Chapter Eleven #2
Georgiana was there, no longer glum about the duke’s absence, but now resigned to the way of it.
“He was never as interested in me as I thought he was, clearly,” Georgiana was saying as she sipped at her chocolate that morning.
“I must have believed it because I wanted to believe it. The Duke of Neithern is not coming back, that is the truth of it.”
He didn’t say anything. He was too busy not looking at Elizabeth.
Who was somehow there, and he hadn’t realized because he was trying not to see her.
“I think the duke may be going through something personal and distressing that has little to do with you,” said Elizabeth in a gentle voice.
Darcy looked at her, felt a shudder of self-loathing at his own weakness, and immediately looked away.
“Miss Elizabeth,” said Georgiana in astonishment. “How lovely to speak to you instead of hearing about you.”
“Yes, perhaps you and I have not spent much time together beyond being introduced,” said Elizabeth.
“Please, sit down,” said Georgiana.
Elizabeth was carrying a plate of food she had served for herself from the sideboard, where breakfast was laid out. She settled down at a place setting across from Georgiana.
Mr. Darcy’s heart was pounding out a beat of guilt against his rib cage. He sighed. He did not look up. If she was looking at him, he did not know.
“You have some intimate knowledge of His Grace’s affairs, then?” said Georgiana, sipping at her chocolate.
Elizabeth poured herself some chocolate from the chocolate pot.
“Well, I don’t wish to speak out of turn, but I think I may have some idea what it is he might be going through right now, and I wish to say that, if he seemed to favor you, do not discount that yet.
I think, when he has gathered himself, he may be in better spirits. ”
“I’m so very intrigued,” said Georgiana. “How is that you come to know the duke?”
Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, I have likely said too much, I am sure.”
“Yes, yes, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, shrouded in secrets,” said Georgiana, laughing.
“I am not this at all,” said Elizabeth, but she was laughing, too. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Apparently, you are secretly married to my cousin, for one thing,” said Georgiana. “For another thing, I am certain that my brother and my cousin were whispering about you on half our walks in the park at London.”
“Georgiana,” Mr. Darcy objected faintly.
“And also, I have observed your effect on positively everyone,” said Georgiana.
“What effect is that?” said Elizabeth, amused.
“You seem to drive people mad,” said Georgiana.
“Georgiana, heavens,” said Mr. Darcy, lifting his gaze to look at Elizabeth. But she still seemed amused.
“Do I, indeed?” Elizabeth shook her head, lifting her cup of chocolate. “The truth is, I’m afraid, Miss Darcy, the world has seemed rather mad to me, as of late. If reality itself is insane, can a body existing in it remain sane?”
Georgiana tilted her head to one side, considering. “Well, that is prettily said, but I think you may be dodging the question. Anyway, if you are so very close to the duke, then I demand that you take me to see him, today. We shall go together and call upon him.”
“I cannot go and call upon the duke!” said Elizabeth. “I am an unmarried lady and so are you—”
“You are married,” said Georgiana firmly. “And everyone knows it.”
“We cannot go there,” said Elizabeth with a sigh.
“Perhaps we should,” said Mr. Darcy with a shrug. “He promised to speak with you, Elizabeth, and he broke that promise—”
“When did he promise to speak with you?” said Georgiana. “And since when do you address her by her first name?”
“We are amiable!” Mr. Darcy cried in protest.
“Yes, we became close when I was marrying your cousin, that is all,” said Elizabeth. “Your brother and I are friends. We are only friends.”
“Of course you are only friends,” said Georgiana, looking back and forth between them.
Mr. Darcy shifted uncomfortably on his seat. “Now, see here, Georgiana, I think that you must allow Miss Bennet and I—Mrs. Fitzwilliam—to go to see the duke without you—”
“I think it would all go better if we were all there,” said Elizabeth. “You and I alone together, I am not certain what that looks like.”
“Neither am I!” said Georgiana, eyes wide.
Mr. Darcy groaned. “We are not going to Neith Abbey, at all, then. Let us cease to think of such an idea.”
“We are indeed,” said Georgiana. “I insist upon it.”
“I should like to comfort him, I suppose,” said Elizabeth. “I think I know what he may be going through.”
“What is he going through?” said Georgiana.
Mr. Darcy groaned.
PERHAPS IT WAS impossible to keep everything concealed from Miss Darcy, and perhaps it was a foolish idea for Elizabeth to wish to visit Neithern, but once the idea had been presented, she could not help but warm to it.
She had been a bit angry with Neithern for not meeting her as he had promised, for sending his grandmother instead, but now that she knew that Neithern had discovered his true parentage was not noble, she knew that he must have been devastated.
She understood what it was like to feel as if one was cut off at the knees to discover one was not legitimate, how it made a person feel as if his identity had been crumpled and destroyed.
So, she wished to visit with him, though she did not imagine she could speak plainly with Neithern if Mr. Darcy and Miss Darcy were both there. Even so, she could convince him to meet her for a walk as he had done in the past, she supposed. Then, they could speak in private, she thought.
Mr. Darcy objected, but when he could see she was in earnest and that his sister was desirous of it as well, he gave in to them, and so they all went next door to Neith Abbey.
The Darcys would have been happy to go on horseback, but Elizabeth was not at all pleased at such a prospect, so they went in a carriage. They pulled up to the house and went to the front door.
They knocked.
Nothing happened for some time, and they were about to knock again, when a servant answered the door to inform them that the family was not at home.
“Oh, we are certain the duchess is not at home,” rejoined Elizabeth, who knew that this was a common excuse given when visitors were unwanted, “but perhaps you could check again to make sure the duke is at home.”
“No, madam, I am certain the duke is not at home, for he is the one who instructed me to say—” The servant winced and broke off, face turning red.
“Go and speak with him again,” said Elizabeth gently. “See if he might not choose to be at home. Tell him I have some idea how he may be feeling right now.”
The servant disappeared. While he was gone, Georgiana chattered about how she would punish a servant whose tongue slipped in that manner, and Elizabeth worried she might have gotten the poor servant in trouble.
When the servant returned, he was adamant. No one was at home, not the duke, not the duchess.
The short carriage drive back saw Miss Darcy as entirely despondent.
“I’m sure it has nothing to do with you,” Elizabeth tried to reassure her, but it may have, she had to own, only because Miss Darcy did not know his secrets, and he could not be open with her. “He is dealing with other things, and he wishes to be alone, that is all.”
Miss Darcy fought tears the entire time, however, and then, when they returned to Barralds, she fled and her brother muttered apologies and went after her.
Elizabeth found herself alone and reeling.
She supposed she would go and seek the rest of the company, who must be in the gardens as usual.
However, before she could do so, she was suddenly aware of a sensation that could only mean one thing, and she wondered at herself for having entirely lost track of her cycle so as to be surprised by it.
She went to her bedchamber and confirmed that her bleeding had come.
She was relieved, she found. She could have been with child, she knew, with her husband’s child.
He had been rather diligent on their wedding night, after all.
But she had not thought much about that, likely due to the fact that she had far too much to think about otherwise.
She ran for her maid to change out of her soiled under layers and to get some rags to use and while all this was happening, there was a knock on her door, and it was the same servant as before, the one who had come in the middle of the night to fetch her to the duke.
This time, the servant wished her to know the duke was waiting for her in the place where they met up for their walks.
Once she had herself back in order, she went out to meet him.
He was waiting in the midst of the pathway, staring at his shoes, quite despondent.
“Your Grace!” she called as she saw him.
He looked up, his expression quite bitter. “No, don’t call me that.”
She hurried over to him. “I suppose your grandmother surmised it all and told you of it? I would have thought she might have kept it from you, truly.”
“I think she would have if she could go back,” he said. “She was very shocked and pained by the truth of it.”
“You must be devastated,” she said. “I know how I felt when I learned I was illegitimate.”
“Turns out you’re not,” he said bitterly.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Because I might as well be at this point.”
He tilted his head to one side to look her over. “You blame me for that?”
“How could I blame you?” she said. “You are a victim in this as much as I am, as much as everyone is. It is your father—my father, I suppose—who is the true villain. He put all of this wretchedness into motion.” She considered. “Although, I understand your grandfather—”
“Never met him. He was dead before I was born,” said Neithern. “And he’s your grandfather.”
“No one will ever know this, however,” said Elizabeth, shaking her head.
“You must find some way to move past it.” But even as she said it, she knew she sounded like her own family members, Jane and her father Mr. Bennet when they had begged her to set it aside and move forward and when she could not.
She sighed heavily. “I suppose you cannot move past it, though.”
“I need to know who my real mother was,” said Neithern. “And you know who I think knows?”
“Well, perhaps Larilane,” said Elizabeth. “He did say she was a strumpet, and that she didn’t know who your father was, and that—”
“No,” said Neithern. “Though who is Larilane, anyway?”
“The Vicomte de Larilane,” said Elizabeth. “He is the one who procured you and deceived your grandmother to thinking you were her grandson.”
“Ah,” said Neithern. “Well, perhaps he knows. But I think Houseman does.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Oh, my.”
Neithern nodded. “Yes, just a strange coincidence that a man who looks just like me has this house built here, right next to Neith Abbey? No, he knows something about my mother, about where I come from. It is only that I don’t know how to speak to him about it.
I have never been invited to Barralds, you see. He has never called upon us.”
“Truly?” said Elizabeth.
“Yes, we’ve been introduced, of course, but he avoids me and my family. When I came uninvited the other day, I wondered if he would be angry, but instead, he simply avoided me. Once or twice I saw him, and whenever I did, he would run away, as if he did not wish to see or speak to me.”
“But he will come to your ball,” said Elizabeth. “It is part of why being here for the summer is so attractive, after all, your midsummer fete. Everyone has come here so that we may attend it.”
“He has never come in the past,” said Neithern.
“Truly?”
Neithern sighed. “I don’t know. You may be aware it is a masque, and maybe he is there, but so disguised that I could not make him out.”
“I shall speak to him and make certain he is coming,” said Elizabeth. “Then you can speak to him then, certainly.”
“Maybe,” said Neithern.
“Should I ask him to speak to you before then?” she said.
“You would do this for me?” said Neithern. “Why? I understand my grandmother—Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Neithern, that is, no blood of mine—was not very kind to you.”
Elizabeth lifted her chin. “Well, she did offer money. I said I didn’t want it, but…”
“But as you are the actual legitimate child, you should take something,” said Neithern. “And if she is insistent on keeping me here as this pretend duke, as she seems to be, then I shall see to it that you are well taken care of. We may not be sister and brother, after all, Elizabeth—”
“But we have a kinship,” said Elizabeth.
“You lived the life I should have lived, the life of a fatherless child—”
“Indeed, I did not,” said Elizabeth. “It was all kept from me, in truth, and this is why I know how you feel.”
He nodded. “All right, granted. But you were kept from the life you should have had, even so, and I was given a life I never deserved, and I shall do something to make that up to you.”
“But who deserves anything just for being born?” said Elizabeth.
“You shall take what I give you.”
“For the sake of my husband, I shall,” said Elizabeth with a sigh.
“Yes, because you said your situation was financially precarious.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Good,” said the duke.
“I shall also speak with Houseman. If I can convince him, shall I bring him on my walk tomorrow morning. We could all three meet here?”
Neithern nodded slowly. “Yes, quite. Please do. Early in the morning.”
“By eight?”
“Indeed,” said Neithern.