Chapter 1
The schoolroom at Pemberley overlooked the eastern lawns, where frost still silvered the grass despite the late morning hour.
Beyond the windows, the Derbyshire hills rose gray-blue against the winter sky, solemn and unmoving beneath bare-limbed trees.
Inside, however, a cheerful fire crackled in the grate, taking the sharpness from the air and warming the polished oak floor beneath the boys’ feet.
Six-year-old Fitzwilliam Darcy sat very straight at the long schoolroom table, his small fingers smudged faintly with ink as he carefully copied a line onto his slate.
Industry is the foundation of character.
Miss Taylor, their governess, moved quietly between the table and the windows, occasionally glancing over the shoulders of her two pupils.
Fitz bent lower over his work, concentrating intensely as he attempted to keep every letter uniform in size and angle.
His tongue peeked slightly from the corner of his mouth in concentration.
Beside him, George Wickham—Georgie—was making no effort whatsoever to practice penmanship.
The steward’s son had transformed his own slate into a drawing of the butler riding a pig. The pig wore spectacles.
Fitz noticed it from the corner of his eye and pressed his lips together firmly to avoid smiling.
“Georgie,” Miss Taylor said with weary patience, “unless Mr. Hill has suddenly taken employment in a traveling circus, I fail to see how this exercise relates to your copywork.”
Georgie looked up with perfect innocence. “I was improving the lesson, ma’am.”
“You were avoiding it.”
“That also.”
Miss Taylor sighed and turned away again.
Fitz rewrote the final word on his slate for the third time. The f leaned too sharply forward. Father would notice that immediately.
The thought tightened his stomach.
He worked carefully at forming the letter again, trying to make the lines steadier. He wanted—very badly—for this one to be right.
The sound of boots in the hallway outside caused both boys to glance toward the door.
A moment later, it swung open, admitting George Darcy in a gust of cold air and the faint scent of horse and leather. He had clearly only just returned from riding. Snowmelt clung damply to his boots, and he carried his gloves tucked beneath one arm.
“Well then,” he declared in his rich, easy voice, “what scholarly accomplishments have been achieved this morning?”
Georgie abandoned all pretence of lessons instantly.
“Fitz misspelled foundation twice.”
“I corrected it,” Fitz replied immediately, still seated upright at the table.
“And I completed my sums first,” Georgie added.
“You guessed the answers.”
“I guessed correctly.”
George Darcy laughed as he crossed the room. It was a warm, booming sound that seemed to fill every corner of the schoolroom.
“That is often enough for successful men, Georgie.”
Fitz’s shoulders stiffened slightly at the familiar nickname.
Mr. Darcy stopped behind Fitz first and picked up the slate. Immediately, Fitz sat straighter still, scarcely breathing. His father studied the careful writing for several seconds.
The room suddenly felt unbearably warm.
“You are crowding your letters again,” Mr. Darcy said at last, tapping the lower line with one gloved finger. “See there? A gentleman’s hand ought to appear confident, not cramped.”
Fitz swallowed. “Yes, Father.”
“This n is poorly formed as well.”
“Yes, Father.”
Mr. Darcy set the slate back down.
Nothing more.
No “well done.” No smile. No indication that Fitz had improved at all since the previous month.
Only faults.
Always faults.
Fitz lowered his eyes quickly before anyone could see the disappointment there.
At that exact moment, Miss Taylor crossed toward the cabinet beside the fireplace and opened one of the lower desk drawers in search of the French copybooks.
Something green exploded outward.
Miss Taylor shrieked.
A frog landed directly against the front of her gown before leaping wildly across the carpet.
George Wickham collapsed backward in his chair howling with laughter.
Even Fitz startled so violently that he nearly knocked over his ink bottle.
“Georgie Wickham!” Miss Taylor cried, one hand pressed dramatically to her chest while the frog disappeared beneath the sofa.
Fitz stared in horror.
If he had done such a thing—
But instead of anger, Mr. Darcy burst into roaring laughter.
“You wicked little imp!”
Even Miss Taylor looked startled by the reaction.
Georgie could barely breathe for laughing. “It—it was for the French lesson!”
“For the—good God, man, why?”
“Because frogs are French creatures.”
This only caused George Darcy to laugh harder.
Miss Taylor looked deeply affronted. “Sir, I assure you, there is nothing whatsoever humorous about reptiles being hidden in schoolroom furniture!”
“Amphibians, Miss Taylor,” George Wickham corrected helpfully.
George Darcy finally wiped at his eyes. “Well,” he declared, still laughing, “at least the boy possesses imagination.”
Standing beside the table, Fitz felt that familiar confusion settling heavily inside him. He did not understand the rules.
When he made mistakes, Father corrected them.
But when Georgie made mistakes on purpose, Father laughed.
The contradiction troubled him in ways he could not explain, even to himself. As though there existed some secret knowledge everyone else understood instinctively while he alone did not.
The door opened quietly once more.
Lady Anne Darcy entered with her embroidery basket resting upon one arm. Unlike her husband, she never swept into rooms demanding attention. Her presence seemed instead to soften spaces merely by entering them.
She crossed first to her son, brushing gentle fingers over his hair as she looked down at the slate.
“Oh, Fitzwilliam,” she said softly, “your hand has improved greatly.”
Fitz looked up quickly.
“Truly?”
“Very much so. These lines are far steadier than the ones you showed me before Christmas.”
Warmth bloomed painfully inside his chest.
Not because the praise was extravagant—it was not—but because she had noticed.
She had remembered.
Across the room, Georgie had somehow begun persuading Mr. Darcy that lessons ought to end early because the stream beyond the western meadow had frozen hard enough for sliding.
“You promised yesterday!” Georgie protested.
“I promised I would consider it.”
“That means yes.”
“It most certainly does not.”
“It does when you say it.”
Mr. Darcy laughed again.
Miss Taylor attempted resistance. “The boys have not yet completed their French verbs.”
“They shall survive the deficiency,” Mr. Darcy declared.
Georgie Wickham whooped in victory.
Fitz remained still beside the table, uncertain whether he ought to begin gathering his books without direct instruction.
Lady Anne’s eyes softened as she noticed his hesitation.
“You may go, darling.”
Fitz glanced instinctively toward his father.
Mr. Darcy was still occupied listening to Georgie enthusiastically describe some impossible leap over a drainage ditch.
“He did not dismiss me,” Fitz said quietly.
Something flickered across Lady Anne’s face then—something so brief he could not understand it.
“No,” she replied after a moment, “but I am dismissing you.”
Fitz nodded at once.
As he moved to collect his things, old Mr. Wickham entered carrying estate papers for Mr. Darcy’s attention. Miss Taylor immediately went to him, her heated words informing him on his son’s behavior that morning.
Mr. Wickham looked utterly mortified. “George!”
The older boy slid lower in his chair, grinning without the slightest remorse. Mr. Darcy grinned at his steward. “Oh, leave off him, Wickham. Boys will have their fun.”
The steward’s shoulders sank slightly, but he nodded. “Very good, sir.”
Crossing to Fitz’s desk, Mr. Wickham smiled down at the young heir. “Well now, Master Fitzwilliam,” he said kindly, “that writing’s lookin’ finer every week.”
Fitz clutched his books a little closer. “Father says my letters are crowded.”
“Aye, but they’re strong,” old Mr. Wickham replied. “Strong matters.”
Fitz looked uncertainly toward his father once more.
Mr. Darcy had slung an arm around Georgie’s shoulders as the older boy chattered animatedly about skating. The sight caused that strange ache to return faintly beneath Fitz’s ribs.
Old Mr. Wickham followed his gaze and grew quiet. Then the steward laid one roughened hand gently atop the boy’s shoulder.
“Your father’s hard on you because you’re his son,” he said carefully. “The future master of Pemberley must be excellent at all things.”
Fitz absorbed this silently.
It made sense.
Mostly.
And yet, as he followed the others from the schoolroom into the cold winter sunlight, he could not help noticing that Georgie walked beside his father laughing freely while Fitz himself still carried his slate tucked carefully beneath one arm, hoping someday to earn the smile that seemed to come so easily to someone else.
∞∞∞
October 1794—Eton
The first thing Fitzwilliam Darcy learned at Eton was that no one cared that he would be master of Pemberley someday.
The second was that boys could be cruel in ways grown men rarely permitted themselves to be.
The great stone buildings loomed cold and ancient against the gray Berkshire sky as ten-year-old Fitz stood in the crowded schoolyard wrapped in a heavy coat that did little against the damp autumn wind.
Around him, boys shouted, wrestled, laughed, and argued with the careless energy of creatures entirely at home in the world.
Yet Fitz was not.
At Pemberley, he had always been Master Fitzwilliam to the servants, or Fitz to his parents and Georgie.
But at Eton, he became simply Darcy. And Georgie was now Wickham.
The change unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
The two boys shared lessons, meals, and lodgings much as they always had, but something about Eton altered Wickham almost immediately. Away from Pemberley and the watchful eyes of old Mr. Wickham and Lady Anne, the older boy discovered the intoxicating power of making others laugh.
And Georgie was very good at it.