Chapter Sixteen #2
His hands were behind his back, his posture oddly formal for a familial setting. Mary took one look at his demeanour and slipped out the door before being asked.
“I’ve made some enquiries,” Darcy said, not taking the vacated seat. “Wickham is staying at an inn in town. While I cannot reasonably request him to take his leave without formally declaring a duel with set terms, I can move you somewhere safer.”
“To Pemberley?” I guessed.
I didn’t hate the idea of going home. Kitty might prefer to stay in Longbourn until things settled with her father’s condition, but I knew her feelings now.
I could write to her, and she to me, and she could travel north again as soon as she was able.
It sounded ideal, especially if it meant I could avoid Wickham.
“No,” Darcy said, stopping my thoughts in their tracks. “Elizabeth will be remaining here, and I with her. Given… recent circumstances, it does not seem prudent to send you anywhere without a guardian.”
It was unclear if recent circumstances meant my injury in the gardens and my encounter with Wickham, or my admission of my past with Helena and my closeness with Kitty. I clenched my teeth, now much less certain I was going to like this plan.
“I am sending you to Rosings, to stay with our aunt. She has been requesting your presence there for some time, and it seems like the most fitting place for you until I return to Pemberley,” Darcy declared.
“George Wickham will not know where to find you, and would not be allowed on the property even if he did. It is where you will be safest.”
He did not leave much room for argument, but I refused to let that dissuade me.
“No,” I protested. “I will be fine at Pemberley. Ruth will be there, and Emma. You trust the staff there, do you not?”
“This is not up for debate, Georgiana. I am in charge of your well-being, and this is my decision. You will stay with your aunt and do as she says for the duration of your time there.”
Lady Catherine de Bourgh might have been my aunt, but she was far from a welcoming figure. Owing to the fact she vehemently disapproved of my brother’s decision to marry “beneath him,” both Darcy and I had enjoyed limited contact with her for the past year.
This felt like a clear message. Darcy wasn’t going to acknowledge what I’d told him, what he had to suspect was going on, but he did expect me to fix it. Lady Catherine wanted nothing more than to see me married, and with me at Rosings, I was sure she would speak of nothing else.
“Please don’t do this,” I all but begged. “You don’t need to.”
“Emma is packing your things. The carriage departs within the hour.”
Darcy turned and left the study without another word, leaving me stunned and broken.
I wanted him to listen to me. All I needed was one chance to sit down and explain that I understood this was difficult to comprehend, that it made things complicated, but also that it wasn’t something I could control.
Even if they married me off to a man, I would never be able to love him. It wasn’t fair on me or on the gentleman unlucky enough to be paired with me. Far from a dutiful wife eager to give him plenty of children, he would get a lovesick, distracted ghost of a woman.
If I had only an hour before I was forced to leave, I needed to find Kitty. I refused to repeat the past and leave her with no explanation due to an older sibling’s orders. She needed to know exactly where I was going and why.
I found both Kitty and Lydia in the kitchen. Lydia was perched on the table, eating her way through a bowl of candied almonds. Kitty had been sitting beside her but immediately slid down and took a step towards me when I walked in.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, primed for bad news. Or perhaps the expression on my face gave it away.
“We were actually in the middle of talking,” Lydia said, flicking her eyes between me and the door in a clear suggestion I should walk back out of it.
Kitty ignored her, taking my hand as concern built up in her eyes.
“George?” she pushed.
I shifted my grip so I could clutch at her fingers.
“Can we go somewhere?” I asked, unwilling to cry in front of Lydia but unable to stop the tears prickling at the corners of my eyes.
Kitty nodded, tugging me out of the kitchen and through the house until we were safely behind her bedroom door.
“She knew Wickham was coming,” Kitty said.
“Apparently he convinced her it would be a nice surprise. Although I’m not sure anyone found it nice.
I don’t think he’s told her anything about what happened last night.
She likes to pretend to play coy, but she cannot resist the latest gossip.
If she knew, she would be talking about it. ”
I listened to Kitty talk, revelling in the way she played with my fingers seemingly without even knowing she was doing it.
I’d grown used to being in such close proximity to her, and it started to occur to me just how much I was going to miss her.
Taking a few steps forward, I wrapped my arms around her and tucked my face against the curve of her neck.
Kitty hugged me close reflexively, her words trailing off.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” she asked, her palms smoothing over my back. “Whatever it is, I’ll fix it. I just need to know.”
Her confidence and determination hit me hard in the chest, and the tears I’d feared would fall made tracks down my cheeks.
When my knees threatened to buckle and I swayed against her, Kitty led me to her bed and sat me on the mattress.
I clung to her embarrassingly tightly, but I knew how soon I would have to let her go.
Instead of pushing me to answer, she held me and let me cry.
When I finally pulled myself away a few inches from her, she nudged my chin up so she could look into my eyes.
“Is this about last night?” she asked.
There wasn’t an ounce of judgement in her gaze. If I was crying over seeing Wickham the night before, she would have accepted that without thinking less of me. But I had to shake my head.
I explained everything Darcy had told me.
Kitty’s face fell the second she heard I was leaving, but she let me talk through everything I had to offer her.
I tried to make it sound more positive than I felt: This was only temporary.
Once Darcy and Elizabeth were back at Pemberley, I would get to go home.
“At least you’ll be far away from Wickham,” Kitty pointed out, which was the sole upside to Rosings. Lady Catherine wouldn’t let a man like George Wickham within ten miles of the grounds. “Do you think Darcy and Elizabeth will let me visit again, when you’re back at Pemberley?”
“I hope so,” I said with a sigh, pressing a kiss to her hair. I couldn’t imagine not being allowed to see her ever again. “I can’t tell how my brother truly feels about what I said. But I will see you again. This will not be the last time.”
I sounded more confident than I felt, but I needed at least one of us to believe it.
Emma had already cleared my things out of the room, so I knew we didn’t have long left until I had to leave.
After I scribbled down Lady Catherine’s address, I curled up in Kitty’s arms and relaxed into the way she stroked my hair.
It was a childish response, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Pemberley was legally Darcy’s. If he didn’t want me there, I had no right to reside there.
Nor could I stay at Longbourn unless the Bennets were willing to house me, and I knew they would bow to Darcy’s wishes to have me leave—especially if they knew about my relationship with their daughter.
That left me homeless. As bitter and single-minded as my aunt could be, staying at Rosings was a fate better than attempting to depend on the kindness of strangers and a purse full of pin money that would get me only so far.
“It’s just temporary,” Kitty whispered. “You’ll be all right. We’ll be all right.”
I let myself believe her, if only to stop another round of tears from falling.