London Calling (26 page)
Authors: Anna Elliott
He has been such a good brother to me. But I think I am a little in awe of him, still.
More than a little.
And I know I have already given him far more worry than he deserves.
“But it’s all right,” I told Elizabeth. “It’s just … that I’m
happy
here. I love it here at Pemberley with you. Unless—” my whole body flashed hot and cold all over again. “Unless you feel I’m in the way? If you’d prefer to have the place to yourselves, without your husband’s unmarried sister—”
“Of course not!” Elizabeth said. “Of
course
I don’t feel that.”
It seems strange, now, to think that I almost dreaded my brother’s marrying Elizabeth. Not that I did not like her—because I did like her very much, right from the first time I was introduced to her. It was just that she was a stranger, moving into our family and our home. At least, that was how it felt to me at the time.
I have always hated change. I think maybe it started when my mother died—but now and for as long as I can remember, I have felt a sick, hollow feeling every time a round of changes comes. When I was first sent away to school—and then again when I had to leave. Even last year, when a storm blew down the oldest and tallest of the Spanish oaks on Pemberley’s lawn, I felt so grieved, silly as I knew it was.
But Elizabeth is not at all a stranger anymore—she feels almost like the sister I used to wish for when I was small. And—though it seems disloyal to say it—I can speak to her much more easily than I can to my brother.
“I was just saying to Darcy,” Elizabeth went on, “that it’s his responsibility to vet your potential suitors for me—no men allowed who live at more than a day’s travel from here, because if you married and went too far away, I’d break my heart missing you. I’d be perfectly happy to keep you here with us always. But—”
Elizabeth broke off. “Oh, well—haven’t you ever noticed the abominable habit newly married people have of wishing to see all their friends married, as well?” She spoke lightly. But all the same there was a look on her face that made me feel suddenly lonely. They way I feel sometimes when I see her and Fitzwilliam catch each other’s eyes and smile at each other.
They have been married for just over a year, now, and they’re so happy together it fairly hovers like a sunburst all around them; you can’t be in the same room with them and not realise how deeply and sincerely attached to each other they are.
Even my Aunt de Bourgh has stopped resenting my brother’s marrying Elizabeth quite so much. Though of course for my aunt, that means merely that she waits until Elizabeth is out of the room to speak of ‘my nephew’s unfortunate marriage’ in the same tones you might hear at a funeral.
Elizabeth only laughs, though, and says she’s glad, for it gives her the upper hand and makes Fitzwilliam feel he is lucky she consented to marry him, despite his horrible relations.
“Mr. Edgeware looked quite bereft last night,” Elizabeth went on. “When you asked me to turn music pages for you at the pianoforte instead of him.”
“I imagine he did.” And then I told Elizabeth what had happened, everything of what I had overheard Frank saying in the garden to Sir John.
Elizabeth has been looking a little pale and tired, lately. Or tired for her. But her cheeks flushed bright scarlet at that, and she looked furious. She laughed, though, when I told her of my revenge, and she said, “Oh, well done! Exactly what he deserved.” Which—almost—took the sting away from the memory.
Then she hugged me again and said, “You’re not dull—and anyone who thinks you are is a blind fool and doesn’t deserve you. But Georgiana”—she looked at me—“never mind your aunt’s contenders, are there no other young men you might like? You’re not”—all of a sudden her eyes went wide and alarmed—“you’re not still in love with Mr. Wickham, are you?”
I smiled at that. Even if the smile tasted bitter on my lips. “Good heavens, no. I promise you, whatever else I am, I’m not in love with Mr. George Wickham.”
Elizabeth let out her breath. “Well, thank goodness for that, at least. But … but there’s no one else? Truly?”
I swallowed. And then I shook my head. Perhaps if I had grown up with four sisters as Elizabeth had I might find confidences easier.
But as it was, my throat closed up and my palms went clammy at even the thought of telling Elizabeth that there
was
someone else. I have never spoken of it to anyone, not ever. But there is Colonel Edward Fitzwilliam, the man I have been in love with since I was six years old.
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Georgiana Darcy’s Diary
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