Duty and Desire (10 page)

Apart from the new regime of Georgiana’s “Sunday mercies,” to which he had most unwillingly committed, Darcy found the days before Christmas to be redolent with that season’s traditional good cheer and happy customs. Every servant, from the highest craftsman to the lowliest stable lad, seemed to go about his duties with a lightness to his step and a smile upon his face that testified to their rich anticipation of the Great Day. The news of Pemberley’s return to its customs of the past after observing five years of mourning for the late master had spread well beyond the borders of that estate to envelope those of its neighbors, Lambton village, and even on to Derby. Therefore, it was not uncommon for Darcy to look up from his book or papers to see Reynolds’s cheerful person announcing yet another neighbor waiting to be received in the drawing room or warning that another party had arrived to delight in the decorations of Pemberley’s public rooms.

Although they were still in silent disagreement upon the subject of her visits and charities, Darcy could not but be captured by his sister’s happy contentment as she made preparation for the holidays. Their days were now spent in fond accord as they prepared for their relatives’ visit. In the evenings, the warmly lit music room swelled with duets, Darcy joining his voice to Georgiana’s in song, or his violin to her pianoforte, in music filled with the joy of the season.

Darcy could have called himself well content if it were not for a peculiar disquiet that shadowed his days and haunted his nights. He found it difficult to walk through the rooms of his home, dressed as they were for the holidays and heavy with the scents of greenery and cinnamon, and not be reminded of Christmases past, when his parents were still living. Their shades would tease him at the most unexpected times, causing him to look sharply and, when they had faded, to shake his head in self-reproof. Georgiana did not seem so affected, her younger memories being, he supposed, not so strong or numerous as his own. But the poignant memories of the past were not the sum of his discontent. A persistent thread of restlessness, a feeling of incompleteness invaded most every hour.

In due course, all was made ready for the festivities, and the evening before the expected arrival of their aunt and uncle was upon them. Georgiana quietly practiced her part of a duet they would perform, but Darcy roamed the music room, unable to settle himself into the embrace of any of his usual activities while waiting for his sister to finish. Finally, the music stopped.

“Brother, is something troubling you?” Georgiana’s voice arrested his rambling.

“No, merely restless I suppose” — he sighed — “or anxious that all is well with our uncle’s journey.” He turned back to her and reached for his violin. “Are you ready for me to join you?”

“Restless, Fitzwilliam?” She frowned gently. “If that is so, then you have been ‘restless’ since your return.” Darcy tucked the instrument under his chin and drew the bow across the strings, checking the tuning.

“You are mistaken, I am sure.” He dismissed her concern. “Regardless, it will pass.” He took his position behind her at the pianoforte. “Shall we start at the beginning?”

“Shall we, indeed?” Georgiana replied, placing her hands in her lap and turning to him. “I wish you
would
start from the beginning, and tell me the truth. What is it, Fitzwilliam, that distracts you so?”

“I beg you to believe me when I say you are mistaken, Georgiana.” He would not meet her gaze but stared steadfastly at the sheet of music behind her. How could he tell her what he did not know?

“I
believe
that you are lonely and are missing someone,” Georgiana persisted in a soft voice.

“Lonely!” Darcy sputtered, putting away the violin from his chin.

“And I
believe
that the ‘someone’ is Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” she finished with certainty.

Silence lengthened between them as Darcy stared at his sister, his mind wholly engaged in testing her theory against his emotions. Patting his arm, Georgiana rose from the bench and went over to a table, retrieving a book from which dangled a rainbow of embroidery threads. Opening it carefully, she plucked the knot from between the pages and turned back to him, displaying it in the palm of her small hand.

“This is a rather unusual bookmark for a gentleman, Fitzwilliam.” A knowing smile played about her face. “Unless it is also a keepsake, a treasured token from a special lady.” She advanced upon him and took his hand. Upturning it gently, she laid the knot in his palm. “You gaze off into the air or study a room or look out upon the gardens, covered as they are with snow, and it is as if I am not there. Or rather, as if someone else were. The most interesting expressions cross your face then: sometimes wistful, sometimes stern, and sometimes your eyes speak of such loneliness that I cannot bear to behold it.”

He looked down at the bright threads coiled in his palm; then, hardening his heart, he closed his fingers upon them. “Perhaps you are correct, Georgiana, but you should join with me and pray it is not so, for the lady and her family are so decidedly beneath our own that an alliance is unthinkable. It would be an abasement of the Darcy name, whose honor I am forsworn to uphold in all respects, to make her my wife and the mother of the heir of Pemberley.” His voice choked at the image his own words conjured.

“Oh, Fitzwilliam, it cannot be thus!” Georgiana cried, clutching his arm. “Miss Bennet cannot be so lowborn that both your happinesses must be denied.”

“Not both.” Darcy laughed mirthlessly. “The lady does not look on me with much favor, and if she discovers what —” He stopped short. “She has little reason to change her opinion,” he finished. “Do not paint me into a tragic figure, my dear. I would wear the part quite ill.” He bent and kissed Georgiana’s sweet brow.

“But the token, surely that means something,” she exclaimed.

“Stolen, sweetling!” He tucked the knot into his waistcoat pocket. “She forgot it at Netherfield, and I appropriated it,” he confessed. “You see, it is more pathetic than tragic. Or, mayhap, a comedy; I know not which. I must consult Fletcher,” he mused. “He would know.”

Georgiana looked up into his face, her eyes still troubled. “Do you love her?”

“I hardly know,” he said quietly and paused. “I have little experience with that particular breed of emotion.” He drew her down to the divan. “I know what love is in many of its aspects: love of family, love of home, love of honor. But this tie between a man and a woman…” He paused. “I have seen it in its most sublime form in our parents and, occasionally, in other marriages; but it seems the exception. Men and women routinely profess themselves violently in love, only to disavow the same a month later. Was it love? I suspect not! Infatuation, an incitement to passion by a pretty face or a fashionable address, more like.”

“Then,” Georgiana drew the word out, “do you put down Miss Elizabeth merely as a pretty face who has incited —”

“Here now, my girl.” Darcy shifted uncomfortably, flushing at the import of what his very young sister was about to suggest. “I do no such thing, and anything more on the subject would be most indelicate!” He glanced at her and, noting her dissatisfaction with his forestalling of an answer to her question, continued, “At least, I do not think of her in that way ‘merely,’ as you put it.” He returned her triumphant smile. “I admire her wit, her grace, and her compassion as well. I like the manner in which she looks me in the eye and tells me exactly what she is thinking or wishes me to believe that she is thinking. It is difficult to distinguish the two at times.”

“And you miss her; that much I already knew. Yet, you are not ready to call it love?” Georgiana prodded him.

“I dare not and will not,” he replied firmly. “To what purpose?” he answered her small cry of dissent. “I have explained to you all the reasons why, for both Elizabeth and me, such a declaration would be profitless!”

“But would you,” Georgiana persisted, “before God, be well content to cleave only to her?”

Darcy’s eyes widened at her forthright question, but soon the sight of her earnest face was replaced by images of his own weaving, images that he’d tried to put aside but could not.
Well content?
His hand went to his waistcoat pocket and drew out the knotted silken threads. Fingering them, he counted them off: three green, two yellow, and one each of blue, rose, and lavender, bound in a most cunningly shaped knot.

If her beautiful eyes were to look at him, in truth, in the way he’d imagined…He almost allowed himself to drift with the thought but was brought back to reality when the image before him changed to a very different one.

“Bingley!” he groaned, startling his sister.

“Mr. Bingley?” repeated Georgiana, recalling him to his surroundings. “Does Mr. Bingley love Elizabeth too?”

“No, he does not,” Darcy returned adamantly. “But he does play a material part in this puzzle, which I am not free to divulge.” Anticipating her, he continued, “And no, Elizabeth does not fancy herself in love with him. With
that
you must be satisfied, and
I,
my dear, must find what contentment I may in another quarter, regardless of my inclinations.” He tucked the strands back into his pocket and rose from the divan. “Now, shall we practice this duet?” He held out his hand to her, and she gratefully took it. Guiding her to the pianoforte, he pushed the bench in closer for her and retrieved his violin.

“Fitzwilliam, would you object if I made this a matter of prayer?” Georgiana’s compassionate care for him touched him deeply, and although he could not understand this new turn in her life, he was not immune from the love with which it was expressed.

“No, dearest, no objection at all.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “Mortal men are notoriously ill equipped for managing affairs centered in the heart.” He straightened then and tucked the violin once more beneath his chin before adding, “But I would be remiss if I did not remind you that we do not live in the age of miracles, and it would take no less to sort out this tangle.”

“Richard, by Heaven, it is good to see you!” Darcy grasped his cousin’s hand and pulled him forward into Pemberley’s hall and out of the snow-laden air. “The journey, was it terrible? How is my aunt?”

“Well enough, Fitzwilliam, to answer for herself,” came the reply from behind the Colonel’s voluminous greatcoat. “Yes, it was terrible; journeys this time of year usually are.” Lady Matlock’s austere countenance finally appeared from behind her son’s shoulder. “But that does not mean we are sorry to have come. Christmas at Pemberley is worth whatever trouble the weather can conjure.” Darcy stepped to her, bowed over her hand, and then bestowed a salute upon his aunt’s upturned cheek. “There, my dear,” she returned warmly. “It is wonderful to see you again. Your uncle and I have not seen you this age.” His aunt pulled at the ribbons of her bonnet and gracefully deposited it in the waiting arms of one of the army of servants hurrying to unload the carriages and wagons that had transported the Earl’s family and servants.

“I was in the country, ma’am,” Darcy replied, “visiting the newly acquired estate of a friend.”

“And the hunting was good,” his aunt supplied for him as she pulled off her gloves. “Yes, yes, I have often heard that story.”

“Just so.” Darcy smiled back and turned to greet his uncle. “Welcome, my Lord.”

“Darcy!” The Earl of Matlock and the master of Pemberley exchanged proper bows before his uncle clasped his hand and gave it a firm shake. “Your aunt is correct.” He turned slightly in his wife’s direction. “As you usually are, my dear.” She curtsied in reply to this astonishing admission as His Lordship turned a keen eye back upon his sister’s son. “We have not had the pleasure of seeing you the greater part of this fall. Now, if it is true that good hunting has kept you from us, then as head of the family I shall insist upon the right to know the whereabouts of this paradise.”

“In due time, Pater,” interrupted his younger son. “Brrrr! It is as cold as a witch’s…ah, nose out there! Fitz! Anything inside to warm a fellow’s blood? My brother could use something bracing about now, eh, Alex?”

Lord Alexander Fitzwilliam, Viscount D’Arcy, cast his brother a withering look before making his bow to his cousin. “Pay no attention to him, Darcy. We sent the puppy into the Army, and he still has not learnt to behave as a gentleman.”