Chapter Thirty
Miss Emily chattered about Teddy’s book all the way home, and by the time Caroline returned to Pemberley, her own mind was
still so full of inventions and names from history that it took her a moment to register who had opened the front door. Not
Mrs Reynolds, but Georgiana, who stared down at her with a scowl more stormy than Caroline had ever seen before.
“How was your outing?” Georgiana asked. Her voice was steady, though the hand which held her cup of tea quivered slightly.
“Excellent.” Caroline swept past her, taking off her gloves and hat with over-exaggerated care. “We had a delicious spread,
and I think Miss Chester may soon be married to Lord Ashbrook’s nephew. They are very like-minded young people.” The silence
lengthened. “The viscount was a very attentive host,” she added, when it became clear that Miss Darcy did not intend to ask
any follow-up questions.
“I am glad that he amused you,” Georgiana said stiffly.
“Indeed, he did. I was most . . . entertained, all afternoon.” It was a sly comment, to be sure, but it gave her a feeling
of satisfaction to see a look of consternation cross Georgiana’s face. Why should I be the only one to suffer here?
Down went the cup, clattering onto the side table in a manner guaranteed to spill, and here Georgiana came across the room, striding as if going into battle. “You,” she breathed, pinning Caroline to the wall, eyes seething with desire. “You were entertained by him, were you?”
Caroline was playing with fire, and she knew it, but Lord, how she needed to feel something burn. “Not nearly as entertained
as I could be right now,” she ventured.
This was no longer the heady passion that had once scalded Caroline so blissfully, nor was it the torrent of tenderness from
only a few days before. Now, Georgiana looked savage, as if she’d wrapped up whatever weakness she possessed in enough layers
to hide it fully from view.
“Upstairs,” Miss Darcy ordered. “Or I shall take you right here on the floor regardless of who sees.”
Caroline couldn’t help a whimper bubbling up. She had just enough sense to consider disobeying, and just enough hope left
to give in to the demand without argument. They didn’t even make it as far as the guest room before Georgiana pounced, pushing
Caroline hard against the wall, her hands and mouth desperate, drinking every kiss down as if she’d never get another.
Caroline fumbled for the door handle, missed it, and found it on the second try at the exact moment Georgiana’s teeth sank
into the flesh of her neck. Gasping, she flung open the door, and they stumbled into the room, still kissing, unable to take
their hands off each other for even a moment. She tore at Georgiana’s dress, not caring a whit if it required mending, and
Georgiana pushed her backwards onto the bed. Caroline landed with a thump, Miss Darcy on top of her an instant later, hips
already rolling in a familiar motion.
“I need—” Caroline choked, everything inside her boiling up into a tangled mess of emotions and desire, “Georgie, I need—”
“Tell me,” Georgiana said, her breath coming in hot pants against Caroline’s neck. She pressed her face into the pillow, sounding
half-choked. A woman stretched as taut as a violin string, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. “Whatever you want.”
You, Caroline thought helplessly. Only give me yourself and I should be forever happy.
“Inside,” she panted, and before she could plead, Georgiana was there, exactly where Caroline needed her, sliding in with
delicious friction, filling her up with a sensation she could never get enough of, not if she lived a thousand years. When
she finished, shuddering, they stayed motionless for long seconds, and just when Caroline opened her mouth to utter a final
plea, Georgiana pushed her to the side and slid out of bed, grabbing her petticoat and wriggling into it.
Aghast, Caroline turned to stare at her. “You’re leaving? After we just—” All at once, the floodgates were open, the stream
of Caroline’s words building in her throat until she could no longer hold them back. She swung her legs out of bed and stood
up, completely naked and blazing with fury. “Absolutely not. I have held my tongue far too long, Georgiana Darcy. You must
let me speak before you dare leave me again.”
“I cannot believe you are shouting at me when you have not a stitch of clothing on. Only you would dare do something so utterly
ridiculous.” Georgiana paused in the act of picking up her dress from the floor. “And I have never known you to ask permission
to speak before.”
“I am not asking it now. I am ordering you to listen to me.”
“Then it seems I have no choice.” Miss Darcy straightened, glaring at Caroline. “Out with it, then. Make your declaration. When are you to marry Lord Ashbrook?”
“What?” Caroline stared, entirely thrown. “How did you—”
“Do not tell me that he did not propose to you today,” Georgiana snarled. “I heard rumours enough at the Percys’ ball that
the viscount came looking for a wife and had found himself a suitable bride indeed. Go on, then. Tell me.” Her hands were
trembling worse than ever. “Tell me what I already know.”
A Bingley does not run from battle like a coward, Caroline’s father had always said. A Bingley stands their ground and fights. True, this was an unusual sort of battle, but a battle it was, nonetheless.
“You once told me that some people put themselves in discomfort for the sake of others whom they love,” she retorted. Miss
Darcy was wearing only her petticoat, just like she had done in Caroline’s dreams about the lake. It was odd, when Caroline
thought about it, that she had never felt so much like she was drowning as she did at this very moment, awake and on dry land.
“I did not understand what you meant at the time. I mean, I heard the words, but I did not truly comprehend their meaning.
I . . .” She hesitated. “I have lived a very selfish life, Georgie. In fact, I rather revelled in the idea. I thought it something
to be proud of, when I know now that nothing could be further from the truth. If you truly do not love me, then say so, and
I shall never speak of my feelings again. I shall not pursue you, nor harangue you, nor flirt with you in any way. We shall
be friends, though never as we once were. Merely friends. Will that satisfy you?”
Miss Darcy’s jaw worked as if she were grinding her teeth together. “And if I say nothing, will you marry Ashbrook?”
“If you say nothing, whatever I do or do not will be no business of yours.”
Georgiana turned and strode away a few paces, then came hurtling back as if she could not bear to be more than three feet from Caroline.
“You delight in cornering me, Miss Bingley!” she cried.
“You give me no quarter. Very well, then, I confess it: You have cut through all my defenses with your persistence and your charm and your incessant bloody candour. I have watched you learn and fail and improve and—” Tears spilled down her cheeks as she wrung her hands, the very picture of anguish.
“I cherished the acquaintance that I had, but I am utterly besotted with the woman you have become. And I cannot give you up, though I know what that means for us both.” She grabbed Caroline’s hands, pressing them tightly between her own.
“I love you, Caroline. I have loved you longer than I knew and in ways I still scarcely understand. Please don’t marry someone else, for I could never bear it. You are mine and I am yours.”
Caroline stared at her. Georgiana stared back, tears dripping onto her bare collarbones.
“Say it again,” Caroline whispered, tugging Georgiana closer. Perhaps she was dreaming now. Perhaps she had simply fantasised
the words which she had wanted to hear most in the world.
“I’m sorry for what I said at the Percy ball,” Georgiana said instead, swaying on her feet. “It was awful. You didn’t deserve
that. I’ve been so caught up in the past, and I’m—I’m so afraid, Caroline. I feel as if I am walking in darkness, like Orfeo.
How can I ever be sure that you’re beside me? How can a person ever truly trust another?”
“Say it again,” Caroline repeated. “Say it again and you have me.”
“I love you.” In a moment, she was smothering Caroline’s face in quick kisses, each too fast for Caroline to respond to. “By God, how I adore you. I tried not to, for I knew you wanted your Great Endeavour to—”
“To hell with the Great Endeavour!” she cried. “If you love me, nothing matters but that.”
“Oh, darling, my darling,” Georgiana said again, half-sobbing, and the next moment, her arms were around Caroline’s neck,
and they were clinging to each other as if adrift, though it was the most tethered Caroline had ever felt in her entire life.
“You are an impossible, infernal woman, and there is no one in the world with whom I would rather be.”
“That may be,” Caroline choked out, through sobs of her own, “the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
They fell backwards onto the bed, kissing frantically. By the time the passion had slowed, though not cooled, Georgiana caught
Caroline’s hand and guided it under her petticoat, aiming her fingers lower than usual.
Realising what was meant, Caroline hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“I took your maidenhead, did I not?” Georgiana rested her forehead against Caroline’s, looking as terrified and as hopeful
as Caroline had ever seen her. “Would you not take mine in return?”
Caroline urged Georgiana to sit up, peeling her petticoat off and laying her back down.
If she was going to do this, it could not be a hurried, panicked affair.
She needed to feel everything, skin against hot skin, the memory branded forever into her own flesh.
She wanted this so badly, she could barely breathe, and yet, she held back.
“Do you know what it means, Georgie?” she asked, mirroring what Miss Darcy had asked her right before the first time she’d been inside Caroline. “What it would mean to me?”
“I know what it means,” she whispered. “And I give myself to you, as you have given yourself to me countless times.”
Caroline eased forward, relishing the way Georgiana felt under her, against her, around her. The heat of her, the slick joy
of taking what Georgiana gave so willingly, was enough to drive Caroline almost to the edge herself. Miss Darcy’s eyes were
screwed shut, her lips parting as she drew in a ragged breath, as if coming up for air after a long dive.
“Look at me,” Caroline panted.
“I am half-afraid to.” Georgiana blindly pressed a clumsy kiss to the curve of Caroline’s shoulder. “Seeing you is one thing.
Seeing me is quite another.”
“Be brave for me, Georgie,” she breathed. “Remember Euridice? I will always walk behind you, and I will never let you go.”
Georgiana’s eyes were a fury of wild emotion, savage and tender all at once. Caroline rocked forward slowly, refusing to speed
up even when her lover whimpered and begged underneath her, nails scoring down Caroline’s back hard enough to make her gasp.
Georgiana breathed her name, the word a kind of prayer she repeated again and again until her final, ecstatic shudder.
“I love you, sweetness,” Caroline said again, dropping kisses into fair curls as they snuggled impossibly closer. “I swear
to you that I will be constant and true, and all the other things which a marriage entails.”
“Let us run away together,” Georgiana suggested, grabbing Caroline’s hands and holding them tightly, her dark eyes imploring. “Perhaps to Scotland? I know we cannot be wed in the traditional sense, but we could rent a small place and—”
“Dearest, no.” Caroline shook her head. “I won’t be another George Wickham to you. You have faced yourself and accepted yourself
for all that you are and are not. Do not you think it time you faced your brother in the same way? It is long past time you
stopped being kind and started being honest with him.”
“Are you serious?” Georgiana squinted up at her. “I suspect you’ve gone quite mad, Miss Bingley.”
“I’m saner than ever, Miss Darcy.” Caroline smiled down. “You know perfectly well that he would never reveal your secret to
anyone, not even his wife, if you asked him to keep it to himself. He may be many things, but your brother is a man loyal
to a fault.”
“Lord, how I hate it when you are right. Which, incidentally, is not nearly as often as you think.” Miss Darcy buried her
face in the crook of Caroline’s neck. “Very well. I shall write to him and ask when he is coming home.”
Caroline stroked Georgiana’s hair, marvelling that she was allowed to touch, to caress. To love and adore, fully and completely,
without pretense. “We will face him together if you so desire. Or if you prefer to tell him alone, then I shall be there waiting for you afterwards.”
“What if he does not approve? What will we do?” Miss Darcy shifted uneasily in Caroline’s grasp. “Where shall we live?”
“I do not know,” Caroline admitted. If Mr Darcy did not want them at Pemberley, then Charles and Jane would surely take them in for a while, although their sudden appearance at Netherfield would require some explaining.
The idea of Georgiana being banished unceremoniously from her childhood home simply for loving Caroline was almost enough to make her want to give the relationship up entirely.
No, she would never let Darcy do such a thing to his sister; Caroline would get on her knees and beg first. “Let us cross one bridge before we worry about the next, hmm?”
They exchanged final kisses, and within minutes, Georgiana’s breathing had evened out. Caroline held her long into the night,
fearing that her lover might turn to mist if she loosened her grip even slightly. Down into the underworld we go, she thought ruefully. Too bad the descent was the easy part.