Yes, Miss Darcy, I do have friends. Friends I value more highly than I can say.
Georgiana blinked into the dancing firelight. She had been turning Daniel's last words to her over and over in her mind, examining them first one way and then another as if she might somehow glean some new truth from them. Had he meant that she was his friend? Of course, she was - but did he think of her in the same way he thought of her brother, of Elizabeth, of twenty other people he had met that evening? Or did he mean something more than friend?
She let out a low sigh, but it must have been louder than she had intended, for her brother looked up from his book, eyeing her with concern.
"Are you quite well, Georgiana?"
Elizabeth had been fiddling with a table decoration. She had been determined to master it herself, and despite having pronounced the festive display of greenery finished before they went out that afternoon, since their return she had proceeded to pull it apart and put it back together again no less than three times.
"Oh, do not tell me you are sickening for something!" she cried, with concern. "William, stoke the fire. I am concerned, Georgie. You do look a little pale."
"I am quite well," Georgiana mumbled, feeling heat flood her cheeks at this unprecedented attention from her brother and sister-in-law.
"We need not attend the midnight mass if you prefer to stay at home," Darcy mused, turning over a page in his book that Georgiana was certain he had not read.
"No!"
Her response was too swift, too sharp, and she smiled in a vain attempt to soften it.
"That is to say, I am quite content to go to the midnight service. It will be strange if we do not, don't you think? It is expected."
"I do not suppose people will notice one way or another," Darcy said, which was not true in the least. He exchanged a significant look with his wife that was not missed by Georgiana, who sank still further into her seat and wished her family did not seem so suddenly blessed with perception.
"Mr Lambert will be pleased to see us," Lizzy declared, which made Georgiana sigh all the more heavily and wish she could succeed in burying her head in a cushion, the way she had as a child when she was embarrassed.
"He will be pleased to see some of us," Darcy countered, rolling his eyes.
This was too much to bear and Georgiana let out a groan.
"You are both unbearable!"
"Us?" Lizzy laughed, abandoning her pursuit of the perfect table decoration and coming to flop onto the empty half of the sofa next to Georgiana. "You are the one who still maintains there is no connection whatsoever between you and Mr Lambert when the very opposite is evident to all who observe you for even a moment!"
Darcy harrumphed, making a show of noisily turning his page.
"I wager he loved you first, of course," Lizzy continued, oblivious to both her husband and Georgiana's discomfort. In spite of herself, Georgiana could not help but ask for proof of this.
"How could you tell?"
"Why, at our dinner he could scarcely keep from looking at you. Only when he did not think he was being observed, of course. He looked bitterly regretful of how he had acted upon our first meeting, but I remain convinced that he was more annoyed with me than you that day anyway."
"I wonder how that could have been possible," Darcy remarked, with a wry glance at his wife, who blew him a kiss in retaliation and turned back to Georgiana.
"Has he spoken to you? Given you any insight into his thoughts?"
"None at all!" Georgiana lamented, reaching for a cushion and burying her head into it, never mind that she was practically grown. She could hardly stand to speak like this within her brother's hearing, much less to do so whilst looking at him. Lizzy was a little easier to bear, but even so, it was hardly what Georgiana might choose. Particularly after last time. She could remember only too clearly the raptures she had shared with her companion at the time about the dashing Mr Wickham and his professions of love. How false they turned out to be, and how foolish I was to believe them!
"That does not signify," Darcy remarked, from his corner. He still kept his gaze astutely fixed on his book, but it was evident he was far more invested in the conversation between the two young ladies than he otherwise might care to admit. "Many a gentleman professes love where they do not feel it, and plenty keep their hearts concealed, when their affection is all the truer."
"There speaks the voice of experience!" Lizzy remarked, pulling away the cushion that was providing Georgiana with a modicum of protection. "Now, listen," she said, folding her hands in her lap and speaking as if Georgiana was a great deal younger than she, a knowledgeable, experienced bride of a few months. "It is obvious to all of us that Mr Lambert loves you, whether he is aware of it himself yet or not." She tilted her head to one side, considering the problem. "I think it likely he is aware, although he perhaps does not feel he can offer you all that you deserve from marriage. Yes, he strikes me as far too humble for his own good. What he may lack in wealth and position he certainly makes up for in kindness and character, and that is the better of the deal, after all."
Darcy grumbled something indecipherable from his corner and Georgiana looked at him, suddenly anxious that despite his appearance to the contrary he did not approve of the potential for a match between Georgiana and Mr Lambert. She bit her lip. It was so strange to think of matches and marriage so suddenly, yet Lizzy spoke so matter-of-factly as if it was merely a matter of time before this very happy day took place.
Elizabeth seemed to notice the shift and Georgiana's demeanour and got pointedly to her feet.
"I feel the need for another cup of tea. Shall I see about finding us a fresh pot, that we might be refreshed before venturing out into the cold again for the midnight service?"
She did not wait for either Georgiana or Darcy to respond but walked a circuitous route towards the door, pausing as she passed her husband to kiss him on the cheek and perhaps, Georgian thought, to whisper some words of encouragement into his ear. Perhaps she was mistaken, though, for as Lizzy closed the door behind her, Darcy dropped his gaze back to his book, and Georgiana felt as if the matter had been firmly drawn to a close. She was surprised, then, when her brother's voice reached her ears. He had not looked up from the page, as if he, too, could not master speaking and looking at his sister at the same time. She afforded him the same courtesy, fixing her eyes on the dancing flames and merely listening to the voice she treasured more than any other.
"I cannot hope to offer advice in matters of the heart, Georgie. You know me well enough to know my faults: I am not given to emotionalism or to interfering in the lives of others unless there is need." He paused, and Georgiana wondered if he, too, recalled the last time he had interfered in her life, and how very necessary it had been. "I confess I thought it would be some time yet before I had to consider losing you to marriage. Especially after…after Wickham."
Georgiana sucked in a breath. It was the first time she had heard George Wickham's name on her brother's lips in months. Between them, they had made an unspoken agreement not to speak of him again, and Georgiana felt her heart thudding painfully in her chest at her brother's knowing breach.
"Daniel Lambert is a different man, though. He is kind and selfless and I dare say Elizabeth is right in guessing that he cares for you. I can only speak to what I know of his past, but there are few men of my acquaintance who would so completely abandon their own plans and hopes for the future to serve their family after his brother's misfortune, and fewer still who would do so without complaint." He smiled, then, looking over at Georgiana at last. "I can think of nothing that would recommend him higher. If you care for him, Georgiana, and if he does care for you, then I would not think of opposing such a match." His smile grew wry. "Only please do not demand that I indulge in any more matchmaking. It is not a skill I am proficient in, and I have no desire to test my abilities further."
Georgiana laughed, then, leaping to her feet and scurrying to her brother's side, where she threw her arms around him in a warm embrace that communicated everything she had no words to say.