13. A Morning Reading #2
Darcy felt the heat climb his neck. Elizabeth’s expression remained perfectly innocent, but the glint in her eye suggested she knew exactly what she had implied.
“I shall endeavor to remain appropriately sedate,” he said. “Perhaps a reading of poetry or a leisurely game of backgammon.”
“Poetry would require you to commit to dramatic reading, which you have already confessed is beyond your abilities.” Elizabeth’s lips curved.
“And backgammon demands a steadier hand than I currently possess. I should hate to lose through mere physical incapacity rather than genuine strategic failure.”
“A convenient excuse for future defeats.”
“I prefer to think of it as establishing realistic expectations.” She drew breath to continue, but the words caught in her throat, dissolving into a cough that shook her shoulders and left her pressing a hand to her chest. When she recovered, her eyes were watering, and her voice had roughened further.
“Forgive me. The gargling has improved matters, but I fear my throat remains rather uncooperative.”
“Then perhaps you should not be talking quite so much.”
“And deprive you of my conversation?” Yet she sank back against the pillows, and he saw the fatigue beneath her bravado. “Though I admit, a dramatic reading tempts me. I could listen in silence, and you might prove whether your dramatic failings are slander or fact.”
He rose and crossed to the bell pull. “I shall send for tea and inquire whether Georgiana has yet worn a path in the corridor. She has been threatening to descend upon you with novels since yesterday evening.”
“Has she? How delightful.”
Mrs. Reynolds appeared with her customary efficiency, took the request for tea, and then, within minutes, his sister arrived with a volume clutched to her chest.
“I have brought the most marvelous passage.” Georgiana swept in with the enthusiasm of an unleashed spaniel.
“From The Ruined Chapel, Lady Fenwick’s latest, and it is absolutely perfect for reading aloud.
There is a scene where Lord Laycock confesses something dreadful to Lady Cecilia, and she must decide whether to forgive him or flee into the storm.
I have been dying to share it with someone who will appreciate the drama. ”
“Georgiana.” Darcy’s voice held a warning note. “I was thinking more in line with Shakespeare or lighter fare than an unknown authoress’s Gothic drama.”
“Oh, but Elizabeth will adore Lady Fenwick. Her heroes are remarkably complicated, burdened with heavy secrets and so conflicted by their obligations—the real brooding types.” Georgiana’s enthusiasm did not waver.
“Miss Entwhistle says Lady Fenwick writes as though she has lived every heartbreak herself.”
Darcy’s fingers tightened on the arm of his chair. The pen name had made the rounds of London’s literary circles, but he could not reveal the voice behind it—not with the roiling scandals she left at her untimely demise.
“Brooding heroes?” Elizabeth cast a piercing glance at him, interjecting with a cough. “Then, Miss Darcy, I shall insist on the reading. Your brother has been threatening me with Cowper and card games, and I find myself in desperate need of rescue.”
Georgiana beamed and settled herself on the foot of the bed. “You will not be disappointed. Lady Fenwick understands that love without honesty is merely a pretty cage.”
Elizabeth’s gaze flickered toward Darcy before returning to his sister. “A philosopher disguised as a novelist. How intriguing.”
“Shall I read the confrontation scene?” Georgiana flipped to a marked page. “It is only a few pages, and Lord Laycock’s confession is devastating. Miss Entwhistle wept for an hour.”
“By all means.” Elizabeth settled against her pillows, her expression attentive.
Darcy shifted in his chair, careful that neither wife nor sister should notice his discomfort. Anything penned by Lady Fenwick was certain to be subversive in ways he would never confess, even to himself.
Georgiana cleared her throat with theatrical gravity and began.
“‘You demand honesty,’ Lord Laycock said, his voice stripped of its usual command. ‘But honesty is not always kindness, Lady Cecilia. Some truths wound more than silence ever could.’
‘And so you have chosen to wound me with silence instead.’ Lady Cecilia advanced a step, her skirts brushing the dust of the abandoned chapel.
‘Three weeks of pleasantries when I asked for substance. Three weeks of locked doors and unanswered questions. You speak of protecting me, but I am not a child to be shielded from storms, my lord. I am a woman grown, and I will decide for myself what I can bear.’
‘You do not know what you ask.’
‘Then tell me.’ Her voice did not waver, though her hands trembled at her sides. ‘Let me face it beside you rather than imagine it alone. Whatever sin you carry, whatever shame—’
‘It is not shame.’ Lord Laycock turned from the altar, and she saw at last what he had been concealing: not guilt, but grief.
Raw and ragged, the wound of a man who had loved and lost and never spoken of it.
‘It is a grave, Lady Cecilia. I have buried something I cannot resurrect, and I would not ask you to tend a dead man’s garden. ’
‘And if I choose to tend it nonetheless? If I would rather share your sorrow than be excluded from it?’
He stared at her as though she had spoken in a foreign tongue. ‘No woman has ever—’
‘Then no woman has ever loved you as I do.’ She closed the distance between them, propriety abandoned in the dust with her caution.
‘I do not require your protection, my lord. I require your truth. Give me that, and I shall give you everything I am. But wall yourself away from me, and you shall have nothing but the memory of what might have been.’”
Georgiana paused, her eyes bright with the fervor of a reader lost in another world. “Is that not extraordinary? The way she refuses to let him carry it alone?”