Georgiana was in tears when Elizabeth what her father had written for. For a girl who seemed so composed all the time, it was a shock to see her so disheveled. When she finally dried her eyes with the handkerchief Elizabeth offered, she tried to lighten the mood.

"Perhaps we could push Fitz down the stares," Georgiana said, "Not a full staircase, mind you, just the last few steps so he falls and hurts his arm or something. Then you will have to stay until that has healed as well."

Elizabeth gasped as if she were scandalized, but she knew Georgiana was simply trying start a more lighthearted conversation. The girl couldn't hurt a fly. "No, I think we should let Mr. Darcy enjoy his wellbeing. Besides, they say distance makes the heart grow fonder, so I expect you shall run into my arms like a long separated lover the next time I see you."

Georgiana smiled, but her eyes were still misty with potential tears. She could not imagine how her brother would handle such news.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was in as much of a state as he'd ever been, as every person of his employ could attest. While he had never favored tobacco, Darcy took a moment to consider the comfort his snuff box might yield.

Of course, he had known she would leave; she had, after all, only come to be of comfort to his sister in his illness. As he was no longer ill, his sister could no longer be in need of comfort.

She was need at home with her family. If only she hadn't become such a fixture in his.

Nonetheless, Darcy arranged his most comfortable carriage and saw to it one of his married serving girls was sent with her as a chaperone.

Georgiana clung even more so to Elizabeth than she had since first meeting her. Their usual picnics and talk of books dragged on longer than normal, and at night Georgiana would climb into Lizzy's bed and they would prompt one another with "what if" scenarios about their future.

For her part, Elizabeth seemed to be handling herself with a decorum befitting her station. Darcy rather resented her composure in the face of his households collective disappointment. He chastised himself for the ungentlemanly want for her to hurt as much as he – well, his sister – did at the loss Pemberley was facing.

It was the eve of her departure when he got his wish, although understand more distressing circumstance.

The air had a particular gloom in it, which Elizabeth had, in all her good-naturedness, tried to rectify by exuberant joy she did not feel. The day dragged on in this style for several hours.

It was after luncheon when a rider, covered in dirt and sweat appeared with a letter. The Darcys and Elizabeth sat on the steps of Pemberley, taking an informal tea and biscuits while Mr. Darcy, after much prodding from Elizabeth, read to them. Upon the rider's approach, Darcy set the book aside.

The rider dismounted, catching his breath as he slipped to the ground. He was young, fourteen maybe, but he spoke with purpose. "A letter for a Miss Elizabeth Bennet sent posthaste from," he squinted at the letter he'd pulled from his saddlebag, "Longbourn. Important I 'spose. My Pa told me not to let this here girl rest 'till this letter was delivered."

Elizabeth stepped forward to take the letter, concern crinkling her brow. Mr. Darcy directed the boy to his stables and told him the stable hand would happily water his horse and make her muscles were well rested for his journey back to who knows where.

The party of three then moved indoors, and the Darcys settled in the music room while Elizabeth moved to the library to read her missive. What could possibly be so pressing that her family should send her a letter that very well may have missed her? She stuck a finger under fold of the envelope and popped the wax seal off. She unfolded the letter with shaking hands, as if her body knew what she was going to read before her eyes could make out the words.

The script was hurried:

My Dear Lizzy,

I hope to catch you before you take leave of Derbyshire. You must be prepared for what you are going to face upon your return.

I shall be plain with you: Lydia has made a mess bigger than any she has ever made before. Mr. Wickham, Lydia told us, has fallen quite madly for Jane. How he could have is beyond me, as I have rarely seen the converse. Lydia, taken in by what she thought horribly romantic, has aided Mr. Wickham in spiriting Jane away! After much scream and fighting and pleading, Lydia has confessed that she did not think – she never does – to ask where Mr. Wickham planned to take your sister, and I now fear she is very much ruined.

Elizabeth threw the letter on the desk and forced herself to take deep breathes. When she'd calmed herself enough to keep the letters from blurring together through tears of furry, she continued to read.

Worse still, Jane seems to have gone willingly by all accounts, for Lydia manage to convince Jane she could do no better since Mr. Bingley's affections turned to Miss King a few months ago! I beg you, have out all your girlish tears before you get here, for your time shall be quite bespoke by your mother's nerves.

At this, Elizabeth threw her father's letter again, refusing to finish reading. Her father was more concerned about ending her mother's much justified panic, than he was with recovering his eldest daughter. Elizabeth had always thought her father a wise man, but now he seemed a degenerate. He had let his daughters do whatever they please. Lizzy had thought that very kind of him before, but now she resented him. If he had only exerted half of the control normal fathers exerted, this mightn't have happened.

And he suggested Jane had gone willingly! At this though, Elizabeth's anger turned to despair, and she fell to her knees, burying her face in her skirts. How long she stayed this way, she couldn't say, but it must have been a good while because when Mr. Darcy came to find her, the sky was dimming and her eyes dry though her face remained hidden in the fabric of her skirts.

She lifted her head when she realized Mr. Darcy, in his fine clothes, had sat beside her on the floor. He held the letter face down, and she knew he hadn't read it. She motioned for him to do so.

The minutes dragged. If they did not soon make an appearance downstairs, Georgiana would surely come to find them, and Elizabeth did not want the girl who had come to admire her to see her so distraught.

Mr. Darcy folded the letter, and Elizabeth watched as muscles in his jaw jumped in anger. He stood and offered her his hand. When she was on her feet again, Darcy tucked her hand in his arm before she'd so much as straightened her skirt.

"I am afraid," he said as they walked to her room so she might change for dinner, "that you must write to your father and ask him if you might stay here longer. I have to go away on some business, and I would be comforted to know you are here. With Georgiana."

Elizabeth looked at him with wide eyes, surprised he was asking her to stay rather than hastening her leave. "What business has called you away so suddenly, sir? Are you sure you are recovered well enough to attend to it?"

"I refuse to let Wickham continue on this path of deceit and heartbreak. That alone will make me well enough to attend to this," Darcy said.

Elizabeth let her hand drop, and Mr. Darcy opened the door to her room for her. It was surely not appropriate, but her family was far beyond propriety at this point. "You do not have to do this, Mr. Darcy. My family's failings are not your responsibility."

Rather than continue to argue with her, Darcy grabbed her hand in his and kissed it before turning from her and setting off to inform his sister of his imminent departure and Elizabeth's extended stay.

Thank you to everyone for correcting the French in the last chapter; I'll let Georgiana know ;) And I am so so sorry to all of the people that are going to kill me for this chapter.