Page 86

“Agreed,” Elizabeth echoed. “With one addition.”

Richard’s attention sharpened—that flicker again, so brief she might have imagined it. “Oh?”

“I am aware that part of the reason for the delay is Georgiana’s dowry.” Elizabeth felt the ground beneath her shift, but she pressed on regardless. “I understand there have been… complications. With the trust. With the investments. I want you to know that I am prepared to guarantee her portion myself. From my own inheritance. Whatever she requires for her presentation, her season, her independence—I will ensure she has it.”

Richard’s face remained pleasant. His posture remained easy. Yet his demeanor changed—a stillness had settled over him, as though he were holding himself very carefully in place.

“That is remarkably generous,” he said. “Though I suppose one can easily understand why a lady whose family connections are so refreshingly free from worldly calculation might feel herself suited to manage the affairs of families rather more encumbered by them.”

“I beg your pardon?” Elizabeth felt it in her chest, a tightness with the realization that she had miscalculated. She had come bearing olive branches, and the Colonel was reading them as siege ladders.

Charlotte’s fingers pressed against Elizabeth’s arm, speaking the silent language of long friendship: careful, careful, do not rise to it.

“I meant no presumption,” Elizabeth said, proud that her voice remained even. “I wished only to assure you that I am not your adversary in this matter, Colonel. Georgiana’s welfare is our common concern, and I should hope that two people who care for the same girl might contrive to be civil about it.”

They reached the stone bridge and, by unspoken consent, paused there, the stream passing beneath them in a steady, unhurried current that suggested the natural world, at least, had nothing to quarrel about.

“Civility is not our primary concern when it comes to duty.” The Colonel’s words were clipped. “Guarding my cousin is my duty, and I take it seriously, however little credit I am given for the exercise.”

The barb was unmistakable. Elizabeth felt it prick beneath her ribs and drew a slow breath before answering. “No one doubts your devotion to Georgiana, Colonel.”

“And yet my judgment, Mrs. Darcy, appears to require supplementation from every quarter.”

Charlotte, who had been examining a patch of wood anemones growing in the mossy crevice of the bridge parapet with an attention the wildflowers scarcely merited, straightened and turned toward them. “Colonel, Elizabeth has spent these past days winning Georgiana’s confidence at considerable cost to her own comfort. She was unwell, and she went to the girl regardless, because Georgiana was frightened and needed someone she trusted. Surely that speaks to her intentions more plainly than any protestation could.”

The Colonel regarded Charlotte with more gentleness. “Miss Lucas, I do not question Mrs. Darcy’s kindness toward my cousin. Kindness and ambition are not mutually exclusive. One may be genuinely fond of a ward whose gratitude could prove advantageous to one’s position in a household where one’s place is not yet… settled.”

Elizabeth’s chin lifted. “My place, Colonel, is wherever my husband chooses to put me. I was not aware it required settling by anyone else.” She heard the edge in her own voice and softened it. “But we are straying from the point. Whatever decisions you and my husband reach about Georgiana’s future, I will support them. I have no desire to interfere with your guardianship. My only wish is to be a good sister to Georgiana—a role that requires no one’s permission and threatens no one’s authority.”

This was the last olive branch she intended to offer a man so determined to see her as an ambitious interloper, angling for influence in the Darcy household.

“A good sister,” he repeated. “And the dowry? Why would you guarantee Georgiana’s dowry? Is that the same as being a good sister? Have you supplied your own sisters with dowries too?”

“Colonel!” Charlotte’s voice was sharp. “We should return to the house. Georgiana will be finishing her recital, and it would be well for us to be seen when the music ends. Harmony in the household, and all that.”

“By all means.” The Colonel offered his arm to Charlotte—not to Elizabeth—and began walking back toward the house. “Miss Lucas, your counsel has been most appreciated. I look forward to continuing our conversation.”

Elizabeth stood alone by the stone bridge, watching their retreating backs with narrowed eyes.

“If the man ever drowns,” she muttered to the empty stream, “it will certainly not be for lack of excess ballast. I do believe I have just met a man more insufferable than Cousin Collins.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

A GENTLEMAN’S MEASURE

Darcy had never presided over a dinner at Pemberley while the conversation revolved around slavery. Seated at the head of the table in the formal dining room, with his graceful wife, Elizabeth, holding court at the foot, he could only stare blankly at Georgiana, who glowed with fervent agreement to every utterance of Mr. Ashworth.

“The plantations in Jamaica are particularly brutal,” Mr. Ashworth said with the conviction of a man with a just cause. “The Society has documented conditions that would shock the conscience of any Christian. Children separated from mothers. Families sold piecemeal to satisfy a single debt.”

“How dreadful,” Georgiana breathed, her soup spoon suspended halfway to her lips. “The entire plantation system depends upon the labor of people who have no choice in the matter. Mr. Wilberforce has said, and you told me yourself, Mr. Ashworth, that his speech before Parliament was the most—the most devastating moral argument of our century⁠—”

“Georgiana,” Darcy said mildly. “Your soup.”

“The Church has an obligation,” Ashworth continued. “Not merely to minister to the enslaved, but to advocate for their liberation. I cannot in good conscience take orders without committing myself to that work.”

Darcy watched his sister’s face as she absorbed these sentiments. She was sixteen, impressionable, sheltered beyond reason, and currently gazing at James Ashworth as though he had invented both Christianity and compassion in the same afternoon. The young man was handsome enough—dark hair, good bones, an air of earnest purpose that sat well on his features—exactly the kind of charismatic zealot who cultivated righteous causes precisely because they served as a magnificent stage for his own vanity. He wore his piety like a well-tailored waistcoat, confident that a sprinkling of parliamentary buzzwords and a pair of dark, soulful eyes would blind any romantic girl to his lack of fortune or common sense.

Across the long table, opposite him, Elizabeth gave him a look of solidarity. While Darcy and Elizabeth both deplored the institution of slavery, and he often supported abolitionist causes, members of his class did not speak of it in polite society.