Chapter Two
A night of sleep managed to put Kitty Bennet from my mind, but when I made it downstairs for breakfast, she proved herself to be very real and very present.
It was a Darcy family trait to awake slowly and with a certain level of irritability, but the Bennets had a rather different approach to mornings.
Elizabeth met each one with a startling vitality, and Kitty, too, was already beaming at her sister across the table as they gossiped between bites of honey cake.
“Good morning, Georgiana,” my brother greeted me from the head of the table with a tone of relief in his voice, likely thankful to no longer be the sole subdued figure at the table.
I returned the greeting, extending it to Elizabeth and Kitty, and was grateful for the cup of tea Elizabeth pushed my way.
Darcy relied on coffee to chase away the lingering tendrils of sleep, but even when I heaped it full of cream and sugar, I couldn’t stand the taste.
The way he drank multiple pitch-dark cups was bordering on criminal.
Ordinarily I forced myself to make conversation with Elizabeth in the morning, since she wouldn’t get much out of my brother until the coffee started to work, but I was relieved to find Kitty a far more willing conversation partner than I was. I was less pleased by her choice of conversation topic.
“I was so disappointed to have missed the ball,” she said, turned to try to include both Darcy and me in the conversation.
It was thoughtful, but somewhat wasted. “Mother so desperately wanted me to attend, but that streak of bad weather was rotten luck in delaying the trip. I had to put up with days of her complaining about the lost opportunity to find a match.”
She pulled a face that chased a laugh from me, surprising both of us. It only succeeded in pulling her attention my way.
“Did you meet any suitors we can expect to come calling?” she asked.
I was entirely grateful I had already swallowed my latest mouthful of tea, or it would have risked choking a coughing fit from me.
“No,” I said, perhaps too quickly.
Elizabeth looked like she was about to provide context, but I caught her eye and quickly shook my head. I didn’t wish to get into a discussion of my dislike for assembled crowds over breakfast, especially not when Kitty clearly had no concerns with shining brightly amongst veritable strangers.
Before I could summon a suitable explanation, a footman approached the table with a tray of papers, and my attention was lost to the best part of breakfast: the delivery of the newspaper and the day’s incoming correspondence.
The tray was set down beside Darcy as usual, but he passed over the newspaper without me having to ask, turning his attention to the small pile of envelopes.
It was yesterday evening’s newspaper, the trip from London not a quick one, but I coveted it all the same.
The rich scent of ink and paper made it worth the dark smudges it left on my fingers and the headache I got from squinting to read the tiny, blurred text.
I skipped the advertisements and sales notices and the gossipy article about a high-society wedding, instead focusing first on the newly published book list. I was pleased to see a new novel by Mrs. Sarah Green and made sure to commit it to memory to request it be purchased, certain Elizabeth would want to read it.
I had just moved on to the paper’s recollection of the latest affairs in Parliament when Darcy’s voice won my attention.
“Your aunt once again requests your presence at Rosings Park,” he informed me, reading over a letter I could see in her foreboding, spiky script. “I am a poor influence on you, and she could have you married to a suitable match within the year to restore the good name of our family.”
Anyone who did not know my brother might think he was genuinely contemplating the request, but I could see the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. He mocked the suggestion in his airing of it, rather than considering it.
“Lady Catherine’s optimism is impressive,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
She may not have been present, but I had been raised better than to directly insult my relatives, even if my aunt had been rather insufferable to Darcy since his marriage to Elizabeth.
She deemed her too far below him. “If it is all the same, I would like to remain here, with my poor influence of a brother.”
His smile was overshadowed by Kitty’s laugh, punctuated by a particularly unladylike snort. She covered her mouth with her hand, but her eyes still showed her amusement.
“You’ll find that a full house at Pemberley is probably more similar to Meryton when we were all in residence than you might expect,” Elizabeth said to Kitty, not quite hiding her smile behind her teacup.
“So I see,” Kitty replied with a grin.
The weight of her attention on me, with that bright smile, squeezed my breath from my chest, and I raised the newspaper higher to sequester myself behind it.
The report of a man hanged at Newgate wasn’t usually something I would linger on, but I read each word intently just to focus on something other than the freckles across Kitty’s nose.
“Charlotte writes from Hunsford,” Elizabeth said.
When I peeked over the top of the paper, I found her reading a letter of her own. Charlotte was one of the people who wrote to Elizabeth the most, a friend from when she’d lived in Meryton who had married the Bennets’ reportedly rather trying cousin.
“How is she?” Kitty asked, genuine interest in her voice and eyes.
As if she could sense me looking, she turned back to me. I ducked behind the paper again, my cheeks burning like I’d been caught doing something wrong.
“She’s with child again,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not sure staying at home is doing her much good. I ought to go and visit her.”
From what I knew of Charlotte Collins, she lived far too near my aunt for me to voluntarily offer to accompany Elizabeth as I otherwise might. Journeying close to Rosings seemed too dangerous a trip if I wanted to return home unmarried.
“Is there anything of interest to report?” Darcy asked me, prompting me to lower the paper. This felt familiar, our usual breakfast routine of swapping opinions about the military’s actions on the Continent or the latest law to be passed into effect.
“Debates over tax increases in Parliament,” I summarised, knowing Darcy cared little for the gossip columns on the actions of the Prince Regent.
He sighed. “They might as well reprint the same article every day.”
“Can I see the newspaper, when you’ve finished with it?” Kitty asked.
I blinked at her, surprised. She hadn’t struck me as the kind of person who would be interested in politics.
I handed over the paper, unable to stop myself from watching her as she turned to the ship logs and scanned down the reports of what vessels were arriving into and leaving from the ports.
If she was looking for something in particular, she didn’t seem to find it, but she lingered over each entry.
Her fingertip picked up a dark smudge as she skimmed it over the text.
Once Elizabeth had refolded her letter from Charlotte and returned her attention to the table, Kitty passed the newspaper back to Darcy and started up another conversation with her sister.
There appeared to be a lot of gossip to catch Kitty up on, with endless tales of betrothals or babies from within the walls of the estate and amongst the tenants of its lands.
She surprised me by taking a genuine interest, recognising names from previous trips and making enquiries of her own after those she’d befriended.
She expressed joy at the good news and sorrow at the bad, her compassion evident.
It was strange to think she had connections to Pemberley that I knew nothing about, and it unsettled me to see her fit so easily into the picture.
This Kitty Bennet was not the one from Elizabeth’s stories of her two youngest sisters, but I liked her all the better for it.
The deeper into the gossip the two Bennet sisters delved, the less respectable the subject matter became.
It was impossible to be certain of the veracity of a tale so much retold that no one could remember the original teller, so I trusted the stories no more than I trusted the pages of my novels.
That did not, however, mean they weren’t just as enthralling, and I found myself leaning closer over the table to listen in.
Darcy tolerated local gossip more than he actively participated in it, and I never quite felt qualified to join in, with nothing to contribute myself, so it was usually an uncommon activity.
But knowing her new audience well, Elizabeth spun a more lurid tale.
So divorced from its source that it came without names, she launched into the story of a local family suffering from the scandal of their youngest son, who ought to have been courting respectable ladies, caught with a servant girl from the kitchens.
It was the kind of story that probably wasn’t true.
I suspected perhaps that the anonymity was why she chose it, with no one to actually be hurt by its telling.
There were no details, no recognisable figures, no known consequences.
It could have happened in any town from Land’s End to Gretna Green. Yet I still felt my face burn.