Whoever Lives in Love (Happiness in Marriage #5)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

“ W e are married!” Georgiana cried joyfully. She looked at the man standing next to her, her expression full of unmistakable affection. The man’s—the devil’s—arm was draped across her shoulders, his lips twisted into a self-satisfied smirk.

Darcy gaped at his sister, blood rushing through his body so loudly he only faintly heard what his companions were saying. I must be asleep, having a horrifying dream. But he knew he was not; what he had feared these last days had come true.

He struggled to pull himself back to what was taking place around him. It was October 14, 1811, and he was in the drawing room at Netherfield with his beloved Elizabeth, her elder sister, and Bingley.

And staring at his sister and George Wickham. While Darcy had been at Pemberley, believing she was safely at Rosings with their aunt, Lady Catherine, somehow Wickham had convinced Georgiana—against reason, against all she must know to be right—to leave her family and go to Scotland.

Georgiana regarded him, her smile fading. “Brother? Are you not happy for me?”

“It is a surprise. That is all,” he heard Elizabeth say, and the false pleasure in her tone was evident to him. “Come, sit down, and tell us how this came about. I-I suppose you ought to introduce…”

Her voice faltered, but her meaning was clear enough; Georgiana presented Wickham, and the Miss Bennets greeted him politely. Bingley had met him before, and there was little warmth in his tone as he welcomed the newly arrived couple to his home.

Darcy continued to listen, desperate to heed Elizabeth’s recent advice to approach his sister and Wickham with extreme caution when— if —they made an appearance.

My fifteen-year-old sister has married the most worthless man in England.

How could anything ever be right in his world again?