I struggled to write this scene. Didn't want to do it. Made myself and then when I ran through it just now to clean up the dictation to draft prose, I have all the feels! :) Thank you again for all of the reviews. Drift does originally mean someone's idea or what they are aiming to convey, from the 1500s. The idiom is very old, catch my drift. We use drift in an opposite meaning today than the original meaning. :) As to the review that called this story dime store drama, I am very sorry you did not care for it, but drama like Downton Abbey style is my writing style. All of my books are outrageous, page-turning adventures, it's what I liked to read in JAFF so it's what I write. :) I completely appreciate that I am not the author for you, but I will not be revising 30 some chapters to reduce the drama. :) It's my flair :) ::throws glitter in the air for pizzazz::

We are almost there. Thank you thank you thank you I still look at over 1,000 reviews and go WOW! Every single one of you is amazing.

XOXOXO
Elizabeth Ann West

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Fitzwilliam Darcy paced the hallway on the family floor of his London town home. Each time he passed his sister's door, he looked at the offending white portal, scowled, and paced some more. He wanted to go in there and yell to make himself feel better, but such an action would be disastrous for his relationship with Georgiana. Alternatively, he did not feel up to listening to her pining away over George Wickham and offer a sympathetic ear, either. And so he paced.

He was on his fourth circuit when suddenly the door opened and his sister glared at him with no traces of the young girl he helped raise since she was eight-years-old, but a fierce young woman.

"Please Brother, come in so we may speak. But every time you march down the hallway the mirror on my vanity shakes." Georgiana offered her brother a shy smile, which went a long way to calming Darcy's apprehensions about a long overdue meeting between brother and sister.

Darcy gulped and stoically entered his sister's room as she closed the door behind him. Leaving her brother standing not far beyond the threshold, Georgiana glided around his tall frame and took a seat on the cassone in front of her bed.

"I never meant to hurt you or Richard. Every moment after your arrival at Ramsgate happened so quickly. At first I was afraid my honesty would cut me from your life forever," Georgiana said with a slightly practiced cadence. Conversation with her brother's wife the previous day had not gone easily. Elizabeth forced her to let out all of the fears and worries she held from the day her brother arrived early to the vacation home up to the dinner where she confessed being the same as Lydia.

"I would never have sent you a way or cut you out of my life. Not even if you had married the man." Fitzwilliam wondered in the back of his mind if he was speaking truthful. The vista of his sister sitting at the foot of her bed allowed a glimpse to see the young child that once only wanted a new doll or sheet music for her pianoforte.

"I do believe that, but then I did not. And I only confessed because I saw how much you and our cousin fought for Lydia. If my brother would extend such effort and resources to recover a young woman so wholly unconnected to us…" Georgiana frowned as she realized this was not accurate. "Well, she is Elizabeth's sister, but it was so soon after your marriage, I would like to think that you would've done the same if you had not married over the anvil."

"I would," Fitzwilliam agreed with his sister's suppositions about his character. He carefully inspected a delicate ballerina figurine on his sister's bureau, a gift to his mother when he was a young boy after his father had to travel to the Continent for business. Almost around the time her sickness was certain to prematurely rob her of life. Darcy cleared his throat, wondering how much of the past he should tell his sister, about what he knew of George Wickham's origins. He decided that secret was not his to tell, nor one she might take very well. So he decided a brief gloss over Wickham's past would suffice.

"What you do not understand is I have cleaned up George Wickham's messes since we were boys. I took the lashes when he accused me of sleeping with the maids, though it was him. I paid the shopkeeper out of my allowance when he ruined his daughter. And I am the one who has paid for Mr. Wickham's debts in more than one town in our fair country."

Georgiana's face twisted in horror. "But why? He lied to me about all of those things, said it was you he often saved from gambling too much."

"When have you ever known me to go out? To play cards? To bet on anything?" Darcy asked his sister who furrowed her brows.

"I thought that perhaps you did so to avoid the gaming tables."

Darcy pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He now saw what Elizabeth had tried to tell him that morning during their walk. His sister was not an idiot, but so gullible! She would believe a man like Wickham telling tales about his person, a brother that she lived with all of her life. She most certainly was not ready to be sent to a school.

"What about your… liaison?" Darcy forced himself to say the word. "I know there was no child, but have you hid any illness as well?" Darcy did not know if Wickham carried any diseases, but he would not be surprised, either. Georgiana slowly shook her head.

"I spoke with Elizabeth at length about what transpired between me and George. It was much the same as what Lydia shared. George said there was time for babies and he would not risk a child due personal control."

Darcy became confused. "Are you no longer a maiden or not?"

"I am not." Georgiana said in a small voice and looked down at her hands in her lap.

"Then I do not understand what you mean by . . ." But Darcy stopped that thought. A crude image of his sister with that cad clouded his vision and he suddenly understood all too well what happened. "I think I am beginning to see how George avoided fatherhood." Darcy again looked about the room, unwilling to look down at his sister during such a embarrassing conversation for both of them. He could have lived his entire life without knowing that as a way to avoid expenses, George Wickham avoided completion while sheathed in his paramour.

As more awkward silence filled the room, Fitzwilliam rubbed his chin with his hand and considered if there was anything more he wished to know about Georgiana's personal life. Finding there were no other details he needed to know about Wickham, Darcy grasped the chair by the fireplace and turned it around so that he could face his sister sitting at the foot of her bed. At her brother's sudden proximity, Georgiana looked up with tears in her eyes.

"You truly carried this burden for over a year?" Darcy asked now seeing the sympathy that Elizabeth felt for his sister. Georgiana nodded.

"Does Mrs. Annesley know?" Darcy asked. She shook her head. Fitzwilliam's heart ached for his sister, knowing all too well the pain involved of holding such a secret to himself.

"I meant my word, I will not send you away. My wife has made the suggestion that we bring Miss Mary and Miss Catherine with us when we leave for Pemberley after the wedding. Do you have any objections?"

Georgiana tried to wipe her eyes and her brother handed her handkerchief. With a sobbing voice, Georgiana exclaimed "No! I would dearly love the company."

"That is what Elizabeth suspected. But it will not just be a relaxed visit, you understand. We are intending to aid all three of you in pursuit of knowledge and maturity. If by next spring there is remarkable improvement, there are a number of schools for young ladies of our status that I believe you would benefit from attending."

"So you are sending me away?" Georgiana whimpered.

Fitzwilliam shook his head. "No, I am encouraging you and your sisters to seek improvement in any quarter where it is to be found. For a year you will remain with me and Elizabeth. And at the end of that year, in consultation with your wishes, I would like to see you pursue a formalized education with other young ladies your age."

"And at eighteen I am to be presented at Court." Georgiana finished. Darcy nodded.

"Now you understand why I wish for you to attend a school. The friendships you and your sisters make there will go a long way when the three of you debut in London as debutantes."

Georgiana brightened at the declaration she would not be denied a London Season despite her past. "Oh, Fitzwilliam, but what about—"

Darcy held up his hands to stop his sister's question.

"You shall dance and twirl and be courted and if there are any serious suitors at the end of the season, then I shall handle the delicate negotiations. However, this all predicates upon good behavior from here forward especially honesty, and that no word of what you have done reaches the gossipmongers." Georgiana nodded as her brother named the hefty obstacles between the present day and the future of glittering balls.

When Georgiana looked down at her hands, Fitzwilliam knew the question that was coming before she even spoke it. With a gentle nudging, finally his sister was willing to speak freely.

"What about Lydia?"

Darcy fumed out a sigh as he knew what he wished for Miss Lydia, but she was not his child to discipline. "While there are similarities between what happened to you and what happened with Lydia, you were not the same. If you had boarded that carriage with George Wickham, well, who knows what future we would be living today. But the fact remains you avoided transgression that Lydia sought out, and while you withheld vital information, you did atone for that burden for over a year. Our sister Lydia has not traveled the length of a year to carefully consider her actions."

"Will she be sent away?"

"There are still many factors that depend on the outcome. If she is with child –"

"But she isn't. She cannot be." Georgianna shook her head enthusiastically but her brother disagreed.

"I understand what that man told you and can envision what happened, but that is not a foolproof way of avoiding progeny."

Georgiana froze with shock.

"Oh."

Darcy watched as the understanding of the risks she took fully registered in his sister's mind.

"Is the reason you never told me or Richard what happened because you thought yourself unable to be with child?"

Slowly, Georgianna nodded.

Inwardly, Darcy felt thankful for the good sense of the woman he married. Elizabeth was correct again there was much more involved with why his sister kept her secret.

"I must see to a few other matters, and I hope I have not distressed you too much." Fitzwilliam stood and Georgiana told her brother that he had not. "Would you like to for me to send Mrs. Annesley in?" Again, Georgiana slowly shook her head.

"I apologize, Fitzwilliam. I had no right to keep what I did a–"

Georgiana ceased talking when her brother pulled her into a fierce hug. The important part was that they had not lost one another, whatever consequences came in the future, Fitzwilliam made sure his sister understood she would not have to face them alone.

After Fitzwilliam left his sister's room, the enormity of her loneliness and isolation crushed his heart. In another time he would go down to his study and have a drink to alleviate the pain. But this time, and for everyday forward, he had a new solution available.

Directly, he walked over to the door next to his own rooms and knocked. As Darcy accepted his wife's invitation to enter, he happily realized that he and Georgiana would never have to be alone ever again.

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Set down for Lady Matlock, queue it up . . . :) probably tomorrow morning, I need to go write the ball and the wedding and the epilogue, even though I already did 5,000 words today. FOR CAKE!

Your neighborhood Darcy addict,
Elizabeth Ann West