Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
A blush burned Caroline’s cheeks. Whatever she’d thought Georgiana might say, it hadn’t been that.
Miss Darcy’s eyes were bright and wide; the fear in them had not dissipated, but she continued regardless. “I appreciate your
beauty in more than mere words, Caroline,” she continued, her voice barely above a whisper. “I may not always say exactly
what pleases you, but rest assured, I am more than aware of your full magnificence.”
Caroline really was blushing now, the heat rising to the roots of her hair. She must look as red as a tomato, though Georgiana
did not seem to notice or care. “Magnificence is quite an unusual word,” she said, her voice sounding slightly strangled.
“I think it is accurate in this instance. There, am I forgiven?”
Caroline looked around, putting on a faux frown. “Do you think it possible that you left your drawing journal upstairs, Miss
Darcy? Perhaps in your bedchamber?”
Georgiana glanced at the small table to her left, where the drawing journal lay in full sight. “Yes,” she said, trying and failing to repress a smile. “I believe that I did. Will you assist me in finding it, Miss Bingley?”
“Of course I will. One can never be too careful over the placement of precious items.”
Georgiana squeezed her hand, before letting it fall. “For once, I quite agree.”
After dinner that evening, Georgiana poured them each a sherry in the library, but held Caroline’s slightly out of reach,
smiling. “Are you still afraid that you will develop sad liver?”
She considered this with all the care such a sensible question required. “I think it prudent to always be worried about what
the future holds for one’s internal organs.”
Georgiana snorted and passed the glass over, lingering long enough to brush Caroline’s fingers. Despite the fact that they’d
spent almost two hours in bed that afternoon, the graze sent flames licking along Caroline’s arm and into her chest. The blaze
of desire was familiar by now, but the contentment which smouldered underneath was new; it made her want to curl up on Georgiana’s
lap like a cat and mewl for attention.
“I never asked whether it was possible to get sad womb,” Miss Darcy mused.
“I used to think so.” Caroline waited until Georgiana had taken a large gulp of sherry. “Though my womb feels exceedingly
happy these days.”
Georgiana choked on her mouthful. “You did that on purpose,” she accused, when she was finally able to speak again.
“Of course I did. I live only to tease you, Miss Darcy.”
“That is odd,” Georgiana purred, leaning over to kiss her, “for I rather recall it being the other way around earlier.”
Caroline hummed her approval of the kiss, which was short and sweet and promised more to come later. “If we only had a little
music, this scene would be perfect,” she said, tracing the rim of her glass. It was true—the library was as cosy as ever,
the candles dotted around the room each giving off a gentle kiss of light, the scent of Georgiana’s rose perfume beckoning
her closer.
“You shall have music enough tomorrow at this damned Percy ball,” Miss Darcy grumbled. Glancing at Caroline, her expression
relented. “Though I could play something for you now, if you so desired?”
Caroline shook her head, then put her sherry down and tugged Georgiana closer, putting one hand on her waist and sliding the
other up Georgiana’s wrist to take her hand as she had so often seen men do when leading. “I wish we could dance together.
Not even at a ball, for I know such a thing would never be possible, but simply here, at home.”
Georgiana swayed into Caroline, moving to some unseen music. “My cousin Eleanor shares our proclivities and is talented enough
on the pianoforte. I am sure I could persuade her to accompany our dance with a tune or two.”
For a moment, Caroline let herself picture such a scene; some years from now, perhaps, she and Georgiana a little older, dancing
cheek to cheek in candlelight. The image gave her a new boldness. If she could not speak her truth now, while she was so full
of love and longing that she felt that she might spill over, then when could she?
“Georgie, I think I—” She took a deep breath and pulled back just far enough to see her lover’s face. “I might be developing . . . feelings.”
She had braced herself for all kinds of emotions—outrage, panic, fear—but never could she have predicted Georgiana’s sudden
burst of laughter. “Feelings?” Miss Darcy said, grinning. “You? Surely not, Miss Bingley.”
Hurt lanced across Caroline’s chest, as jagged and agonising as a lightning bolt, and the thunder of anger came rumbling swiftly
afterwards. Instinctively, she took a step back, her hands falling to her sides. “You have found me out.” She forced a chuckle.
“I know how much you like my jests.”
Georgiana stared down at her. “Wait a moment. Do you really—”
She could admit that she had been serious. She could still admit all that she felt. But the words and the laughter—oh, God,
the laughter—had cut her to the very bone. What the devil was wrong with her, that she should simper and swoon and fall about
so, all for a woman who chuckled at the very thought that Caroline might have a single feeling? Did Georgiana still, after
all this, think her so shallow that—
I thought you saw me truly, she thought desperately. As I saw you.
She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t breathe. “I have never been able to lie very well, as you know.” To hell with it, she thought. It will come out sooner or later, and it might as well be now. “The truth is that I’m in love with you.”
“Caroline,” Georgiana said, her expression passing through a multitude of feelings and shades, finally landing somewhere between
awestruck and stricken.
“I don’t expect anything from you. I want everything, of course, but I don’t expect it.
” Now that the words had begun tumbling out, she couldn’t seem to stop.
The floor felt as if it were tilting underneath her, and she reached out, clamping a sweaty palm onto the arm of the couch.
“I know you were hurt before, and I would never do that to you again. I know I am unsuitable as a match. I understand how unconventional this is. But I do love you, Georgie. Truly, I do. I cannot get over my feelings for you, nor do I wish to. I want to build a life together.”
Georgiana stared, her face so pale that she looked on the verge of fainting. “You . . . you said you didn’t think you could
fall in love.”
“You were the one who told me that I could, that I was surely capable of it. And you were right.”
“Wait a moment. Did you not tell me once that there was . . . Let me see if I remember correctly . . . ‘Not a man in the world
who could elicit such feelings in me that would compel me to give up everything I have in order to love him’?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you aren’t a man. If you were, I would have married you already.” Dread and desperation
prompted her to ask, “Don’t you love me back, Georgie?”
Miss Darcy still hadn’t moved. “We could not possibly have a life together, Caroline. We would endure immense scrutiny. Two
unmarried young women, refusing all offers of marriage. Spending all their time together.” She swallowed. “Even if we were
exceedingly careful, there would be talk eventually. Rumours which we could never quash.”
She hadn’t yet answered the question; Caroline clung to that fact like a drowning man. “We’d weather them.”
“Did I not tell you that we could only begin this if it went no further? And now you ask this of me!” Georgiana cried. “Don’t
you care what people think?”
“Of course I care. We must all care what others think of us. We must all think of our reputations. But I”—she gestured between them, helplessly, to properly convey the depth of her feelings—“I love you. That is the simple fact of the matter. You were once prepared to give it all up for someone else, were you not? Reputation, fortune, your good name. And that relationship would have been out in the open. I am asking for far less in the shadows.” It was a low blow to bring up Wickham, she knew, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Should anyone find out about us, society at large would give us the cut,” Georgiana said, her voice trembling. “Not one person,
Caroline, but everyone. Or as damn near to it as would matter.”
“Even so, I do not care. I cannot care, when my feelings for you take up my entire being.”
“The old you would have thought that an intolerable hell.”
“I am no longer the person I was. I was selfish and unkind before, whereas now I wish to consider the feelings of other people.
I was vain, but my beauty was a shallow one, not backed up by a sweet or generous soul. Once, I spoke without consequence,
and now I am able to consider the weight of my words. You are responsible for that alteration, Georgie, and I thank you for
it.” She took a deep breath. “But you have also opened my eyes to something more. I shall ask you one last time. Don’t you
love me?”
“Regardless of my own . . . of anything I personally . . .” Georgiana said, unable to meet Caroline’s eyes. “I will not disappoint
my brother again. Forgive me. I cannot do what you ask of me. I cannot live like that.”
Agony pierced Caroline’s chest as cleanly and deftly as an arrow to the heart. “Very well,” said she. “Then the matter is
finished, is it not?”
Before Georgiana could say anything more, Caroline swept from the library, holding her battered dignity together until she could collapse in the privacy of the guest room.
Each sob felt as if it were a page torn from the book of her soul, and she wept until she could weep no longer.
She had once told Georgiana that she would beg, but that had been different; she’d been flirting then, driven by the desires of her body, not her heart.
Caroline pressed a hand over the place in her chest which ached as if it had been scooped out.
She stood up, her resolve to accept the end of their relationship ebbing away.
You cannot give in, she told herself, even while her feet took her back to the door and her fingers turned the handle. You cannot go to her. Love cannot be begged, and doing so will only end in disaster.
She closed her eyes, summoning strength even as she slipped into the hallway. Whispers echoed up from below, halting Caroline
in her tracks.
“—heaven’s sake, ma’am,” Mrs Reynolds was saying, “you’ll lose the lady entirely if you do not—”
“Then so be it,” Georgiana hissed, her voice rougher and more pained than Caroline had ever heard it before.
“Miss Darcy!” the housekeeper exclaimed, as Caroline edged forward. She still could not see either speaker, but she dared
not miss a single word. “I am all astonishment! I cannot stand idly by while you make yourself so unhappy.”
“I refuse to ruin someone else’s life, Mrs Reynolds!” Georgiana exclaimed. “I did that once before and I ruined my own in
the process of— No, never again. Do not speak of it. Consider the subject forever closed.”
The next sound Caroline heard was a slammed door.
She shrank back into the shadows, though she was in no danger of being seen.
The truth ought to have soothed her, but instead, the sting ached and spread until it filled her entire body.
This was the worst sort of victory, hollow and meaningless; Georgiana might be in love, but she wouldn’t commit herself, and the latter fact erased all the joy of the former in an instant.