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Elizabeth disregarded the rigid set of his shoulders and slipped her hand over his, gently coaxing his fingers open until she could free the crumpled letter.
Darcy didn’t pull away. He looked down at her, his dark eyes wide and swimming with a naked, agonizing fear.
“We will not assume the worst,” she whispered, her thumb brushing a steadying circle against the back of his hand. “And when she arrives, we will not meet her with anger or recrimination. We will wrap her in cotton and surround her with every ounce of safety this house still possesses until we know the truth.”
Darcy swallowed hard, his throat working convulsively, and let out a long, ragged breath that seemed to empty his lungs of every last defense. He turned and pulled her against his chest, burying his face in her hair, holding onto her, his breath unsteady, as if holding back a thunderstorm.
“She may only be prodding you,” Elizabeth murmured softly against his shoulder, offering the only balm she knew. “A younger sister will poke until she forces a reaction. Lydia does it continually—declaring the most impossible intentions simply to see us jump, while Kitty trembles at her shadow, which only makes Lydia boast the louder.”
“I hope you are right.” Darcy held her tight, his hand rubbing circles on her back, as if in comforting her, he steadied his own anxiety.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WALTZING WITHOUT MUSIC
The primrose slipped from behind Elizabeth’s ear, fluttering down to land on the carpet, but Darcy made no move to step away. Her arms were still around his waist, her warmth a steady, anchoring weight against the cold panic that had threatened to tear him apart only moments before.
He forced himself to breathe. A master of Pemberley did not solve crises by standing in the gloom of a half-warmed library, leaning upon his wife like a drowning man.
“Thank you,” he murmured, the impulse to bury his face in the soft strands of her hair nearly shattering his control. Instead, he forced his arms to loosen, letting his hands drop to his sides as he stepped back.
“For what?” Elizabeth swept a stray lock from her face, her gaze dropping to the floor where the primrose had fallen apart. “Oh. I appear to be strewing your library with untidiness.”
“Not more so than me.” He glanced down at the wax pieces and torn paper shards scattered around his boots.
Her eyes were bright but steady, and whatever she saw in his face—the rawness he could not suppress, the fear he had no talent for hiding from this particular woman—she did not flinch.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“I shall await Georgiana’s arrival with precisely as much equanimity as I can manage to borrow from you.”
“Which does not bode well for either of us,” she countered, the corners of her mouth twitching, “considering I am the same woman who recently doubled over and disgraced herself upon that very hearthrug. At the least, I am not required to bear your weight up the stairs.”
Darcy felt a sheepish, unaccustomed heat rise to his collar. “Then perhaps we are a matched pair when it comes to losing our composure. It would appear I am not quite the granite monolith you took me for in Hertfordshire.”
“A comforting discovery, though I reserve my final judgment until I see how you handle a catastrophe involving bonnet strings,” she teased softly.
The shared laughter was small, fragile, and absurdly restorative, and Darcy found himself reluctant to part from her.
“I shall write a letter to Colonel Fitzwilliam,” Darcy said. “He has been at Matlock House with Georgiana, and I will demand an accounting from him. As co-guardian of my sister, he should be responsible for any predicament my sister might find herself embroiled in.”
“Pray do not be too hard on the colonel,” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps there is nothing to be alarmed about. Go. Write your letters. I shall tell Mrs. Reynolds that we will want a fresh pot of tea and a fire in this grate before it burns down to nothing. I believe I shall explore your library and rescue volumes from your fire sale.”
Darcy bowed to his wife—a habit he could not seem to break—and took his leave. He did not linger to see if she found him ridiculous. He suspected, from the smirk and the raised chin as she turned to the shelves, that she did.
Once situated in his bedchamber, he pulled out several sheets of paper. The first letter was to Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, care of the Earl of Matlock, Grosvenor Square.
Dear Richard,
Georgiana has written by express to inform me that she means to marry Mr. James Ashworth without delay. She states that she cannot wait for permission or propriety, and that she will proceed without my blessing if I withhold it. She is already en route to Pemberley and will arrive in a few days.
I require your immediate attendance. As co-guardian, you bear equal responsibility for her welfare, and I should not like to face whatever this situation demands without your counsel. If you have intelligence regarding Mr. Ashworth or the circumstances that prompted Georgiana’s precipitous resolve, I expect you to share it upon her arrival, not before, as I will not trust such particulars to the post.
Come at once, if your duties permit. If they do not permit, come regardless.
Your cousin,
Fitzwilliam
