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Elizabeth closed her eyes. Georgiana’s notes had grown increasingly desperate over the three days. The first, written in a hasty, slanting hand: Dearest Elizabeth, I am so dreadfully sorry if anything I said has caused trouble. Please do not be angry with me. I could not bear it. The second, shorter and more desperate: Are you very cross? Charlotte says you are unwell, but I do not believe it is only that. The third contained no words at all—only a careful ink drawing of a spaniel with lopsided ears and a hopeful expression. The fourth, which had arrived that morning: Please, Elizabeth. Richard says it will blow over, but Richard is upset at my brother, not you.

“I will dress and go see her. None of this is her doing. She is young and volatile, and if she has put her trust in me, and my husband approves of my counsel, then I shall go. And thank you, Charlotte.” Elizabeth caught her friend’s hand before she could turn away. “For bringing me a heavy dose of the medicine I would rather have died than swallow.”

“I have been your friend since we were girls, Lizzy. I know when to push and when to wait.” Charlotte squeezed her fingers gently. “When you are ready to speak to your husband, do not wait for him to come to you. He will pace that gallery until the floorboards wear through, but he will not knock on your door, because he believes you do not wish to see him. Fitzwilliam Darcy would sooner sell every book in that library than force his company on a woman who has not invited it.”

Charlotte departed, and Hannah returned. Elizabeth submitted to being dressed and combed and rendered presentable—the blue morning dress, mercifully forgiving at the waist, her hair swept back with simple pins. Georgiana would be manageable; the girl was young and frightened, and Elizabeth had long practice in soothing the young and frightened, having done so for her sisters more times than she could count.

Her husband was another matter entirely. She would not stoop to a pleading note, nor would she humble herself at his door, awaiting permission to enter. Yet she could not remain cloistered forever. Charlotte was right: he would pace that gallery until the floorboards gave way before he imposed his company on a woman who had not asked for it.

The connecting door stood closed, as it had stood for three days. Elizabeth looked at it, breathed once, and turned toward the corridor that led to Georgiana’s rooms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

LOVE AND WISDOM

Georgiana was in her room. The door was ajar, and Elizabeth could see the disorder that would frighten a housemaid more than a walk amongst the stones on All Hallow’s Eve. The Kashmir shawl trailed from the settee to the floor, its embroidered peacocks crushed beneath what appeared to be a discarded slipper. And a pile of bonnets threatened to cascade over a half-opened reticule spilling silver coins.

Elizabeth knocked on the doorframe and pushed the door wider. Georgiana sat curled in the window seat, knees drawn up, her morning dress creased as if she had slept in it, and her hair—that magnificent Darcy hair, dark and thick and usually so carefully dressed—falling in tangles past her shoulders. On the shelf above the writing desk, the Neapolitan doll watched the devastation with the frozen stare of an aunt who had spent a fortune on her debutante’s finishing school. Elizabeth looked away before Georgiana could notice.

“Elizabeth.” Georgiana’s voice cracked on the second syllable. “You came.”

“From all the way across the corridor, although I venture the journey was not quite so treacherous as the adventure before me.” Elizabeth picked her way across the carpet, stepping over a pile of sheet music and what appeared to be three volumes of sermons. “I half-expect to find a family of gypsies boiling tea over a hearth fire.”

“Oh, but Elizabeth, I wrote you four letters, and you did not answer any of them. The third one was a drawing of a dog. I thought it would make you smile, because the dog’s ears were all wrong, and I could not bear it if you were angry with me too⁠—”

She stopped, her face crumpling in a way that made Elizabeth’s heart twist. She hastened to reassure Darcy’s sister that she could never be angry with her.

“Miss Darcy, I could sooner be angry with a spaniel for chewing my glove. You have done nothing wrong, and I have been merely unwell.”

“But you promised to call me Gigi.” Georgiana shut the door. “And did I make you unwell? Everyone says your mother has nerves, and well, the nerves are aggravated by unruly sisters, and I should feel ever so horrid if I⁠—”

Nerves. Elizabeth would strangle the gossips who compared her to Mrs. Bennet, and she strained to believe it could be either Darcy or Charlotte. But if Mr. Lefevre had dared to liken her to her mother, she would have happily nailed his tongue to a paddock fencepost rather than suffer him to wag it upon Pemberley’s grounds.

“Gigi, it is a female indisposition.” She placed her hand over her belly, where the warming stone had been. “I am better now, and you have done nothing wrong.”

“Oh.” Georgiana wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I did not know. No one tells me anything. Brother won’t speak to me except to say that I must remain at Pemberley until matters are settled. The Colonel looks at me as though I have committed treason, and Mrs. Annesley keeps trying to make me drink broth.” She drew a shuddering breath. “Elizabeth, you must help me. You are the only one who will listen.”

“If drinking broth could settle matters, and silent brothers solved familial crises, Derbyshire would be the most tranquil county in England.”

Georgiana let out a wet, half-strangled laugh and swept a pile of sheet music from a settee.

“Sit,” Georgiana urged, pulling Elizabeth down beside her with the fierce grip of a drowning sailor clutching a spar. “I have to tell you everything before Brother poisons your mind toward Mr. Ashworth and calls him a pirate.”

“My mind has proven tremendously difficult to poison, seeing as it has been thoroughly pickled in hartshorn and vinegar for the last three days,” Elizabeth said. “Shall we ring for tea or would Hannah require a field guide to navigate your floor of petticoats, sonatas, and ballroom slippers?”

Georgiana giggled. “I knew I would like you when Brother said you had a sharp tongue.”

“Then I shall not wield it on delicate ladies of sensitivity eager to brave the mosquito-infested jungles of the New World.” She nevertheless rang for tea. “Now then, enlighten me on Mr. James Ashworth and his missionary fervor.”

At Elizabeth’s prompt, Georgiana opened up like a flooded dam after a long spring thaw, her cheeks flushing pink. “James, I mean, Mr. Ashworth, has the heart of the apostle Paul. He wishes to bring the light of Christ to those who dwell in darkness, and his sister Amelia shares his calling, and when he speaks of the mission schools⁠—”

“How did you meet him?”

“At Lady Ashworth’s recital. He turned pages for me while I played, and afterward we spoke of music and faith and purpose.” Georgiana’s eyes had taken on a brightness that Elizabeth recognized with a pang—she had seen it in Jane’s face when Bingley entered a room, and felt it in her own when Darcy’s name was mentioned, before she understood what it meant. “We were in the same circles with Lady Matlock inviting the Ashworths to her musicales, orchid viewing, and theater boxes. James is perfectly respectable—his father is Lord Ashworth, his elder brother will inherit the title and estates, and James himself intends to take orders and devote his life to serving God.”

“Yes, you have told me, and the drawing room the polished version Mr. Ashworth presents to the mission board, no doubt, but I wish to know about you. Why you believe you are suitable for this mission of Godly mercy?”

“You are mocking me.” Georgiana’s lower lip jutted the way Kitty’s did when deprived of the last soft-boiled egg.