Chapter Seven #2
We kissed for long enough that the impromptu bandage around my knee bled through with sticky crimson.
Physicians had been wrong all this time.
It wasn’t opium that best eased pain; it was Kitty Bennet.
I couldn’t think of anything but her lips against mine and her skin under my fingertips, my injuries quite forgotten.
They ought to sell her by the bottle, but I selfishly wanted her all for myself.
I had no plan for what was going to happen once we walked out of the grotto. What we were doing would be viewed as reprehensible to anyone who saw, but I still didn’t want to stop. The only other time I’d done this, the choice had been taken away from me, Wickham’s interruption controlling my fate.
It seemed history was keen to repeat itself.
Elizabeth gave us as little warning as Wickham had given Helena and me, rushing into the grotto with a frantic chaos about her. Kitty wrenched herself away from me, scrambling to her feet before I could even organise my thoughts.
It was all going to happen again. The blackmailing and the fear and the consequences. I cursed myself for being so stupid, for making the same mistake twice, but I hadn’t been able to help but fall for Kitty.
Maybe Elizabeth hadn’t seen. It was dark in the grotto—perhaps we’d been in shadow, or Kitty had been quick enough to put some distance between us. I tried to gauge whether there was disgust in her eyes, but she was wholly focused on Kitty.
“You need to come with me,” she said, grabbing her sister’s arm and hauling her towards the door like she was a child.
“But—” Kitty tried to protest as she stumbled over her feet. She didn’t look at me.
“Now.”
With that, Elizabeth pulled her away. She spared me an apologetic glance, barely even properly seeing me as she left me in silence, my only companion the flickering candle.
I sat there, numb, as I regained my breath.
With Kitty gone, there was nothing to distract me from the pain of my knee.
My leg thrummed with pulses of agony, and my heart beat a similar rhythm of anguish.
Every time I let myself get attached and allowed myself to give in to my wayward feelings, it ended badly.
I tried to reassure myself that this was different, that Elizabeth was nothing like Wickham, but it still felt like I’d lost Kitty, just like I’d lost Helena.
If Elizabeth told Darcy, I might lose Pemberley, too.
I hoped she’d come back. Even if Elizabeth was admonishing Kitty, I thought at least she would send help for me once she’d been told of my fall.
There was no way for me to accurately measure the time that passed, but I was shivering in my ridiculous, destroyed dress and the candle was starting to burn low.
If I didn’t get myself back soon, I would have no light by which to do so and no movement left in my frozen limbs.
Without Kitty to support my weight, standing was difficult.
Walking was even harder but, candle in hand to guide the way, I made the walk back to the house step by painful step.
I could still hear the noise of the ball spilling out from Pemberley’s windows.
If I had been the talk of the town in my prior absences, returning midevening with tearstained cheeks, ripped skirts, and a blood-soaked bandage tied around my knee would truly cause a scandal.
For a moment, I considered it. Mr. Honeyfield would lose all interest, as would any other viable suitor.
From my perspective, it sounded ideal, but it would bring shame to Pemberley’s door that my family name should not have to bear on my behalf.
Changing my course to head through the kitchens, I prayed to find them empty but instead stumbled across Ruth peeling potatoes.
“My days!” she said, horrified at the sight of me. “Miss Darcy, what happened?”
She dropped the knife and potato she was holding into the bucket of scraps, cleaning off her hands on a towel before hurrying over to fuss.
“No, I’m fine,” I insisted. I needed to find Kitty, to make sure she wasn’t in trouble. “Mrs. Darcy and Miss Bennet? Where are they?”
I was convinced there was a psychic connection amongst Pemberley’s staff. Information spread quicker than the plague through London, jumping between rooms and across floors in minutes. If there was something to know, Ruth would know it.
“Their carriage just departed for Longbourn, miss. You should sit down.”
She tried to usher me towards a chair, but I stood firm. I couldn’t bear the idea of Kitty being taken away because of what we had done, not before I had a chance to talk to her and try to reason with Elizabeth. It was all my fault.
If they had only just left, perhaps there was still a chance I could catch them.
I ducked past Ruth and headed for the main entrance.
The pain in my knee was of no consequence.
I just needed to get to the front steps as quickly as possible.
Ruth called after me, but I left her voice behind as I limped through the halls.
I could hear the vibrancy of the ball bleeding through the house, but I didn’t care who saw me.
I heaved open the front door and hoped frantically that the carriage would still be at the bottom of the steps.
Stumbling out into the cold, I found the drive empty.
If I squinted, I was almost convinced I could make out moving lights far in the distance, but they were much beyond the space I could cover with my feet or my voice.
There was nothing I could do. I sank to the floor, my shaking legs no longer able to hold me up, and clutched my knees as I let tears fall from my eyes.
I’d ruined my own life when I’d kissed Helena, but now I’d ruined Kitty’s, too.
She didn’t have a prosperous marriage lined up to save her from scandal.
I let everything hit me—the pain in my knee, the breathlessness Kitty had left me with, the fear bubbling in my stomach. It was too much to bear.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, the cold seeping through my dress and the music from the ball carrying through the open door behind me.
My tears cooled on my cheeks, chased by fresh tracks when I considered the potential of never seeing Kitty again.
She had turned my life upside down in a matter of weeks, but when she was beside me I’d never felt off-balance from the change in orientation.
With her gone, my blood was pooling in my head, leaving me sick and dizzy.
It was a voice that eventually disrupted my downward spiral.
“Georgiana?” I heard my brother calling, but it felt like the words were passing through water before they reached me.
He had to be right beside me, though, as I felt his hand rest on my shoulder.
“Ruth told me you were hurt. Do you need a doctor? What on earth happened?” When I couldn’t find the words to answer, he got more and more frantic. “Talk to me, Georgiana!”
Telling him truthfully what had left me in such a state was unthinkable. Unless Elizabeth had already told him as she ushered Kitty away, but there was no bite to my brother’s words, no malice behind his concern. His temperament suggested he had no idea what I had been doing.
Feeling years younger than my age, despite the rouge and the dress, I turned my face into Darcy’s shoulder.
Like he always had for a skinned knee or a bruised elbow, he stroked my hair and mumbled something reassuring, but too low to hear in its entirety.
Usually it was a promise that everything would be okay, but he could not guarantee me that anymore.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
I shook my head, certain I had drained the last of the fear-induced strength left in my bones.
Darcy picked me up like I was a wounded child, one arm behind my back and one below my knees.
The motion jostled the cut Kitty had wrapped what felt like a lifetime ago, and I had to bite back a cry of pain.
Darcy carried me up to my room, kicking open the doors in his way. Ordinarily, I would protest at being made to feel so juvenile, but I didn’t have it in me. Darcy didn’t speak, either, his teeth gritted. His arms weren’t shaking under my weight, so it didn’t seem like exertion making him tense.
My bedsheets were the first soft thing I’d felt since Kitty’s skin, and I wilted into them, rubbing my cheek against the fabric in search of comfort.
“Sit up,” Darcy said abruptly. When I flinched, he softened his tone. “I’m sorry. Your knee needs attending to. Does it hurt badly?”
We both looked down at the bloodstained bandages visible through the tears in my gown. I was too numb to feel anything, but Darcy blanched, immediately retreating to ring the bellpull that would summon Emma. Rather than return to my side, he paced the floor.
“What happened?” he asked, concern lacing the words.
“I fell,” I mumbled, sharing the only part of the truth safe to tell.
“No.” Darcy turned sharply on the ball of his foot to start another line. “This did not happen from tripping on a step. Why were you outside alone in the dark? What happened to your hair?”
Kitty happened. Kitty’s fingers combing through my hair, getting caught in my curls. The memory, so recent but already feeling like it was fading, brought with it a fresh wave of tears.
Darcy’s frustration turned to panic, and he flew across the room, hovering awkwardly.
“Please don’t cry,” he implored. “I am not angry with you. I just need to know who did this. I want to fix this, Georgiana. Please let me.”
He wasn’t going to relent without an explanation, but my brain was swimming with too much to fashion one.
I thought through the least damaging version of events, clumsily erasing Kitty from the narrative in the desperate hope I could still save her reputation somehow.
Before I got further than how I could have possibly wrapped my knee alone, Emma burst through the door.