by Sue Barr
In the weeks following Max’s abrupt departure, Georgiana had never felt so alone – other than her catastrophic summer after Ramsgate. At that time her exile was self-imposed. She’d kept to her room, barely speaking to anyone. It was only with the timely arrival of Mrs. Annesley that she’d finally crawled out of the dark abyss her mind had fallen into. And now, as she wandered the grounds of Adborough Hall, with a silent footman following at a discreet distance, her mind turned to the advice her faithful companion had given her. Put her thoughts down onto paper.
Mrs. Annesley’s recommendation had carried her through those difficult months and would do so again. So, quill in hand, she sat down at her escritoire to do the same with regard to Maxwell. At first, she struggled to gather her thoughts, but within minutes it was as though the floodgates of her heart opened and the words poured onto the pages.
~~~~~
“Lord Nathan, Ma’am,”
Startled, Georgiana looked up from the book she’d been reading. Oblivious to her surroundings, caught up in the world of the Miss Dashwood’s, she hadn’t heard a carriage.
After carefully placing an embroidery thread within the pages of the book to mark her place, she set it down on the side table and stood to smooth her skirts. Not counting the arrival of her maid Anna, along with all her trunks and personal belongings from Pemberley, this was the first time anyone had paid a visit.
Lord Nathan entered the room and without preamble, advanced toward her taking both hands in his. He kissed her gently on the cheek, saying, “You look lovely as always, Georgiana. Caroline sends her love and regrets that she could not attend with me.”
She looked toward the door and caught the butler’s attention when Lord Nathan released her hands. “Please have Cook send up a tray of tea and biscuits.”
“Right away, Ma’am.” Chapman replied.
“Ask if she has any pear tarts,” Nathan interjected, a happy grin creasing his face. “I absolutely love Dawson’s pear tarts.”
“I shall see if she has any, Master Nathan,” Chapman said with a slight smile before bowing out of the room.
“Please, have a seat Lord Nathan.” She sat and settled her skirts around her legs. “I didn’t hear your carriage.”
“That is because I arrived by horseback. Also, now that you are my sister, you must call me Nathan. How did you get that bruise on your forehead?”
“This?” Georgiana touched the small wound which had almost faded completely. “Tis nothing but the result of a small fall.” She had no desire to inform him how a tenant had pushed by her in anger during one of her visits with Mr. Mason. The steward had apologized profusely, as had the tenant.
Nathan sat directly across from her and took note of the book on the side table. “I see you are reading Sense & Sensibility. Caroline and Catherine are as well.”
“Are they? I shall have to correspond with them and find out what they think of the dastardly Mrs. John Dashwood.”
“That’s partly why I’m here.”
“You wished to discuss Mrs. John Dashwood?”
“No.” He chuckled softly. “Caroline has not heard from her dear friend, the Duchess of Adborough in ages – her words, not mine – and I was tasked to find out if you are vexed with her for some reason.”
“I am not.” She hesitated, unsure of how to explain her circumstances without putting herself into a bad light. “I’ve been busy settling in, becoming familiar with Adborough Hall.”
“I’m sure Maxwell has been as proud as a peacock, showing you all the rooms and taking you on a tour of the grounds. That would explain why we haven’t heard from him either.”
“I… that is to say… his Grace is not here.”
Her bottom lip trembled and she fought to keep her tears at bay. She would not cry in front of him, she just wouldn’t. Max would never forgive her. She turned her face to the window, willing her emotions into a semblance of calm.
“May I ask where, exactly, my brother is? I’m assuming, given your unhappiness, he is not within the vicinity of Adborough Hall,” Nathan asked, his voice deceptively calm.
“No, he is not.” She took a deep breath and faced him. “He is in London.”
“And when did he leave for London?”
“The evening we arrived.”
“The same day−!” Nathan stood and marched to the drawing room door. “Chapman!” he called out. Within seconds the butler appeared.
“Yes, my Lord?”
“Do you have any clear idea why my brother has abandoned his wife?”
“I am not at liberty to speak about this matter, my Lord.”
“Not at liberty to speak about this matter with anyone, or just Lady Maxwell Kerr?”
“Lady Maxwell Kerr, my Lord.”
“Nathan, please.” Georgiana stood, twisting her fingers in agitation. “Do not blame Mr. Chapman. I’m sure he is only following His Grace’s instructions. He said as much in his letter to me.”
“His letter?” Nathan whipped around. “I would very much like to see this letter and while you are fetching it, I will have a talk with Mr. Chapman.”
“I don’t…” she began. Nathan leveled a ‘do not prevaricate with me’ look at her. “Very well.”
She eased by the two men, noticing how uncomfortable Mr. Chapman seemed to be and also how he avoided looking directly at her. She regretted mentioning Max’s letter and wished she’d consigned the hateful thing to the fire, but she hadn’t and now Nathan would know her shame.
Upon entering her suite of rooms, she opened her desk and found the letter nestled in the pages of her Bible. Other than putting her thoughts on paper, reading the Book of Psalms had become her other source of comfort. She took great solace in the assurance that if God would protect King David in his time of trouble, He’d look after her in her time of sorrow.
She returned to the drawing room in time to see Mr. Chapman and Mrs. Howell both exiting. At seeing her, they stopped and waited respectfully for her to pass by. Lord Nathan stood by the fireplace, staring into the flames, his back to her. At the sound of her skirts rustling, he turned around, anger etched into every crevice of his face. Without a word, he held out his hand and she placed the letter in it.
As he read the short missive, a vein began to pulse at his temple and his lips thinned to an angry, straight line. In all the years she’d known Lord Nathan, she’d never seen him furious and hoped to high heaven she never would again. Finally, with exaggerated care, he folded the letter and handed it back to her.
“I must take my leave.” He spoke as though he chose his words carefully. “Please know I am appalled by my brother’s behavior and hold you in the highest regard. Given my discussion with Mr. Chapman and Mrs. Howell my brother has a lot of explaining.”
“Will you not stay to dinner? I’d hate to see you leave so soon.”
“If I wish to make London by tomorrow night, I must leave now.” Lord Nathan gave her a brotherly hug. “I shall check on you again, Georgiana. You are not alone in this any more.”
Before she could mount a protest, or beg him to take her with him, he’d left the room and shortly after she heard his horse thunder down the graveled drive. His hug was the first real human contact she’d had since arriving at Adborough Hall.
~~~~~
“I’ll let myself in, Jenkins. Don’t bother with tea, I’m not staying long.”
Max rose to his feet, a ready smile in place for his brother, but when Nathan flung open the door and glared at him, he clamped his lips tight.
“Who do you think you are?” Nathan punctuated each word with a step forward into the room until he stood directly in front of Max, his hands clenching and unclenching. “You dare to chastise me or George for our previous behavior when you are the worst of us all.”
“I have no idea what you are going on about.”
Max took a careful step back and moved toward the fireplace. Nathan had a quick temper and an equally quick fist and he had no desire to experience either of them.
&
nbsp; “Georgiana.”
Max shoulders straightened and all his muscles tightened in response to her name.
“What about… her?” He couldn’t bring himself to say her name or call her his wife.
“Her? You refer to your bride as ‘her’?”
“Very well, what about my wife?” Bile rose in his throat at that word which by all accounts should signify a loving partner in a loving marriage. Neither of which he enjoyed.
“Are you sure she’s your wife? You’ve treated her worse than a harlot. You abandoned her at Adborough Hall, creating a scurrilous rumor that she may be pregnant by another man and ordered your staff to keep a watchful eye on her belly to see if it grows with child. You have subjected her to an embarrassing scrutiny for reasons she has no knowledge of.”
Nathan’s words brought on a swell of resentment in his chest.
“Be careful what you say, brother. You have no right to barge in here—”
“No right? I have no right to tell you that a loving Christian husband honors his wife? That he lays down his life for her as Christ laid down His for us? As your brother and a former vicar of the Church of England, I have no right to tell you to remove the beam from your eye before you attempt to remove logs from another’s?”
“No, you do not.” Max clasped his hands behind his back and held his gaze steady. Nathan had no idea what he’d gone through after his marriage to Georgiana. How his heart had been ripped apart at the thought of her being intimate with not one man, but two.
“Your wife sits alone in a large, unfamiliar house with no one to take care of her. She wouldn’t tell me how her face became bruised−”
“Her face? What happened?” Max’s heart lurched at the thought of Georgiana being injured.
“Now you show concern! If you were by your wife’s side, you’d know one of the tenants shoved her during one of her visits.”
“My staff said nothing of this.”
“Maybe they are taking their lead from you and think your wife is not worthy of any show of warmth, or compassion.” Nathan jeered. “At my insistence, Chapman divulged what had occurred. Thankfully, she required no stitches.” Nathan paced to the window and back. “What is going on in your mind? I cannot, for the life of me, fathom a reason for you to behave in this manner?”
“You have no idea what I’ve endured in all of this, of what I know.”
“What you’ve endured?” Nathan scoffed; his voice filled with contempt.
“I’m not her first lover.”
There he’d said it. Voiced the very words that twisted his gut night after night.
“Do you know this for an absolute fact?”
“Yes. Slade was not her first compromise, there was another.”
“Did you think to speak to your wife about this information, seeing as it concerns her?”
“I could not. It was like Constance Templeton all over again seeking an idiot to believe another man’s bastard was his own child.”
“My god! This is what you think of Georgiana. A girl you’ve known from infancy?” Nathan stepped away from him and moved to the front of the desk. “For your information, your wife in not enceinte.”
The tight band around his chest lessened at the news. Upon seeing the relief etched across his face, Nathan spat out. “May God have mercy on you, Maxwell, because at this very moment I have none. My heart is filled with sorrow. Caroline and I will pray for you. It’s all that we can do, but until you reconcile with your wife and beg her forgiveness, you are not welcome at Moreland Park.”
With those words, Nathan left the room, closing the door behind him with a quiet click. Max almost wished he’d slammed the door because then he could justify to himself that his brother had acted irrationally.
~~~~~
Three days later…Pemberley
The clock had finished marking the ninth hour and the scratching of a quill was the only sound in Darcy’s study when his butler announced, “Lord Nathan Kerr, sir.”
Surprised, Darcy deposited the quill into the ink pot and stood. Before he could move around the desk to greet Nathan, his previous vicar entered the room, clearly agitated and clearly exhausted.
“Kerr, what brings you here this time of night?”
“I regret I have to inform you of something quite serious regarding Georgiana.”
“Sit down.” Darcy waved Nathan toward the chairs by the fireplace. “Carson, see if Cook can prepare some food as I’m sure Lord Nathan has not yet eaten this evening, and have Mrs. Reynolds prepare a room.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is this all about?” Darcy sat in one of the chairs. “What about Georgiana?”
“On my way to London, I stopped by Adborough Hall to pay my respects.” He leaned forward and with elbows on his knees, clasped his hands together. “Caroline had become worried because she’d not heard one word from neither Georgiana or Max.”
“They’ve been on their wedding trip. They were taking a tour through Scotland.” Darcy interjected.
“They did not go on any wedding trip.” Nathan sat fully back into his chair. “My brother took your sister, his wife, to Adborough Hall immediately following the wedding breakfast and then returned to London. Alone.”
“He what!” Darcy stood and began to pace. “Tell me everything.”
For the next half hour, Nathan proceeded to inform him how Georgiana has been alone at Adborough Hall. The more questions Darcy asked, the more enraged he became. He reached his boiling point when Nathan said, “Your sister has no knowledge the housekeeper and senior staff have been informed to see if she is increasing.”
“Georgiana’s pregnant already? Does your brother intend to return in time for the birth of his child?”
“No…” Nathan hesitated ever so slightly. “They are to ascertain if she was increasing with Sir Reginald Slade’s child.”
“Slade’s child!” Darcy clenched his hand, wishing he could strike out at the man whom he trusted with his sister’s well being. “He thinks Georgian was violated by that snake in the grass?”
“He knows this is not the first time Georgiana has been compromised and therefore is unsure if she’s a maiden, or if she willingly went with Slade.”
“That son of a… Forgive me, Kerr. I hold your mother in the highest esteem and lost my head for a moment.”
“Darcy, this is none of my business, but I must ask and you can be assured your answer will never leave my lips, not even to my wife. Is Max wrong in the assessment this was not her first compromise?”
“No.” Darcy flung himself into his vacated chair and dragged a hand through his hair. “God help me, I wish I could say otherwise.” He straightened. “She was not yet fifteen and staying at Ramsgate with her new governess. George Wickham was there as well and convinced her they were in love. A few days before they were to elope, I arrived at Ramsgate. Needless to say, the affair was cut short before anything happened. Later, my cousin Richard and I discovered the governess was in league with Wickham to swindle my sister out of her dowry. Georgiana was devastated. Wickham was someone she trusted, having known him from the time she was but a child.”
“Poor girl.”
“It was a difficult period for us all. But, how did your brother find out about all this. The only person I’ve ever told is Elizabeth and she would never divulge Georgiana’s secret.”
“I do not know. My conversation with Maxwell didn’t progress that far. He’s quite convinced that he is the injured party in all of this. None of us knew he was in London, he’s obviously trying to keep all of this quiet, which could be an advantage to Georgiana.”
“How so?”
“When they return to Society, no one will know what has transpired these past few months. The staff at Adborough Hall are loyal and will not gossip.”
“I, for one, don’t give a rat’s ass if they gossip.” Darcy rose to his feet, determined to bring Georgiana home to Pemberley. “Richard arrives tomorrow and will accompany me to Adborough H
all. We will bring Georgiana home.”
“If Max digs his heels in, you could be in for quite the fight. He may demand his rights as a husband to have her returned. The House of Lords very likely will fall in his favor and your uncle, Lord Matlock may be squeezed in the middle.”
Darcy leaned forward in his chair and held Lord Nathan’s gaze. With deadly sincerity he said, “Your brother, if he chooses to put up a fight, will find that my pockets are deep and I have no interest in politics. He can rant and rave all he wants. My sister shall divorce him and that will be the end of it. She need never marry so it does not matter if there is a scandal.”
“Darcy, before you become my brother’s judge and executioner, I’d err on the side of caution. Georgiana may not need to marry again, but she may want to marry again, or stay married. Need I remind you how much she loves Maxwell? She has a right to make her own choice this time around, seeing as she didn’t have one before.”
“I forgot what a persuasive man you are Kerr. However, I am still taking Richard to Adborough Hall and we will ‘discuss’ what transpires next, but I cannot guarantee that I won’t push to have her return to Pemberley where she is loved beyond reason.”
Chapter Twelve
“Georgiana!”
At the sound of her brother’s voice, Georgiana dropped the quill onto her journal, leapt to her feet and began running as fast as she could down the long hall from her suite of rooms. She practically flew down the stairs and met him at the bottom. He stood, his arms wide, and she fell into them. For so many months she’d been alone, and scared. Fitzwilliam brought with him a sense of familiarity and love. Something she now realized she needed as much as food and air. She squeezed her arms tighter, not wanting to leave this cocoon of safety.
“Sister, I have need of air and if you squeeze any harder, I might collapse and then Richard will never let me forget this.”
“He’s right, Georgiana. Although I’m feeling rather lonely over here with no hug.”
Reluctantly, she stepped out of her brother’s embrace and acknowledged her cousin with a smile. In her haste to greet her brother she hadn’t seen Richard standing slightly behind him.
