told me once," said Elizabeth, "that before she met me, she had one friend she could say anything to. One person who never judged her. She did not say who." She swallowed. "I did not ask. I did not want to pry."

The clock on the mantel struck one.

Nobody moved for a long time. Then Richard said, in a strange flat voice, "I will go and find a bed. You will want to be alone." He paused at the door. "She must be told, Darcy. Before the Post comes up. She must not read it at breakfast with Pearce pouring her chocolate."

"I know."

"Do you want me there?"

Darcy looked at Elizabeth. She shook her head, very slightly.

"No," said Darcy. "We will do it. Together."

Richard went out. They heard his heavy tread go down the passage, and a door shut.

Elizabeth sat down on the sofa, because her legs had gone. After a moment her husband sat down beside her. Neither of them spoke. She put her head on his shoulder, and he put his arm round her, and they sat there in the green room with the proof on her knee and the candle burning down, and did not sleep.

The sky began to lighten at about five. The fire girl came clattering up the back stairs at six. At a quarter past, they heard the thud of the morning papers landing on the step below.

Elizabeth stood up. She folded the proof small, and put it in the pocket of her wrapper. Then she held out her hand, and he took it, and they walked together down the passage to Georgiana's door.

It was the longest walk of her life.

They stood outside it for a moment. Behind it, very faintly, they could hear Georgiana singing to herself as she dressed: a scale, and then a phrase from the sonata, and then the scale again, bright and careless, the way a girl sings on a morning when she has something to look forward to.

Darcy's hand tightened on hers until it hurt.

Elizabeth raised her other hand, and knocked.

Chapter 16: Georgiana's Tears

Darcy House. Tuesday, 7th April 1812

Georgiana opened the door in her petticoat and dressing jacket, with her fair hair half pinned and a hairbrush in her hand, and her face bright with the song she had been singing.