by Pamela Aidan
“Is, ah, is something the matter?” Darcy’s brain did not seem to be working at all properly.
“Breakfast” was her simple reply. The revelation of her purpose for appearing in his chambers was no less surprising than her actual presence there. He had known she would not receive the news with anything less than disappointment. Evidently, she had received it with a great deal more and had bravely determined to beard the recalcitrant lion in his den. Darcy passed a hand over his freshly shorn cheeks as he took in her straight, dignified carriage, yet softly tender eyes. Quite suddenly, he was put in mind of their mother. So be it, he sighed to himself. How could he refuse in the face of such a revealing glimpse at the woman that his sister was becoming?
“I shall be pleased to join you as soon as I am dressed,” he conceded. “Tell the servants to lay my place.”
“I would prefer to breakfast with you here, please…in your chambers.” She was clearly pressing the advantage of his surprise. Her voice had trembled a bit but had, in the end, held firm. Even so, she was not finished. “I have already instructed that both our breakfasts be brought up.”
“Indeed?” Darcy looked upon his sister with new appreciation. She was becoming something more than what she had been. Was this further evidence of Dy’s influence or proof of his contention that she was a girl no longer? If he was to discover which, Darcy would have to submit to her arrangements. He inclined his head in formal acquiescence to her wishes. “Then I shall be pleased to join you even sooner, as I am dressed.”
Her smile was a delight. “Thank you, Fitzwilliam.” She curtsied, and after glancing curiously once more at Fletcher, whose dazed attention had not abated during the entirety of the interview, she departed his dressing room, closing the door behind her. For a full minute, neither Darcy nor Fletcher moved or spoke, both of them caught up in a contemplation of the closed door.
Finally, Darcy cleared his throat. “Well, it appears that we have received our orders, Fletcher.”
Now properly attired, Darcy hesitantly emerged from behind his dressing room door. He had, throughout his valet’s ministrations, been occupied exclusively with the thought of what he would find on the other side of the door. As interesting as was this new confidence Georgiana exhibited, it did not bode well for his desire to tend to his wounds in private. She would want an accounting for his behavior. How would she approach the matter, he wondered, and how would he avoid it?
Georgiana stood behind one of two chairs drawn up to the small gateleg table, now opened to its fullest extent and laden with covered dishes. Even covered, the savory aromas of the viands tucked beneath were seeping into every corner of the room. Against his will, Darcy’s stomach growled.
“Oh, good, you are hungry then!” his sister greeted him. She signaled the servants to uncover the dishes, and as Darcy seated her, they bore the covers out the door.
They were alone. Darcy took his seat opposite and drew it up to the table, while casting her an uncertain smile. This was all so very strange; he felt off balance. He looked down at the dishes. The most tempting of choices lay before him, and really, the smells wafting up from them were entirely irresistible. The knot that had been his stomach relaxed somewhat as he reached for a plate. Georgiana’s smile widened as he filled it, but she said nothing about his awakened appetite, merely setting about her own meal with a precise grace. Stiff with caution, the muscles in Darcy’s back gradually released. Perhaps she would be satisfied with the return of his appetite and desire no more of him for the present.
“Fitzwilliam?” Her address, with its implied question, came when he had finished pouring his first cup of coffee. “Must we have a formal unveiling of my portrait?”
Prepared for a question in quite another vein, Darcy looked at his sister with surprise. “You do not wish it?”
“No, I do not,” she replied diffidently. “It is not that I dislike the portrait; it is very nice. It is just that…” She stopped. Seeing that she was searching for the right words, Darcy held his peace and lifted his cup to his lips. Was she retreating into shyness again? It was expected that a young lady on the verge of coming out had her portrait painted. The Unveiling was the first step in that vital process. She began again. “How did you feel when your portrait was painted?”
She referred, of course, to the one hanging in Pemberley’s gallery, painted upon his twenty-first birthday. He recalled feeling mightily embarrassed by it, and to this day, he avoided looking at it when he traversed the hall. He much preferred to gaze upon his forebears’ faces, particularly that of their father, painted at the same age, and one of both their parents painted when he was ten.
“I remember disliking the attention and fuss and thinking that the fellow in the painting could not possibly be me,” he admitted.
“Yes!” Georgiana leaned toward him eagerly. “How not you?”
“Oh, older, I suppose, better. Certainly wiser than I could claim at the time.” Or even now, Darcy thought ruefully.
“The ideal of you, rather than the you that you knew yourself to be,” she supplied him, then smiled. ‘’Although, I have always thought your portrait captured you exactly.”
Darcy accepted her compliment with a bow of his head. “The proper perspective for a younger sister to take, to be sure.” He smiled back. “But how is this to the purpose? It is expected that it will be unveiled. Lawrence would have reason to take offense if it were not. He would consider it a commentary upon his skill.” He could see from the look upon her face that the last troubled her. “It need not be a grand affair. Only family and close friends,” he offered. “It is a perfectly lovely portrait, Georgiana.”
At his description, her eyes fell; but when she raised them he saw a serenity in them but a serenity not untouched by the world. “Yes, ‘perfectly’ lovely.” She leaned closer still and reached for him, her fingers lightly grazing the top of his hand. “Fitzwilliam, it is not I! I am not that ‘perfectly lovely’ girl in the painting, and I have no wish to take part in the deception, to stand beside it and pretend that everything it depicts is true.”
“Would you have Lawrence add some spots, a wart or two, perhaps?” he teased, but in truth, he was uneasy, confounded by her reticence. “Georgiana, there is nothing amiss with your portrait!”
“Nothing but honesty about who I truly am.” She sat back in her chair and breathed a sigh. “Fitzwilliam, when you first saw your own portrait, the idealized you, what else did you feel? What did you think?”
Closing his eyes briefly against her intense scrutiny, Darcy breathed out heavily as he flexed his jaw. What did she want from him? The truth, he heard the answer clearly, only the truth.
He opened his eyes again and answered, “I hoped to God that one day I would be the man in the painting — better, wiser — that I would not be a disappointment to my station, my name,…or myself,” he added as he turned his gaze from her searching one. But he had disappointed himself. Norwycke had shown him the dark depths in his heart he had been unable to remedy. He continued, but he could feel his confidence fading. “That I would…in every way…truly be the gentleman…” He stopped, choking at the one word Elizabeth had flung at him that had, during their interview, most made him flinch.
Rising abruptly from his chair, he left the table; but there seemed no place to go, no place to escape what was now become the damning truth. Even were it true that he played the gentleman in all other venues of his life, he had utterly failed in the eyes of the one he most desired to believe him admirable. If he had been found so severely wanting in Elizabeth’s small world, did he even know himself ? Sylvanie’s taunts took on new meaning. Had she recognized this in him and played upon it? With that revelation came the suspicion of the truth of Elizabeth’s other epithets: arrogant, conceited, disdainful of the feelings of others. They had seemed to depict the character of a monstrosity that he had thought born of her anger, and he had summarily dismissed the whole as having any relation to himself. Yet had he not brooded angrily over
those words for days now, resentful of Elizabeth’s ungenerous attachment of them to him? Why had her words not caused him to hate her? For, despite all his anger and resentment, he literally ached with the loss of her. His stride had taken him to the window, and spreading his arms, he grasped either side of its frame and stared out against the sunlight pouring through it. Hate Elizabeth? How could he? How could he hate the woman he loved for demanding of him the man he had always desired to be?
The light pressure of a hand on his arm brought him back. He looked down into brimming eyes full of compassion as his sister gently pulled on his sleeve. Helpless to deny her, he bent and received the benediction of her kiss upon his cheek. “Dear Brother, tell me,” Georgiana whispered. “Tell me what happened at Rosings.”
At Georgiana’s plea, Darcy looked down into his sister’s face, his heart stilled in his chest, before he turned away to stare once more out his window. Georgiana’s loving appeal and gentle kiss pierced him to the quick, tempting him to lay before her all the crushing pain of Elizabeth’s determined rejection and the bitter knowledge of himself that he had gained from it; but there was in her eyes something that made his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth with a sudden, irascible stubbornness. Was it possible that she could understand his pain? Yes, he might grant that what she had experienced at Wickham’s hands had been similarly devastating before working such unexpected changes in her and bringing the singular sort of maturity she now exhibited. But while he continued grateful for the solace she had found in religion, he could not, in the cold economy of Heaven that was his own experience, find anything, not even the compassionate solicitude in Georgiana’s eyes, to draw him in that direction. It had always made him uncomfortable, and now, in all he had lately undergone at the behest of Providence, he was become decidedly inured against it.
“Fitzwilliam?” The catch in Georgiana’s voice warned him that his demeanor had betrayed something of what had passed within him. Whatever that had been, and he could not put a name to it as yet, he knew it was not something for her tender sensibilities. Working to settle his features into softer lines, he turned back to her, grabbed for her hand, and brought it up to his lips.
“It was nothing, sweetling. You must not worry.” He stroked her hand with his thumb but could not look into her eyes. Suddenly, his room, indeed all of Erewile House, felt oppressive and confining. He must get out, it was impressed upon him, or suffocate! He released Georgiana’s hand. “I thank you for breakfast and your company, but I must leave you now.” He walked quickly to the bell pull and gave it a quick tug.
“Leave?” Georgiana’s brows slanted down in puzzlement. “Where must you go?”
“Out, my dear,” Darcy returned almost curtly. The urgency to escape from his sister’s keen observation felt like an intolerable weight hung large within his chest.
“B-but…we have not finished discussing the Unveiling,” she stammered, her eyes pleading with him to remain.
“The Unveiling,” he repeated absently, unwilling to meet her gaze. “I believe it cannot be avoided.”
“Fitzwilliam, please —” she remonstrated, but he cut her off.
“You must reconcile yourself, Georgiana, and proceed in the expected manner with as good grace as you can. I will grant you that the guest list may be pared down to only family and our closest friends, but the Unveiling must proceed.” He dared then to glance at her, but he saw with relief that she had turned away from him. A click at the dressing room door claimed his attention.
“Mr. Darcy, sir?” The formality of Fletcher’s bow revealed that he had not, as yet, accustomed himself to the fact of Miss Darcy’s unusual presence in the master’s rooms.
“My coat, Fletcher. I am going out.”
“Out, sir? But where, sir?” the valet asked, puzzled at the stark order. “Do you require your walking coat, your driving —”
“Out!” Darcy repeated, his irritation growing as he cast about for a destination that would satisfy both his inquisitors and his own requirement for relief. The solution came to him with sudden clarity. “Out — fencing!”
“Very good, sir.” Fletcher bowed low again, but his delicacy was for naught; for, despite its softness, the sound of the bedchamber door closing behind Miss Darcy’s skirts echoed clearly through the room.
“Yes.” Darcy looked about him approvingly before beginning his warming exercises. He had made the right choice. The atmosphere of the fencing rooms was just what he required to exorcise the demons of mind and the cramp of his body that had plagued him since That Day. He threw back his shoulders and began tracing the slow arcs and easing into stretches that would loosen the muscles in his back, arms, and limbs, readying them for the demands which he would soon place upon them. It had been rather a long time since he had held sword or foil, and though the weight felt good in his hand and the urge to immediate action was great, he knew it behooved him to commence his reacquaintance slowly. Yes, this was exactly what he needed. No one here would think of demanding of him anything more than common decency, fair play, and style in his swordsmanship. Of those, he was quite as capable as any gentleman and more so; for the first two lay in his blood and, as to the last, he knew his swordplay was generally considered both powerful and elegant.
From the corner of his eye, Darcy spied Genuardi, the fencing master, who acknowledged his presence with a salute and a bow. Pausing in his regime, he returned the courtesy, ignoring the wistful or jealous glances cast him by lesser blades who dreamed of such attention, and then returned to his study. The blood in his veins began to flow faster; his sinews and muscles warmed. The stiffness fell away from his limbs. His movements increased in their speed and fluidity until, finally, he felt that rush of power, of such control over his body that he knew it would do all he asked of it. God, it felt good! He slowed his movements, his heart pounding only moderately, then stopped to wipe the sheen of perspiration from his brow and survey the room for an opponent. He heard the step behind him only a second before feeling the tap on his shoulder.
“Darcy, old man! Where have you been?” Surprised at the voice, Darcy pivoted to face Lord Tristram Monmouth, who gestured carelessly with his foil. “Care for a go?” Tris’s brow lifted lazily, but there was in his old university roommate’s manner a certain nervous tension for which Darcy could not account. That Monmouth was here at all was strange enough. He could not remember seeing him in the fencing rooms any time over the last two years. Perhaps his wife, Lady Sylvanie, had lost her fascination.
“Monmouth,” Darcy returned, nodding his assent, and walked away to claim a position on the floor. Tension was good. It made one’s opponent too careful or too reckless, and either could be used to advantage. Centering his feet upon the mark, Darcy looked up to observe his challenger and decided that, in Monmouth’s case, it would be too reckless. Why, he could not assay, for Tris’s “En garde!” had already sounded loud in his ears. They met. Within seconds, Darcy knew he had been right. Tris’s swordsmanship in their university days had been admirable, but he had not, evidently, advanced his form much beyond that.
Their engagement was not a long one, its duration more a result of his permission than of Tris’s skill, but in the course of it, he found himself, not once but twice, forced to block an illegal thrust. The first he put down to the heat of the moment; the second time, he was not so certain and quickly put an end to their play, scoring his touchés in the remaining bouts with precision and speed. Stunned by Monmouth’s actions, he searched his face as they exchanged the formal ending salute, but Tris only smiled back at him, seemingly unaware that anything untoward had occurred. Was it possible he had just been carried away or, perhaps, forgotten proper form over the years?
Still smiling, his old mate advanced upon him, his hand outstretched. “Better than university days! Damn me, Darcy, if you are not!”
“I have kept at it.” He grasped Monmouth’s hand briefly.
“In a word!” Monmouth snorted. “After your demonstration at Say �
�—, the last time we met, Manning wagered that you could take any or all of the rest of us in under ten minutes. Well, old man, you know how I cannot resist a sporting wager!”
“I hope that I have not done you significant harm,” Darcy offered, relieved to have an explanation for Monmouth’s actions.
“No, no! I am in good funds, thanks to My Lady.” He winked at him. “Who, by the by, would be very pleased if you would accept her invitation sent you this week to dine with us and a select number of friends.” Monmouth paused for Darcy’s reply but must have sensed the polite decline that hovered on his lips, for he then continued hurriedly, “I can promise you an interesting evening, Darcy, not the usual set at all. ‘Tell him he will not be bored or hunted!’ she said, and I swear, ’struth! Sylvanie likes fascinating people around her: artists, thinkers, writers — deep uns like you. Allow me to convey My Lady your acceptance, there’s a good fellow!”
“Acceptance! What are you accepting now, ‘good fellow’ Darcy?” Both men looked up in surprise to see Lord Brougham propped against one of the pillars that marched along that side of the room. Monmouth stiffened visibly at the voice, but when he saw that it was only Brougham, Darcy could sense the relief that swept through him. His own surprise remained at the fore. He had never seen Dy in Genuardi’s fencing rooms or heard of his membership in any other. What could have tempted him today? Or could Georgiana have sent him?
“An invitation to dine with a collection of jaw-me-deads. Nothing in your line of interest, Brougham, I assure you,” Monmouth drawled as his gaze traveled pointedly over His Lordship’s elegant, unruffled figure. “No gaming — well, there’s a pity — only a little music and a great deal of conversation. Philosophy and politics, that sort of thing.”
“Brougham,” Darcy interrupted, stepping toward his friend, “Georgiana?”
